mandag den 25. juli 2016

The Huffington Post - When We Waste Food We Waste Love

by Selina Juul, Founder of Stop Wasting Food movement Denmark 


Image a little small piglet. Or a lamb. Or a cute chick or a rabbit. Imagine looking those animals straight in their eyes and telling them that they will grow up with a sole purpose of being slaughtered and tossed in the trash. What a terrible waste of lives.

Unfortunately, this is happening every day across the globe.

According to UN FAO, 20% of the annual global meat production is either lost or wasted - this is equivalent to 75 million cows.

Respect for food
Food waste is not only that piece of uneaten hamburger on your plate. It’s also gigantic a waste of resources behind the scenes, when you really take a look at your hamburger and see its story unfold: Animal lives, land, farmer’s work, fertilizers, animal feed, water, gas, energy, transportation, packaging, storing. According to the Worldwatch Institute, 51% of annual worldwide greenhouse gas emissions are caused by animal agriculture.

And all of that - and much more - is going to waste when we waste food.

Now, I don’t want to sound like a hippie, but in the world of escalating climate change, political instability, shootings, conflicts and repetitive terror attacks all over the world, we really need to talk about something positive. We need to talk about love. Yes, love.

Because when we waste food we waste love.

This year I have participated in 11 panel debates at the Danish political festival Folkemødet. Among the participants were the Landbokvinder - the Farmers Wives Association. They love growing food. When they and their families grow their own food in their farms, they would never waste it. To them, food must be treated with respect.

To the Farmers Wives, respect for food is self-evident, since they have helped growning the animals and the crops, which later becomes food. All that huge work is not to be wasted - a waste of food is the lack of respect for the food and the lack of respect for oneself - it corresponds to denigrate one’s own work.

I am not lobbying for all of you to become farmers. Neither am I implying that all farmers are growing their food with love.

But the Farmers Wives’s message is simple: Treat the food with respect, treat the food with love.

Any perhaps many of us would treat food with more respect and love, if we can become aware of the gigantic journey of the food getting from farm to our plates.

When your loved one has prepared a delicious home-cooked meal for you, that is a declaration of love. When you have grown your food in your garden with care and efforts, that is love. You don’t waste love.

What can be measured can be managed
In my most recent TEDx Talk, I address many food waste traps, which we encounter on our journey from the trip to the supermarket to the depths of our fridge. Fortunately, people are becoming more aware of how not to feed their garbage bins.

The progress in the fight against food waste is now seen almost all over the world.

Lately, the global Food Loss & Waste Protocol measurement standard, created by many international parties, myself included, was launched at the Global Green Growth Forum 3GF in Copenhagen. What can be measured can be managed - especially if we are to achieve the new UN Sustainable Development Goal 12.3 (By 2030, halve per capita global food waste at the retail and consumer levels and reduce food losses along production and supply chains, including post-harvest losses).

Become a Stop Wasting Food activist
A couple of days ago, The Guardian proclaimed Denmark becoming a leader in the food waste revolution. Not only because Denmark has achieved a national food waste reduction by 25% in 5 years, but because we are the country in the world with the fastest growing amount of food waste prevention and reduction initiatives. To put it simply, we Danes started to hate wasting food. And because perhaps we Danes started to treat the food with more love and respect.

We can all become Stop Wasting Food activists, no mater the race, color, nationality, religion, country, sexual or political orientation. All you need to do is start caring for your food. Caring where it’s come from - and caring where it ends - and stop wasting it.

The solution is not to move out to the country and grow our own food. No, the solution lies in a change of mindset: Food is love. You don’t throw love away.

When we live with care and respect for our food - and our other consumer goods as well - we will create a positive effect on our society, the resources and ultimately the nature - where all the resources come from.

Quite simply, it is about treating the nature and our planet, that gives us so much, with love and respect - and not throwing the love away.

onsdag den 6. juli 2016

Dagbladet Information - Man smider da ikke kærlighed ud

af Selina Juul, stifter af forbrugerbevægelsen Stop Spild Af Mad

bragt i Dagbladet Information den 6. juli 2016 -
https://www.information.dk/indland/2016/07/smider-kaerlighed


I bund og grund handler det om at kunne se en ko eller en gris i øjnene og forsikre den om, at den ikke skal leve forgæves og bare ende i skraldespanden.

Tænk over, hvor mange kræfter der går til produktion af vores mad. Hvor meget arbejde der går forud for, at fødevaren lander på vores tallerken. Tænk, hvor mange ressourcer der er lagt i andre ting i vores husholdning og liv: tøj, biler, elektronik, bohave og andre materielle ting, vi ejer (eller som til tide ejer os).

Når vi smider ud, smider vi med andre ord også en masse tilblivelsesprocesser i skraldespanden. En halv tallerken udsmidt mad har en meget lang historie, der har involveret naturen, marken, landmanden, gødningen, dyrene, transporten, energien og mange andre ressourcer, som bidrog til, at vi let og ligetil kunne vælge og vrage mellem de forskellige madvarer i supermarkedet.

Og den påskønnelsesværdige rejse ender så bare på vores hospicehylde i køleskabet, som glemte ufo’er (uidentificerede frosne objekter) i fryseren – og til sidst i skraldespanden. Det er da mangel på respekt. Sjovt nok er der da næsten heller ingen dokumentarfilm, der viser os alle de alt for mange dyr, som fødes, lever og slagtes direkte til madspild – ude af øje, ude af sind.

Det siges, at man ikke er i stand til at elske andre, hvis man ikke elsker sig selv. Er brug-og-smid-væk-samfundet så i virkeligheden udtryk for, at vi ikke elsker os selv? Og har denne mangel på kærlighed egentlig udviklet sig i takt med industrialiseringen, som gjorde det så nemt at smide ud?

Lovgivning ikke vejen frem
Da jeg deltog og talte på Global Green Growth Forum, 3GF, i juni, var jeg i en workshop med en konferencedeltager fra Ghana. Han berettede, at jo mere industrialiseringen tager fart, og middelklassen vokser i Afrika, desto mere affald og spild bliver der genereret i husholdningerne.

Hvor man i Afrika tidligere primært så fødevaretab på markerne pga. manglende infrastruktur i de afrikanske landbrug, ser man i dag stigende madspild i de afrikanske husholdninger. Med andre ord forekommer der nu både fødevaretab og spild på samme tid.

Nogle lande – f.eks. Frankrig – er begyndt at lovgive imod madspild. Den tendens diskuterede vi ved de mange paneldebatter på Folkemødet i år, og vi var overvejende enige: I Danmark er lovgivning og straf ikke vejen frem, eftersom lovgivningen kvæler gode, frivillige bevægelser.

Vi skal sætte ind et helt andet sted – vi skal ændre i mentaliteten. Vi smider mad og ting ud, fordi vi kan. Fordi det er nemt. Fordi vi ikke tænker os om.

Hvis vi bliver opmærksomme på den gigantiske produktionsproces, der ligger bag fremstilling af mad og forbrugsgoder, vil vi få en ganske anden tilgang til spild. Når vi indser, hvilket kæmpestort forløb, der er gået forud for flæskestegen, æggekagen og kyllingelåret landede på vores tallerken – ja, så vil vi højere grad påskønne, respektere og nyde vores mad. Og man smider altså ikke ting ud, man holder af.

Organisationen Landbokvinder, som også var til stede under vores paneldebatter på Folkemødet, mener, at mad skal behandles med respekt. For Landbokvinder er respekten for mad en selvfølgelighed, eftersom de har været med til at producere de dyr og afgrøder, som senere bliver til vores mad. Det smider man ikke ud – det er mangel på respekt for én selv og svarer til at nedgøre ens eget arbejde.

Løsningen er ikke, at vi allesammen flytter på landet og dyrker vores egen mad. Nej, løsningen består i en mentalitetsændring: Mad er kærlighed. Kærlighed smider man ikke ud.

Lever man med respekt og omtanke for maden og øvrige forbrugsgoder, får det en positiv afsmittende effekt på vores samfund, ressourcer og i sidste ende naturen – der hvor alle ressourcerne kommer fra. Helt enkelt handler det om at holde af vores natur og planet, som giver os så meget – og om ikke at smide kærlighed ud.