Food Wastage.

- Australians are still wasting $6 billion of food each year - enough to feed the entire nation for three weeks. - Current research suggests the majority of food thrown away is fresh fruit and vegetables. - Meat, fish, bread, dairy produce, rice and pasta are all in the ‘top’ most wasted foods. - The two main reasons for food wastage is that people ‘cook or prepare too much’ or ‘don’t use food before its use-by date’. - A 2005 study by The Australia Institute estimated that food waste was costing Australians $5.3 billion per year. - The Australian 2006 National Greenhouse Gas Inventory report stated methane emissions from solid waste disposal on land were equivalent to 13.2 million tonnes of carbon dioxide. - According to CSIRO data, dumping a kilogram of beef wastes the 50,000 litres of water it took to produce that meat; throwing out a kilogram of white rice will waste 2,385 litres and wasting a kilogram of potatoes costs 500 litres.

“Australians throw away food because we forget about it,” says Jon Dee, environmentalist and founder of Planet Ark. “We leave it lingering in the depths of our fridges and cupboards, unused and unloved. When we do use it, we use too much and even then we don’t use the leftovers.” “It’s an approach to food that anathema to older generations. Their cooking of leftovers was the earliest form of recycling. They used up every scrap of food, because they valued it. Today that attitude has changed but it’s vital that we change it back.” “When food waste rots in landfill it produces methane, a greenhouse gas 23 times more potent than the CO2 pouring out of your car’s exhaust,” explains Jon. “If we don’t mend our wasteful ways, we’ll be eating ourselves out of an environment that can sustainably support future generations of Australians.”

I put my hand up. I'm guilty. I throw away those too-brown bananas when I probably should make banana cake. But the equivalent of 1 bag out of 5?? And here I was feeling all holier-than-thou because at least I compost them!!! Or feed the left overs to the pups.

That's madness!! Ethically AND financially!

Statistics show Sydneysiders are the worst food waste offenders, with some bins containing nearly 50 percent food. Victorians and South Australians are throwing out approximately 40 percent and in the ACT, a November 2007 study found that homes were throwing out 4.2 kilograms of food every week – up from 3.7 kilograms in 2004.

I am going to have a good hard look at my food wastage, in the light of these CSIRO stats and report back.

What are YOU doing to minimise your food wastage?

ED TO ADD: The best suggestions of how to minimise food wastage posted here as comments, may be published on The Notebook website next month and will be eligible to win a prize!

Get commenting!

The ethicurian dilemma?

The ethicurian dilemma? SOLE? Localvore?

What does it all really mean?

The blogosphere is humming with the buzz of what this is all about. And like any issue, you'll get as many responses as there are people with opinions. But here's how I see it.

Unless you have become one of those weird Air-ians, we've all gotta eat. And in my house, I want the best I can get for my buck. We are NOT a wealthy family.. we're just a normal fam in the 'burbs. And I mean the 'burbs. We live in the 'burbiest of 'burbs. So when I spend money.. ANY money, I want value. With 5 kids and 2 dogs THAT is at the heart of my decision to buy SOLE.

So, to restaurants. I WILL NOT PAY MONEY FOR CRAP. I get crazy cat-lady mad about places that serve swill.... This is not because I am a particularly great cook, but I do know what is good and what is not. I will NEVER pay $30 for a serve of bangers and mash, or corned beef, or pasta, NEVER. To me, that just isn't value. I'd rather got the parma and pot night at the Red Hill and Dromana RSL, and pay $10, knowing EXACTLY what I am about to get. I WOULD pay $30 for a plate of SOLE cheese, though... or considerably more for a fine dining experience that I couldn't do at home.

When I eat out, I expect the food is not just as GOOD as home... but substantially better... either taste or value wise.

So, to the food I purchase. I don't shop SOLE because I am a paid up greenie, or a hippy (altho I DO burn nag champa regularly!). I don't do it because I think that Elvis and JFK are beaming gamma rays down from the Mother Ship on my tomatoes.

I do it because it's CHEAPER AND BETTER THAN FOOD I GET FROM SUPERMARKETS!!

It's not hard, guys! Stop drooling into your faux Chanel handbags, while you listen to the piped-in bad 70's porno muzak at Slaveways and WAKE UP!

Who in their right mind buys a sachet of "Italian Herbed Potato Sprinkle" for $2.50 a serve?

Look at the ingredients, go the the herb aisle and buy a jar of oregano, a jar of thyme, a jar of rosemary and do it yourselves!! Save money, get Italian herbed taties, and have ingredients left over for another night.

Better yet, get a herb garden!!!

Get online... get good, ethical, local, sustainable food delivered. Hell, you don't even have to risk some nuffer scratching your beemer's duco by going to the shopping centre. And I guarantee you, that what you get will be better, AND CHEAPER that gas packed Slaveways crap!!

BE INFORMED.. Just because something has "organic free range fair trade" on it, doesn't make it so... again, get online and find out what all those funny little stamps Coles are using on their "organic" produce actually mean!

You don't need to drive 400kms to the Collingwood Free Range Children Market For Inner City Pretentious Wankers. You just need to ask a few questions. And be a bit organised.

You want good quality SOLE vegies? Get informed about what's in season and ask your fruiterer some questions. There are now Farmer's markets in almost every region of Melbourne. Make it a date with your sig other, or your kids. Or yourself. If your burning all those nasty fossil fuels to get there, see what else is around. We pass at least one Market every weekend on the way to take the kids to sport. Why not leave home an hour early and make a trip to the market garden, or the farmer's market part of doing something else?

Fact: I FEED A FAM OF 7 ALL THE FRUIT AND MILK AND VEGGIES AND BREAD AND CHEESE THEY NEED FOR $42 A FORTNIGHT.

Fact: I GET THE BEST QUALITY SOLE LAMB AROUND DELIVERED TO MY DOOR FOR $5 A KILO LESS THAN YOU'LL GET IT IN SAFEWAYS OR COLES.

And it's not about changing your diet from "normal" to some weird lentil-based fusion food.

You can have a lamb roast and all the trimmings SOLE, You can have SOLE bangers and mash. SOLE steak and salad. SOLE pasta.

With the Hollow Men predicting petrol at $86 a litre by close of business today, we are all watching our bottom lines. SOLE isn't just a hippy-dippy way of life. It is a real and viable way of shopping to SAVE MONEY!

So next time you wonder why potatoes cost more than truffles, just remember that reaching for that single serve sachet of gravy... or Cook-in-the-pot sauce... or Pour-on-Cheese has contributed to the rising cost of EVERYTHING.

Let's get back to basics. And save some money while we're about it

Exotic stuff!!

I often wonder if my food ravings fall on deaf (or possibly bored) ears... Like anyone with an obsession, I find that most of my conversations centre around it. When asked "How are you?" I will most often reply with an answer that has food at the core.. "I'm stuffed, I cooked for 16 last night" or "I'm great! I tried a recipe for bouillabaisse last night and it was da BOMB!" or even "I am so freakin excited, I just found a local supplier of my favourite rasa al hanout!" I have been increasingly aware that I have very little else in my life except my food obsession, and was becoming concerned that I should maybe broaden my horizons.

Until this weekend when my friend Jo asked me out on a food date.

Apparently, several months ago a series of food shops opened up at Doncaster Westfield, and Jo has been walking around the centre for months thinking to herself "pg would LOVE this!!"

So maybe those ears are not so bored, and there IS a social need to open up discourse on food, food miles, SOLE food and what constitutes GOOD food. As part of my theory on "What is Australian Food", I surmise that as we, as a society, further evolve, we move further from the food of the traditional Motherland, and are entering a phase where the food of our actual citizens becomes less of the exotic, and more of the mainstream.

Like any adolescent, we're breaking the ties with Mum and Dad, and evolving our own identity, based on the sum of our experiences. And the reality for Australia, and its cuisine, is that a huge percentage of our collective experiences are from other cultures.

Thus more and more purveyors of food and food stuffs are carrying the ingredients and the flavours of Africa, or central Europe, of Latin America, of the Orient.

And this is what is obvious in 4 shops in a pretty standard suburban shopping centre.

The first shop is Jones the Grocer. You know that Australian palates are changing, when you have a providor with a cheese room, in the 'burbs. There are various tasting stations, the presentation is immaculate, the staff are young, good-looking and knowledgeable, and the food is SENSATIONAL. Their macadamia fudge made me make a mess in my rompers, and I am not a sweet-toothed person. You can buy anything from Tartuflanghe Italian acacia honey with truffle to Jones the Grocer's own brand of lavosh. Galler Belgium chocolate to dried porcinis.

The second shop is Oil and Vinegar. As far as I can find out, it is the first of this franchise in Australia, Again, presentation is immaculate, the feature wall being covered with a dozen or so glass amphorae with different oils and, well.. vinegars in them. The amphorae are backlit, and the effect is spectacular. Forget the demise of Tastespotting.. if you want real life food porn, it's there for you in the 'burbs! They too have several tasting stations, and you can sample everything from the real aged Moderna aceto balsamico (at $35 per 150ml) to both white and black truffle oil.

The third shop is El Bazaar, a funky shop that stocks all things Middle Eastern. here you can scoop chick peas from hessian sacks, and if you close your eyes and inhale you could very well be in a souk, or the spice markets of Istanbul. The prices of their dried goods were ridiculously cheap, and with Coles only 2 shops away, this puts paid to the argument I often hear that "shopping SOLE is too time consuming. I don't have time to go to individual shops". El Bazaar has a huge range of dried fruits and nuts, and the shelves are stocked with an amazing array of fruit pastes and gels and spices and cookware. I asked the young girl behind the jump about tagines and she offered to ring her Mum to see if you could get an answer to my queries! Now THAT's service.

The final shop was the Oxfam shop where you can get everything from a "Not Made In A Sweat Shop" bag, thru fair trade quinoa to organic chocolate.

And it's at these last two places I made my purchases.

The Nabali Tree Olive Oil. (from the Oxfam shop) I have Googled for info on this product and found absolutely NOTHING. SO, dear readers, I believe I am the first person ever, to write about it. It doesn't even feature in their online catalogue.

Nabali Tree olive oil is organic cold-pressed extra virgin OO, certified USDA organic, certified Fair For Life by IMO and is a member of the Palestinian Fair Trade Association. It is a product of Canaan Fair Trade, Palestine. The label reads:

"Fruity and flavorful and legendary, Nabali Tree Olive Oil, from the native olive tree of Palestine, the ancient home of olive oil.

Canaan oilve oil is naturally organic owing to the ancient Canaanite traditions of farming that persist to this day. Canaan olive oil is produced by farmer cooperatives that are members of the Palestine Fair Trade Association. We guarantee fair prices to farmers and reinvest a portion of our profits in developing projects that serve the farming community. If you are enjoying this oil withing 3 to 6 months of pressing, you will experience the peppery hints and subtle bitter aftertones of "Zeit Fghish", a set of taste impressions unique to freshly pressed Palestinian Olive Oil"

It is a Chartreuse green, and I couldn't detect any peppery notes, but the date on my bottle says it was pressed in 2007, so I might have missed the time period and the oil is more mature. There is most definitely a bitter note to the oil, which mellows on the back palate. It is really a unique olive oil. I am planning to use it as a dipping oil with some sumac and Za’atar.



And my other purchase was from El Bazzar. Some Pashmak, or Persian Fairy Floss. The very knowledgeable young girl behind the jump (the same one who offered to ring her Mum for tips on tagine cooking) explained that this stuff is basically halva that has been pulled and stretched in a similar way to pulled noodles until it resembles fairy floss. It has a pronounced nutty taste. Actually, it tastes exactly like it sounds.. nutty and sweet.. Halva in thread form. A large box cost me $6.50, and I am going to top some hot chocolate chai with it al la Mute Monkey's Beetroot experience. The kids had some last night, atop Emmaline's Chocolate Indulgence Cookies, and some vanilla ice cream. It looks and tastes decadent and spectacular!

So forget all those anti-SOLE arguments, and get with the programme. Those of us in the 'burbs no longer have to trek to Turkisk/Greek/Viet enclaves to get our fix of "exotic" ingredients. We no longer have to brave the Nazi parking officers in Richmond, to get a Simon Johnson-esque rush. We can buy beautiful, fresh, ethical ethnic ingredients at our doorsteps, and incorporate them into our everyday cooking!

S.O.L.E foods

Many other bloggers are talking about this. Sometimes called the Localvore movement, Ethicurean, whatever label you want to put on it, it's a growing "movement" to think more ethically about our food.

S. sustainable
O. organic
L. local
E. ethical.

Read some futher ponderings here:

Stickyfingers.

Grocer.

The Age.

And before y'all accuse me of jumping on the bandwagon, here's what I want to know??

What does all of this mean, in the real life of real women? Those of us in the 'burbs struggling to make our kids eat ANY vegetable, let alone an ethical one?

Those of us living from pay to pay, with kids in schools, with mortgages and rents?

In short, how does one bring ethical issues in food and sustainability to Glen Waverley? Or Craigieburn?

Here's what I do:

I buy from Aussie Farmers Direct, who guarantee me that my milk comes from the Warnambool Dairy (thus supporting a co-operative venture and local dairy farmers), that my bread is baked in Dandenong.

I use the cardboard boxes from my orders to compost and grow veggies in. I currently have several boxes, down my sideway, where they get the run-off from the spouting, in which I am growing pumpkins, parsley and potatoes.

I water these with the collected shower water when they need it.

I ask questions. To my grocer. To my butcher. And if they can't tell me where they source their product from, I find one who can. If enough of us suburban mums ask our butchers "where does this come from?", maybe they'll start wondering why and THINKING about the products they supply us with.

I can't afford a green water collection system, but I CAN buy a couple of big plastic containers from Bunnings and whack them in the garden beds, to collect rainfall for the dry days.

I can go to a farmers market (and I am not naive enough to think that ALL foods there are SOLE food, btw), but I can buy cheaper and better and a lot more ethically from the Ferntree Gully market, than I can at Safeway.

I eat in season. I refuse to by tomatoes or lettuces or asparagus in winter. I refuse to by gas-packed meat from Coles or Safeway. EVER.

When I can afford it, I buy local meats. When I can't, I buy something that gives me the best return for my dollar, the best "bang for my buck".. a chicken that can be roasted, used for sanga's the next day and the carcass turned into stock.

I talk to my kids about the choices I make and why I make them.

I rob Peter to pay Paul. I buy home-brand flour, so I can afford recycled loo paper. I pay more for ethical, environmentally friendly cleaning products (and make some of my own), and pay it off by shopping at Aldi for dogfood and canned tomatoes. I buy an organic pineapple for a fruit platter, at my local green grocer, but I pay it off by using non-organic Coles cabbage in my stews.

I TRY TO BE INFORMED ABOUT MY CHOICES AS A CONSUMER.

So, tell me, dear readers. What do YOU do?? HOW do you do it? What more can WE do??

If you want to debate the ethics or the perceived "wankiness" of this movement, some of the links above are the place. What I want this post to be is a place where we can list places, ideas, THINGS that we can do, out there in Mortgage Land, out there in "do I pay the gas bill or eat ethically" land... out in the real world.

It can be done, I know it can. Eating ethically and sustainably on a normal family income, making normal family choice. It's NOT about eco-friendly larks vomit. It's about being aware, and making sure our suppliers of food, out in the 'burbs; the butchers and the grocers and the bakers KNOW that SOLE foods are not just important in the rarefied atmosphere of urban hippies, but to you and I as well.