…Overeating contributes to the global food waste problem…
Food. Who doesn’t love it? From sweet to sour, healthy food to junkfood, we love them. Yes, we do love them. Yet, we often throw it away.
According to Waste4Change, almost 13 million tonnes – that’s 13 with 9 zero – of food are wasted every year in Indonesia alone. It could feed about 28 million people, the same number of hunger rates in Indonesia.
Since I live in indonesia, I see the food flow here. I think most of the food waste are coming from many events, often related with our customs.
So, as an Indonesian, I have to marry the guy that I love in order to live together.
Our culture prohibit us to live together before married,
even if we’ve already in a relationship or engaged.
Well, it’s a good culture,
teaches us to have a real commitment before deciding to live together.
On the other side, it makes us have to held a wedding ceremony,
inviting dozens and hundreds of people.
Those people need to eat, right?
And not everybody eat ‘cleanly’, some even not eating at all.
In fact, as much as 1.94 million of marriage in Indonesia was recorded in 2017.
Not just wedding, think about graduation, birthday party, lebaran, christmas, new year, etc.
Fortunately, there are some people concern about this issue.
A Blessing to Share, for example, give the leftover wedding dishes to the poorest members of society in the capital.
Brotherfood.org is also give your leftover food to the people needed the most, it works like we could share our lefover food to others through Brotherfood community.
MIT has invented a FoodCam to decrease the food waste,
while my university is also has a food junction that provide a lendable tupperware,
so if you want to borrow it, you’ll only have to
write your name and mobile number in the form.
And you should bring it back the next day (should’ve been washed).
Since it will be difficult to shift our culture,
we could contribute to the global food waste problem in some ways:
- Don’t Over-served Food
Over-served food are mostly happen in households,
where we don’t estimate the amount of food needed for the amount of people,
resulting in too much leftover food.
Or if there’s no leftover, they will get fat and bigger,
increasing risk in obesity, diabetes, and other complications.
Well, overeating is also categorized as wasting food, folks. - Limit Your Food!
The common problem in every ceremonies and events is too much food waste.
While we can’t take them home, most of them will end up in landfills.
The event’s committee needs to limit their food, for example
using boxes in catering, or having a collab with communities.
Also, if you’ve bought a food and it’s impossible to eat-all-clean, put it in your tupperware and continue eating at home. - Remember the Leftover(s)
Yes, some of us had took away the leftover(s),
but we often forgot to put it in a refrigerator,
until the next day we saw it and said…
“omo, why did I forget this thing?”
rather than forgetting the leftover ‘accidentaly’,
we could give it to our surroundings when going back home. - Check the Exp Date
U.S. and some countries are confused by the exp date labelling, whether it’s in a canned food, cheese, noodle, etc. Some companies use ‘best before’, ‘exp date’, ‘used by’, and there’s no “one labelling for all”. That makes the society confused, rather than eat it and getting sick, they often throw it away. In this case, the government has to determine a certain labelling for all products. - Share It
Last but not least, simply share it with the security officers, or the office girls, sweepers, scavengers, etc. They may need food more than you need it.
References
Statista. 2019. Number of Marriages in Indonesia from 2011 to 2017 (in millions). Retrieved from Statista: https://www.statista.com/statistics/705540/number-of-marriages-in-indonesia/ (23 June 2019).
Waste4Change. 2018. Three Important Facts About Food Waste That You Need to Know. Retrieved from Waste4Change: https://waste4change.com/3-important-facts-about-food-waste-that-you-need-to-know/ (23 June 2019).
Vox. 2017. Climate Lab: Food Waste Is the World’s Dumbest Problem. Link Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6RlxySFrkIM&list=PLJ8cMiYb3G5fP5oq01TBp9fgh70vDDSMe&index=4
CHILD AND THE UNIVERSE 