Winter has finally arrived in Cape Town, which means it is cold and WET.  No, I can’t complain about the rain because we need it (and I enjoy it), but it does mean that many people are being effected by flooding and cold weather.  Hand in hand with this is ofcourse the reality that many people don’t have food to eat, which brings me to the focus of World Environment Day (WED) this year.

We usually think about our planet when we talk about environment, but we need to remember that it is about PEOPLE, PLANET and PROSPERITY.  It is scary to look at some of the statistics showcased this year with WED because so much food simply goes to waste, while there are so many people that are starving.  It is anticipated that about one third of all the food produced is wasted and not eaten.

Leoni Joubert recently published a book called The Hungry Season, which lead to the short animated movie of the same name which focusses on food security issues in South Africa.  This short movie (12 mins) is locally produced and available in local languages, based on South African statistics. It made me think about the importance of nutrition and the value of food in our daily lives.  You can watch the movie on food security on Youtube by clicking here.

I am not going to repeat the information which you can find on the World Environment Day website, but I am rather going to focus on what I can do in my own home to help reduce food waste.  My nephew might think it is a cool reason to eat up all the food in the fridge at once, but I would prefer to commit to better planning so that I only buy what I need or make sure I use it before it goes off or consider how I can preserve it, like popping it into the freezer.