Results tagged “food” from Birmingham Mail - Lighter Footprints

In my family, wasting food is unacceptable. This is not new: my mother would not tolerate wasted food since, when she was a child in Germany during World War 1, she was malnourished. Fortunately, Quakers provided a Soup Kitchen where she lived, so she survived.

The need to avoid food waste is now recognised, but one third of the food we buy is still thrown away - and only two thirds of fruit and vegetables that are grown in the UK reach the shops in the first place. One third of the harvest is wasted either because it is not up to the supermarkets' standard or because it is in excess of supermarkets' need during a good harvest.

On Farming Today today (October 31st) we were told that, in the UK, 4.4 million apples and 5.1 million potatoes are thrown away every day.

A few Local Authorities put this waste food to good use. On Farming Today we were told about Wychavon District Council which collects food waste, takes it to a composting plant and then spreads it on farmland as a soil improver.

Hilary Benn tells us that "... if all the food and other organic waste that the UK produces could be harnessed ... it could provide enough heat and energy to run over two million homes."

In Birmingham we can put waste food in our bins and it is taken to the Tyseley Energy from Waste plant, along with other rubbish that cannot be recycled.

Some of us prefer to keep our dustbins odourless and prefer to compost food waste - but rats can be a real problem if we add food to garden waste in our traditional compost heaps.

I am familiar with two solutions:
We have a Green Cone in our garden.

An alternative is Bokashi, which is recommended by Lynne Jones MP.

Check the websites for explanations of their merits and details of the costs.

On Radio 4 last night there was a programme "The Great Climate Change Hijack" which investigated whether climate change is diverting attention away from other environmental issues. My concern about the need to tackle climate change is not in isolation and does not ignore non - CO2 emitting actions that are also endangering life on this planet. There are so many interconnecting factors between, for instance, CO2 emissions, "peak oil", pollution, loss of habitats and population control. I was not convinced by the assumption that we - individuals, organisations, companies and governments - are all already trying to tackle climate change. We will find out what progress is being made towards reducing greenhouse gas emissions at the UN Climate Conference in Copenhagen in December

"Food miles" is one of these interconnecting factors. This is not just about buying locally sourced fruit and vegetables. "The well-travelled yogurt pot" story, written in 1995 described the problems caused by cheap transport that result in the sourcing of raw materials and other products over very long distances. The transport implications for all the ingredients and the packaging were detailed and the article has been quoted widely since it appeared in the first edition of the quarterly magazine "World Transport Policy & Practice". This magazine continues to provide useful guidance for in tackling climate change - read the latest edition.

The best way of reducing "food miles" is obviously to grow your own. I mentioned in July that I had planted six bean plants in my window box. One was damaged by the wind but five have been producing a good crop. For the record they are Kinghorn Wax Bush French Beans. I bought the plants at the Moseley in Bloom Open Gardens Weekend, which is an event to look out for next year.

Another Moseley in Bloom project is the Meteoric Makeover of Meteor Ford which has created a colourful and food producing screen to the derelict site in Wake Green Road, Moseley. Healthy runner bean plants grow amongst the nasturtiums and local residents - including my household - are benefiting from the produce.

Audrey Miller, who has a "grow yer own" blog in the Stirrer, recommends mixing vegetables with flowers in our gardens. The Meteoric Makeover shows how successful this can be.

The difficulty of buying local plums has been highlighted on Farming Today this week. If you didn't get to the Moseley Farmers Market last Saturday, where a variety of wonderful plums were on sale, you might like to go to the
Pershore Plum Festival this weekend, "culminating with Plum Fayre Day on Bank Holiday Monday - 31st August."

Check the Transport Direct website for public transport or share a car journey with friends.

This week we heard a lot of warnings about "food security", about the impacts of climate change and global population growth on our food supply over the next five to 20 years.

Following the publication of the report on UK food security by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) we were told:

• "We have to feed another two and a half to three billion mouths over the next 40 to 50 years" (Environment Minister Hilary Benn);
• that food production policies are to be debated with consumers, farmers, the private sector;
• Britain is more self-sufficient now than it was in the 1930s and 1950s, but everyone needs to start thinking ahead about how to produce more using less water and less fertiliser.

The publicity about this report made readers feel powerless and insecure - there appears to be a real danger that there will not be enough food for everyone in the future, and there is little that we can do about it. There was a more positive, but much less publicised, message as well, things that we can all do to ensure that there will be enough food for everyone. This was a call for a re-think on "best before" and "sell by" dates to reduce waste.

Reducing "... food waste has the potential to cut carbon emissions equal to taking a fifth of the country's traffic off the roads." See Supermarket offers and food waste targeted in government's food strategy.

At present roughly one third of the food that enters our homes is not eaten but is wasted: reducing this waste will go a long way to ensuring that there will be enough food for everyone.

Early readers of this blog will realise that reducing food waste is something I feel very strongly about - I won't repeat my entries of January 15th and 22nd - new readers may like to read them in the "archives" - or click on the tag "food" below.

Do you ever regret that you don't grow your own vegetables? Our small garden is rather overgrown with rambling flowers and weeds. The edible crops are just white wild strawberries (much tastier than wild red ones), very healthy rhubarb, sweet cicely (which is good cooked with rhubarb as you need less sugar) and other herbs. We would need drastic action to grow vegetables, and so far I have not been brave enough to start.

The July edition of Birmingham 13 (actually labelled June but don't let that deter you from buying it) has an article by Shabdam Bailey-Bond about GROFUN, which means Growing Real Organic Food in Urban Neighbourhoods.

"The idea is that each participant contributes 10 hours of labour or more - (the social bit takes over after a while, as we begin to enjoy each other's company and feel like a group. Then there are the excellent shared lunches, a great temptation to attend, as each week they get bigger and better!)

In return for this a day is spent preparing and planting and, in many cases, transforming each person's back, or front, garden, or yard. It's amazing what about 10 people can do to a garden in a few hours! As a result there are many before and after photographs, even a short film, not to mention appearances on "Gardener's World". Yes, some of us became stars for a moment! We had seed swaps, seedling swaps, master-classes in composting and weeds, in pricking out and planting and a lot of fun."

Shabdam invites Moseley residents to build on the experience of the Kings Heath GROFUN group, and start a group in Moseley. This should provide me with the push I need to clear the weeds and some of the flowers in our garden, and get ready for next year. I have already made a little start by buying six, bushy bean plants which I have planted in window boxes on our bay window.

Moseley residents should get in touch with susmo@moseleyforum.org.uk if you wish to join a Moseley group. Other readers can check with GROFUN about joining, or starting, a group in your area.

I heard the term "scratch cooking" for the first time this week. This is apparently a new experience for some people: selecting and preparing ingredients before putting the dish in the oven. I thought that is what "cooking" means, and that providing a salad with a bought quiche and oven chips was just "serving" food after warming it up. I obviously have a lot to learn (and snobbery to stamp out in myself).

The good news is that people who are buying more "scratch" ingredients to prepare their own meals, due to reducing household budgets and rising prices, not only appreciate the results but also greatly reduce food waste. Cooks can choose how much to cook, rather than buying multiples for two or four people.

The number of cooks who have creative ways of using up leftovers is growing - check out the "love food hate waste" website if you haven't joined them yet.

Another reduction in waste is the reduction in packaging. Prepared foods need much more protection than basic ingredients. This week there was also news of a survey which ranked supermarkets in the amount of packaging used for their goods, and the proportion of the packaging that could be recycled.

Farmers Markets use the least packaging, and the award winning Moseley Farmers' Market encourages and enables the use of recycled carrier bags as well. Join us on Saturday February 22nd and every fourth Saturday of the month from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.

I have found out a lot more about "use by" dates, plus other aspects of food safety legislation - which is separate from health and safety legislation. As I suspected, a large proportion of the food that people regularly throw away is fit to eat.

"Use by" date labels are the only labels that are legally binding: it is an offence to sell items once that date has passed. "Use by" date labels are required on processed items that are highly perishable and require refrigeration. Using these foods after the "use by" date could put your health at risk.

Other food items have a longer shelf life, and will not support dangerous bacterial growth, though their quality will deteriorate over time. These items should have "best before" date labels, after which it is usual, but not legally required, to reduce their price. Almost all items which are past their "best before" date are perfectly good to eat, provided that they have been stored according to the instructions on the label. Eventually these items may lose their flavour, or become a bit dry, but they will not hurt you. The one exception is fresh eggs, as there is a risk of salmonella poisoning from uncooked eggs past this date.

"Display until" dates, which replaced "sell by" dates in 1995, are used by shops for stock control. Neither have anything to do with food safety; the "use by" and "best before" dates are the ones we need to check.

Please check this out on the Food Standards Agency website. This also states "About a third of the food we buy ends up being thrown away and most of this could have been eaten. So think carefully before throwing away food that is past its 'best before' date."

I am still trying to find out how much food is thrown away by shops before we buy it, but I have failed to get reliable information about this. I was told by a customer relations person from the supermarket mentioned in my last posting, that no food past the "use by" and "best before" dates is destroyed, it is all given to a charity for immediate consumption. I told him that my experience in Moseley contradicted this. I have now found out that a Birmingham charity does collect food each day from larger Birmingham supermarkets, along with other items such as flowers.

Both major supermarkets in Moseley have confirmed that out of date food is destroyed. If anyone could give me details, in the "comments" spot, of a charity in or near Moseley that would make good use of food that is out of date, but perfectly good, I will try to make this happen.

I have frequently joined demonstrations which aim to publicise injustice of many kinds, but I have never (yet) taken part in "direct action", where a demonstration includes breaking the law. However I was tempted recently and, if the opportunity occurs again, I hope that I will act in line with my conscience, and not with the law.

Some foods have "use by" dates, after which items cannot be sold. I had some red peppers (without a blemish on them) removed from my shopping basket at a local supermarket till and was told that it was company policy that they must be thrown away. I asked where the skip was, so that I could rescue them. The cashier told me that their skips were enclosed to prevent people from collecting discarded items.

These red peppers, along with other foods legally considered to be unfit for human consumption, went to landfill to add greenhouse gases to the atmosphere instead of providing energy, and pleasure, to our household in a casserole. If this happens again I will snatch the item back and wait to be arrested for theft, and make a quick phone call to the Birmingham Mail.

Can someone explain to me the health and safety justification for "use by" dates? Apart from the waste caused by the ban on selling goods past this date, "use by" dates appear to me to make the company that packages and stamps goods a bit vulnerable. "Sell by" dates give the responsibility for the item to the purchaser after the point of sale, but "use by" dates extend the responsibility of the seller, which is why their policy destroys a huge weight of good food.

There may be some justification in suggesting "use by" dates for animal products, but unless these items are clearly labelled to state that the item must be stored in a cool place within a stated time after purchase, the "use by" date cannot be reliable.

There is good news at the end of this story: I picked up a loaf in a shop in Moseley, Indigo Wholefoods this week. It had been reduced to half price but seemed OK to me. The "use by" date was checked and had passed so, again, I was told that it could not be sold. This time I was told that I was welcome to take it. I did.