“The global volume of food wastage is estimated at 1.6 billion tonnes..”
“Food wastage’s carbon footprint is estimated at 3.3 billion tonnes of CO2 equivalent of GHG released into the atmosphere per year”.
“The total volume of water used each year to produce food that is lost or wasted (250km3) is equivalent to the annual flow of Russia’s Volga River, or three times the volume of Lake Geneva”.
(cit. FAO, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations website).
*Image, see references at the end of the article.
My feelings in front of food are close to the definition of respect. My brother-in-law and his family are farmers.
When they bring their harvest, I’m the luckiest woman on earth, because I foresee what I’m going to taste. Cooking is a mix of perception and sentiment. Sometimes I stay in another room, but the noise coming from the pan communicates the stage that food has reached (I’m sure you feel the same, tell me if you hear the crick-crick noise?!). Food is alive: It smells of your hands, your warmth, your care. It’s not a matter of good and bad recipes, since science and chemistry explain each ingredient and every step of the method. Do you love cooking? If the answer is yes, you also love the Maillard reaction (see here a great explanation), because it’s the reason why you are probably still reading this article: taste. Isn’t taste the same as happiness?After such premises, no wonder that one of my favorite books is Harold Mcgee’s “On food and Cooking”. There, I learned to understand WHAT I was doing, instead of merely follow a recipe (English free version here). Additionally, your respect raises, once you know the complex mechanism that converts raw ingredients into the joy bomb you are going to put on the table (you even feel like you had superpowers!). Subsequently, organization becomes a fundamental skill when cooking; without it, you can prepare good food, but you run the risk to waste some. In my career, I met a lot of cooks; some of them were amazing chefs, but a few were excellent ones; that is to say they were not careful in front of wastes. Under those circumstances, I was excited when I read the wise words of Lily, who did a post about her cooking philosophy (see here). She follows a healthy diet, while she also wants to eat fresh food; then, she plans and personalizes her meals according to her lifestyle. It’s the optimum. The web is full of recipes, since cooking is a trend; this is a joy for me. In the contrary, life has different rhythms, costs, budgets, and most of all we must deal with our scale. Again, you will recall Lily’s ideas (and her coherent blog). She inspired me to start mine and I’m pretty sure you will enjoy her wisdom.
I‘m going to upload my recipes; they are simple, cheap and healthy. They reflect my values and the things I learned during my courses at Uopeople; as a consequence, you will rarely find meat among other ingredients. Because livestock production has a huge impact on the environmental issues of our planet. Special thanks to teacher Zaman Sajid, from the “Introduction to environmental sciences course” at Uopeople. He taught me to rethink my life according to the global environmental issues.
If you have ideas, if you want to share your method or a green friendly recipe, please contact me and I’ll be pleased to publish it (of course, with due citations).
Background music: LSF (Lost souls forever), by Kasabian
Sources:
FAO org. Food wastage: key facts and figures. Retrieved at: http://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/196402/icode/ [October 5th, 2015]
Science of cooking website. Why food browns. Retrieved at: http://www.scienceofcooking.com/maillard_reaction.htm [October 5th, 2015]
Cookbook. On food and cooking – the science and lore of the kitchen. Retrieved at: http://downcookbook.blogspot.it/2014/06/on-food-and-cooking-science-and-lore-of.html [October 5th, 2015]
Lily C. Frusciante. Lilybelle’s blog. Retrieved at: https://lilybelle.squarespace.com/lilybelleliving/2014/08/do-you-ever-get-or-read-advice-and.html [October 5th, 2015]
* Image: courtesy of Space invaders (official website here). This mosaic is publicly visible at: MAR – Art museum of the city of Ravenna (official website here).
“Fugar, Rimini (March 2004). I proudly get my certificate of completion for the “Chocolate eggs decorating course”. Image courtesy of Mario Morri -Master Pastry Chef and Fugar Rimini (website here).
ragutoo.com 