How Do You Rate Your Food Waste Habits?

In a world where food insecurity and starvation is a very real reality for many, food waste is against all logic.

It's estimated that 20% of the food we purchase in Australia is wasted. The sheer volume of this is disturbing. Especially in relation to the fact that 2 million people rely on food relief in Australia each year.

However, it's also important to envisage the decomposing vegetables en masse, producing huge amounts of methane gas, which, over a five-year period, traps 100 times the amount of heat in the atmosphere than C02, leading to increased global warming.

When we waste food, we waste not just the food itself, but the time and resources that went into producing, delivering, selling and preparing that food.

That's why we're collecting valuable data about our food waste habits with our food waste survey so that we can effectively influence behaviour change and tackle the food waste problem head on! Completing it only takes a few minutes and you'll go in the draw for an awesome 1 Million Women prize pack.

John Oliver and his team produced a great piece last year about food waste in the US. While the facts presented in the video pertain to America it's worth thinking about them through the lens of Australian consumption too. Especially since Australians throw out 8 billion dollars worth of food every year, with each household binning 345 kilos of unused products. This is equal to a cool $1,036 you could have had in the bank. Watch it below.

Food waste has a whole lot to do with attitude. You could take the approach that because your bananas have some brown spots, or the onion has started sprouting in the cupboard, you'll throw them away. But why would you when you could mash up those bananas and make some banana nice cream, or use up your onions in a vegetable scrap stock.

None of us needs to be wasting food and there is much we can do to stop unnecessary waste, like planning your meals, shopping to a list, buying only what you need, and eating your leftovers.

A huge shout out to our partners NSW EPA and Love Food Hate Waste NSW for making this possible.