insideKENT Magazine Issue 52 - July 2016 | Page 59

Watch your waste Odd, but true, that in our developed western world, composting is still considered a pretty radical and forward-thinking practice – not many of us, especially city dwellers, do it, but we all should. According to The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation, approximately onethird of global food is wasted and a recent report published by them has put into context the shocking environmental impact of this waste: “Without accounting for greenhouse gas emissions from land use change, the carbon footprint of food produced and not eaten is estimated to be 3.3 tonnes of CO2 equivalent: as such, food wastage ranks as the third top emitter after the USA and China. Globally, the blue water footprint – i.e. the consumption of surface and groundwater resources – of food wastage is about 250 km3, which is equivalent to the annual water discharge of the Volga River, or three times the volume of Lake Geneva. Finally, produced but uneaten food vainly occupies almost 1.4 billion hectares of land; this represents close to 30 percent of the world's agricultural land area. ” Wow. Along with our aforementioned lacklustre attitude towards composting, the selection by farmers and supermarkets of fruit and vegetables based upon their ‘perfect’ looks as opposed to their taste and nutritional value is also a factor that’s adding to the world’s massive amount of wasted food. So, what can we do about it? Get composting for starters. Even the tiniest of city kitchens has room for a small, worktop composter and you can use the soil in your houseplants. Check your fridge and make a list of what you need when you go food shopping as opposed to buying what you usually buy and finding later that you’ve doubled up. Use up your leftovers – fruit and vegetables that are slightly past their best make for really flavoursome soups and smoothies. And, if you have the garden space, have a go at growing your own food; kale and spinach grow like the clappers once they start! Cut down on meat and fish Since 1974, our consumption of takeaway food has almost doubled, rising from 80g per person per week to 150g, around 56g of which comprises kebabs, chicken and burgers. But, just one quarter-pounder burger takes around 30 showers worth of water to produce – getting meat from the farm to our forks is a massively water-intensive process, which in turn has a significant negative 59 effect on climate change, as does our general consumption of meat; red meat in particular. In fact, the environmental impact of eating beef dwarfs that of other meats and research has shown that eating less red meat could be as effective at cutting your carbon emissions as giving up your car. It requires 28 times the amount of land to produce beef than chicken or pork and 11 times the amount of water, a process that overall results in five times the amount of climatewarming emissions being released. A recommended daily portion of lean meat is the same size of a deck of cards – firstly, we’re eating too much, and secondly, a lot of us are eating too much cheap, non free-range meat, which moves the debate into a very grey, ethically murky area where chickens are packed into senseless facilities and force fed, and animals are somehow bred to feel no pain – which says enough, really. As a rule of thumb, cheap meat means corners are cut where the safety, health and welfare of animals is concerned, so it’s better to buy good quality meat and eat it less frequently. What else can we do? Stop eating as much fish too – the quick-fix global fishing practices being employed to cope with our increasing seafood consumption are contributing to man-made climate change and damaging our oceans. And, when you do buy beef, choose grass fed rather