[FOCUS] Thoughts On Food and Food Waste

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He shared on one of our conversation

threads some data that came

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from Project Draw down about

the extent to which food waste.

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A contributing factor

to, uh, carbon emissions.

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And that kind of catalyzed a conversation

about the waste in the food system,

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pre kind of supermarket, pre how

it appears to us as consumers, but

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then also a conversation about the

waste that happens once we buy food.

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, and that was really where we then

started a very vibrant conversation

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about recipes and family and parents and

how it's really only been in the last.

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20 or 30 years that we've become

quite so proger and quite so

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lackadaisical about food waste.

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So here we are.

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Yes.

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Yeah.

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And definitely there's a lot of waste

up the chain and we can certainly put

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some pressure on some systems, but

I've tried to focus on my own home,

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like reducing my own personal waste.

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And then right before we had this call,

so we had this call, And last night I

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was making dinner and it called for white

wine vinegar and I had, I don't know why

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the bottle was even back in the pantry.

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Honestly, there was nothing left in it.

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But the mother was there, you know,

the little fermentation thingy.

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And I had a bottle of wine that was

really not white wine that was not

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very drinkable, so I just decided.

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Against Julia Child advice.

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Make it my cooking wine cuz she

says you shouldn't ever cook

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with the wine you wouldn't drink.

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But I bought it, it was gross.

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I was like, well it's cooking wine.

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So then I put the bottle from the white

wine vinegar over in the recycle area

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and I had my white wine and, and I

was like, Wait, I could just add the

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mother to this bottle of white wine.

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and start all the whole

process over again.

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And it just made me laugh because

I knew we were having this

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conversation about food waste.

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I was like, Oh, I don't have to buy

another bottle of white wine vinegar for

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maybe another year cuz I'm making my own.

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That's.

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So funny that you would mention that

because you know, I think a lot of us have

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started to do different stuff since the

pandemic and to live a bit differently.

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But one of the things that we've done

in our house, so my bro, I think my

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brother and my mother-in-law at some

point during one of the lockdowns

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started to talk to us about Kafi, which.

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A fermented milk . Yeah, your face leaky.

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It's funny.

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And so I bought some starter packs and

actually my husband got really into it.

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It's not my cup of tea.

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I don't drink dairy.

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It's not, I don't eat yogurt.

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It's not something that

appeals to me particularly.

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But we went through all of these

little starter packs and that was that.

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And I said, Should we get some more?

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And he said, We can't get some more.

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And this is what he does now, which

I think is really interesting.

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And of that vein, so it, we now get

our milk delivered to the doorstep

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from a local farm because we just felt.

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At the start of the pandemic that we

needed to be supporting local producers.

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I don't know what it's like in France

and in the United States, but if

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you buy milk from the supermarket,

it comes in plastic, whereas to the

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doorstep, it comes in glass bottles.

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So all of those good reasons.

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However, from time to time, if

you are not completely on top

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of your milk consumption, a

bottle will start to taste a bit.

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So anyway, when that happens now,

My husband Tim, literally just takes

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a dollar of yogurt, live yogurt.

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And puts it into a sauce pan with the

pint of milk and lets it do its thing.

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And then, yeah, several days later,

he's got another batch of kafi.

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So it's like yogurt.

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It's a fermented milk drink that I

think originates from India, actually.

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Yeah, I believe so.

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Mm-hmm.

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, I don't know much about it because

as I say, it's not my thing.

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But I do think it is interesting.

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You know what you can do with odds and.

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I think you and I had a

conversation, Mary Elizabeth, about

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composting, or was it chickens?

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I can't remember.

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. Both are like it's coin toss.

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Which one we were talking about chickens.

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I've got worms under my sink.

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Composting.

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I've got chickens I've got

who eat literally anything.

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Uh, well, I mean, in theory the

composting thing is a bit mad

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because here in the uk, and by the

way, it varies county by county.

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Some counties take curbside food waste and

take it off to a big, Well, we all thought

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it would an anaerobic digester, hopefully,

but it turns out that some of the county

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councils are also chucking food waste into

big incinerator, which is not so great.

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Anyway.

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In the pandemic and the

aftermath of the first lockdown.

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We had a Laurie driver shortage here

in the uk, so a lot of the Laurie

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drivers were here from Europe.

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They all went home and we had this

massive shortage of HGV drivers, and

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that meant that a lot of the people

that are previously worked for the

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council went and worked for the private

sector and learned more money, and we

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were left without refuse waste for a.

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And I just said to my

husband, You know what?

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I'm not putting all my food

waste into the mainstream bin.

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Why don't we, We've got the

space for it in the garden.

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Why don't we get composting?

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So we bought those rotating ones,

you know, the ones that fill them

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up, put the grass waste in as well.

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And it's been tremendous.

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It's been absolutely, I mean, it's a bit,

you know, it's right down the bottom of

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the garden, so it doesn't really matter.

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Yeah, the comp within like two, three

months, you've got proper kind of garden

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center grade compost for your fertilizer,

flower beds, and your vegetable patch.

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Caused me to think about kind of

the cycle of life and fermenting

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things as one for, for instance,

are actually really helpful for you.

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You know, this whole circle of life.

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Thing I find quite fascinating.

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Yeah.

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And we've removed ourselves from that, or

we've systemically been removed from that.

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Um, Yeah.

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And I think once we see it, so I really, I

mean, we used to tease my mother for being

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so cheap and frugal, but I'm grateful for

all the things that she has taught me now.

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