Israel’s food waste and how to prevent it

Throwing out food is wasting it.

By MIRIAM KRESH
Bulldozer at garbage dump (photo credit: ING IMAGE/ASAP)
Bulldozer at garbage dump
(photo credit: ING IMAGE/ASAP)
Every Thursday I open the refrigerator and embark on a voyage of discovery. Any vegetables languishing in the bottom bins? Any cooked leftovers on the shelves? How about the freezer – anything stashed in there that needs to be eaten, cooked or thrown out before the Friday cookathon? Throwing out food is wasting it. I know children are going to bed hungry not a 15-minute drive from my home as I stand in front of my open refrigerator letting cold air out. My guilty conscience sounds like the old Jewish mother line: “Eat, eat, my darling, children in China are starving.”
The Social Affairs Ministry reports that 20,000 to 25,000 families suffer from food insecurity in Israel today. We hear of soldiers who prefer to stay on base every Shabbat, because their presence at home means there will be less food for other family members to eat.
Yet we grow and produce plenty of food. Walk through any supermarket or local shuk and admire the splendid variety of fresh produce, grains, dairy and meat products. We’re famous for the beauty and flavor of our food, all within close reach. So where’s it all going? Too much goes into the garbage. Leket Israel – The Food Bank reports that we waste 35% of the food we buy. Seventy-five percent of that waste is fruit and vegetables, half of which were in edible condition when we tipped them into the garbage pail. We’ve gotten used to being picky about our food, refusing anything that doesn’t look perfect, discarding leftovers or letting them sit in the fridge until they’re past appealing to anyone but the family dog. Does anyone reheat cholent on Monday or Tuesday? Why not? Israel’s waste tops that of the US in proportion to the population.
True, industry is the main culprit, but household waste is also significant.
The problem with food waste starts in the farmer’s fields. A farmer may sow a larger harvest than he’ll need, hoping to avoid a shortage and meet demand.
Excess crops will be left unsold or turned over to feed farm animals. It is likely that a farmer will discard a percentage of the crop because it doesn’t meet appearance standards set by the big distributors who are his buyers.
Supermarkets continue that line, demanding only the pick of the crop because consumers’ mouths turn down if the produce isn’t beautiful. I can’t fathom why prices aren’t reduced when tired produce loses its first freshness.
No bargains there, so the consumer won’t take it. Away it goes to the landfill, although it’s safe to eat and still full of valuable nutrition.
Then there’s the issue of cooked food recovery.
Ensuring that surplus cooked food goes to those who would gladly take it requires new laws and economic investment. Gidi Kroch, Leket Israel’s CEO, says, “We need government policies to direct food surplus rescue.”
This entails picking up excess food from restaurants and kitchens, such as those of wedding halls and hotels, in refrigerated trucks, storing it in hygienic conditions, and distributing it promptly to organizations that serve the needy.
Leket has such a program in place already. The Latet organization, which organizes volunteer gleaning of farmers’ fields, distributes fresh surplus year-round.
There are recognized hot meal programs around the country, all of which depend on donations. But it’s not enough to cover the needs of the hungry. A law such as the American “Good Samaritan” law, which protects food donors from lawsuits, needs to be in place. Another part of the “Good Samaritan” law obliges organizations that operate industrial-sized kitchens – such as the IDF – to donate surplus cooked food. Food rescued from waste could rescue a significant proportion of Israel’s needy children and adults.
Our planet benefits from food rescue. Food not salvaged is dumped in landfills where it sits and decomposes, contributing to the creation of methane gas, which adds to the greenhouse effect that is driving global warming and climate change. Consuming our surplus, rather than dumping it, is significantly healthier for the environment and so for all of us.
Israel set a good example for the world when it created the Hiriya recycling park, once an enormous landfill and eyesore smack in the center of country, Hiriya today is a waste transfer station, a beautiful park with flowering plants and running water and an ecological educational center. The facility creates compost and fuel. It exploits the gases formed by garbage under the surface and transfers them as green energy to fuel a factory. It even makes electricity. But advanced as the Hiriya center is, it is just one rehabilitated landfill among Israel’s many garbage dumps.
Returning to a personal level, consider this. If I consume the leftovers stored in my refrigerator, I won’t have wasted the resources of land, energy, water, labor and transportation used to produce and market them. Not to mention not having wasted the money I spent purchasing it. Chief economist Chen Herzog of BDO Israel, the organization that conducted the survey on which Leket’s report is based, says, “Every shekel of saved food is actually worth NIS 3.60, because you’re saving all the effort needed to produce that food again.”
I think of the times I’ve thrown out lettuce gone soft in the fridge, then casually picked up a fresh one in the supermarket to replace it. With a little forethought, I could have served an easy and tasty salad before it went bad. Or lined sandwiches with the leaves, or even chucked it into soup.
You can ease the strain on Earth’s resources by avoiding food waste. Some pointers: Keep a notebook and pen in the kitchen, and jot down the provisions you’re running out of or will be needing soon. Before your next shopping trip, take the list with you and stick to it. You’ll know exactly what you need and will be less vulnerable to overbuying “just in case.”
There are two ways to approach organizing meals.
One says to plan menus in advance and shop accordingly.
Another says to shop with an eye to what’s in season or on sale, and plan your meals by that. Either way works, but both require some thought and suppressing impulse purchases.
Cook everything you buy, and eat everything you cook. In other words, don’t let your food sit around in the refrigerator until it’s old. Once you’re used to cooking your fresh produce promptly, you’ll have conditioned yourself not to overbuy next time. Because you’ll remember the zucchini you had to cook into everything for a week, and you won’t want to repeat the experience.
If you realize you’ve bought too much of one food, find creative ways to use it up, freeze or preserve it. A Google search will yield many recipes for just about any ingredient that exists. Think you can’t do anything with those end pieces off a loaf of sliced bread? Think again: croutons to liven up your next soup or salad.
Go through your refrigerator, freezer and pantry often, and take note of what needs to be used up. Then use it up.
If you store food for emergencies, use the bottles, cans and packages at intervals and replace them with fresh ones.
We tend to think of food as just “being there” and of garbage disposal as a boring chore, which it is. But our food and waste push a long chain of environmental reactions that ultimately affect everyone. Our sages handed down the concept of bal tash’hit – not to be a waster.
It’s not only cool to be green; it’s Jewish, too.