THOUGHTFUL (2) - AUGUST CHALLENGE

I am writing this after midnight on Thursday morning, having had a lovely evening with friends, who came round for dinner. We are all away quite a lot so it is good to catch up when we are all at home.

When I was preparing the meal earlier in the evening, I was cutting the vegetables, fruit and salad and putting the peelings and bits that I didn’t like the look of into our compost bin, as I usually do.

Because I knew the challenge for today was THOUGHTFUL, it struck me, as I was throwing the various bits and pieces into the bin, that someone in a Third World country would make a meal of the fruit and vegetables that I was wasting - a sobering thought.

As I mentioned in my blip last Friday, 925 million people are under-nourished on a daily basis and we throw food away without a second thought.

Apparently, in the West, we waste approximately 40% of our food - I don’t honestly think we waste that much, as I do try and use as much as I can - I suppose that by putting the peelings etc into our compost heap does mean that it isn’t actually wasted but is used in the food cycle - but maybe I could do more.

1. Only buy what we need - I do try and buy fruit and any vegetables that Mr. HCB doesn’t grow, every few days instead of buying huge quantities and storing them.

2. BOGOF offers - I try and resist these - why would I want 16 satsumas when I only eat one a day? Surely it would be more sensible to buy one pack a week. Perhaps we need to shun these offers and then the supermarkets would get the message.

3. Use leftovers rather than throwing them away - we do tend to and we will be eating the remains of our meal tonight for our lunch tomorrow - salmon pasta salad and green vegetables will go down well after our visit to the dentist!

4. Share with our neighbours - we do this, too, on a regular basis and try to let our neighbours have plenty of our left-over vegetables. You can only eat so many runner beans and they don't freeze that well. Only last night I “bartered” with my neighbour - I gave her two tomatoes and she let me have two eggs, because I had forgotten to buy some!

So on this “Thoughtful Thursday” I will be endeavouring to minimise our food waste and thinking more about those for whom life is very difficult at the moment, not only with regard to food, but in other ways too. May God bless them.

"Our grandparents used to make a point of not throwing away leftover food.
Consumerism has made us accustomed to wasting food daily and we are unable to see its real value."

"Throwing away food is like stealing from the table of those who are poor and hungry.”

Pope Francis : June 2013