These posters sporadically popped in town early in 2020, and made a wonderful come back over the past few weeks in Zug. Passing by the above one for days on my daily commute there was no way I could not dive again into the Food Ninja way-of-life or close my eyes on our own food consumption at home.
"Save Food, Fight Waste" is an amazingly-creative campaign set by Pusch, an educative foundation supporting schools, municipalities and companies playing a greater role in environmental protection and awareness raising.
The website is available in Switzerland's main languages, French, German and Italian but I am certain English-speakers will easily make their way through the large amount og great resources the Food Ninjas have made available.
Scroll through the website and you'll discover that each year, each Swiss inhabitant will waste 90 kg of food in average, and learn where and when in the food supply chain most wastage occurs. Of course the entire food dojo is more than a positive one, and you'll feed your energy levels with some nice infographics, ideas and suggestions on how to improve your food management at home, and a bunch of funny visuals and videos.
The Food Ninja campaign received so much attention that it was awarded in last week with Siver Award at the Deauville Green Awards 2020.
So, are you willing to enroll and become a Food Ninja?
Where do we stand at home?
I tend to believe that the pandemic has forced us to change our habits regarding food management.
For instance, I would always stop by the supermarket on my way back from work to pick up the daily stuff and a broad range of unnecessary things; it was too easy to shop, too easy to spend, and therefore too easy to waste. For the past year however, nwe've been doing a large shopping round per week, bridged here and there with a round to the bakery for fresh bread.
We've also started to plan meals a little more (however we still do not batch-cook), and optimize the fridge's content to make food better and last longer. Our freezer has also been hosting nice dishes rather than fishsticks only.
Another clear change is the amount of fresh, seasonal food that we have integrated into our meal plans, and which do require some kind of thinking to prevent wastage. A lot of new recipes have made their way into our habits - big up to the best zuchini chocolate cake ever, the dairy-free carrot cake, the aquafaba chocolate mousse and the cauliflower waffles that received the thumb up of the kids, even.
In order to reduce one charge on our mental load (managing two kids and two full-time jobs during a pandemic), we stopped sorting organic waste. However it does not feel that we generally wasted a lot of water, actually. Should I retroactively think about our waste generation, it feels that we reduced food waste by a lot, while, unfortunately, increase packaging waste over time. But it's surely time to give our organic bin another chance and make peace with 2021.
Comments