A light just went on for me…
We all know it, that one moment when it seems like a light goes on and we suddenly see things clearly.
I had exactly such an AHA moment over 10 years ago about food waste.
From home, I learned early on to appreciate food, to grow small things in the garden, to cook for myself, and also that food should not be thrown away.
Every third purchase theoretically ends up in the trash
By chance, I ended up with a family friend at a food bank pickup and learned that many of the food items were rescued.
"Rescued food... why do so many foods need to be rescued, they all still look great!?" With this thought, I read more information about it and was shocked by the numbers I found online:
"12 million tons of food end up in the trash every year in Germany alone. That corresponds to every third purchase."
I understood that dealing with our food is a big problem, but I only discovered over the years how far-reaching and problematic the whole issue really is.
Because after my AHA moment, I just couldn’t let the topic go. Suddenly, I noticed the problem much more strongly everywhere. At my part-time job in the gastronomy sector, where food sometimes goes bad, but especially where there were extremely many leftovers on guests’ plates, in supermarkets where I only saw perfect fruits and vegetables and always full shelves, even shortly before closing time, during cooking evenings with friends, but also at home.
The more I dealt with the topic, the more problem areas emerged, and I felt that many people were not aware of the issue.
I wanted to do something and first told a small group of school friends about the problem, which only confirmed my suspicion: No one really knows much about this topic!
My first Facebook group was created and filled with information and calls to action against waste. Unfortunately, rescuing food was not the favorite pastime of teenagers. Even though I hardly had any like-minded people, I wanted to do something!
Spread the Word & the Food!
Since I couldn't rescue any food at the food bank myself, I started going to food sharing. There was a supermarket nearby that put many green crates on the street every evening, filled with food that would otherwise have ended up in the trash.
All kinds of people came together to save this food. Usually, there were between 10 and 20 of us, and everyone went home with full bags. And even though we were a large group for this one supermarket, which put crates outside the door daily, some days there was even too much for us to save it all.
Throughout my entire studies, I went to this one supermarket almost every week to rescue food and always brought friends along so that nothing had to end up in the trash. Through the organizers, I also learned about cooking events where rescued food was cooked and then distributed for free to all guests. Of course, I was there because cooking and eating have always been a great passion of mine.
Still, I always felt that too few people knew about the problem of food waste and that it was very difficult to get them to change their mindset.
With my food blog, I was slowly able to change that. People were always quickly enthusiastic about my homemade food, but the topic of food waste still had a bitter aftertaste. Over time, I was able not only to excite people about my delicious recipes but also to repeatedly incorporate the topic of food waste. At the first cooking show I was allowed to participate in, I also talked about how I rescued food while cooking.
On my blog and Instagram, I provided information about it, shared pictures of the amounts of food I was able to save, and repeatedly gave tips on how to combat food waste in everyday life.
That’s exactly what I have been doing since my AHA moment, only the small group of school friends has grown into a large group of thousands of people who want to fight food waste together with me.
Jankalicious
Janka posted on her Instagram channel posts about food utilization, DIYs, and sustainability.
