May 5, 2008

And we say food prices are going up

This picture actually reminds me of Hammy in Over the Hedge, when he actually shows all the other characters the amount of food the human beings conserve. There is so much food around the human beings but it is still never enough for them. If they have had enough food they try to get rid of it (exercise, etc)

I wish we all could be a little more responsible when it comes to food wastage. Off late this issue hurts me a lot especially with the food crisis. In addition, we have innumerable human beings, across the world, who sleep without a nutritious meal

There are so many ways in which we can counter the wastage of food

1. Parties : We often have parties at our house and generally we tend to overestimate the food consumption and end up cooking a huge quantity of food. The other reason we tend to overestimate is because we want everyone to have enough of everything, they should over fill their stomachs and go home so that it leaves a good impression on the party host and we gather our cookie points. A caterer once mentioned to me that a normal human being doesn't eat more than 200 gms of food. If we probably stick to that figure its rare that we would over cook anything. Even if we have left overs from the party we should make sure that its not being wasted. Pack the food and give it to the guests, if you think that you cannot finish it later in a considerable amount of time. Yes very important that you estimate it correctly. Normally you wont eat the left overs more than twice a week and then if it still remains you are bound to throw it away.

2. Serve/ Take Less When you take the food in your plate make sure that you take the right quantity and finish it. It is really important for parents to inculcate this habit in children. Indian parents normally have the habit of finishing up the food left by their children. Sometimes we as adults too commit this mistake. When we are hungry we tend to take a good quantity of food in our plates, (the psychological effect) and end up putting half of it in the garbage. If we are serving the food, make sure we serve a little less quantity and come back later, if they still want some more. Don't try to impress them by serving more food in the plates, it aint worth it.

3. Community : Often in gurdwaras the langar gets overestimated too. The responsible gurdwara members should put up a guestimate of the langar quantity on the gurdwara websites. Also make sure that if there is langar left over, pack it up and give it to the sangat.
I remember a lot of historical gurdwaras in India wouldn't allow the sangat to leave if they didn't finish eating the complete langar. You probably will eat a little extra the first time but later on the discipline of finishing the food gets installed in you and you become more responsible as a result of it

4. India Marriages Woohooo...what do i say here ? Being a part of the north indian community i have witnessed the extravagant marriages and the money going in drain on all sorts of unnecessary things like tons and tons of variety food for dinner/lunch. Woof, cant even imagine how much of the food made during marriages/reception parties get consumed.

5. Shopping Don't go out hungry to do your groceries, you end up buying a lot of extra things. Also keep a very watchful eye on the expiry dates, make sure that you have a plan to finish them off before they get expired, especially fruits and vegetables. Go through all groceries when you do your check out, that is your last chance to make sure that haven't over-shopped.

These are just a few little things by which we could avoid the food wastage and contribute in some way for the hungry and the homeless. I am pretty sure you guys have many more such useful tips to reduce food wastage