Even though in this month of Ramadan, some of us who are fasting only consume food when breaking the fast and eating suhoor, do you feel that the food you cook or buy is sometimes too excessive? How many times have you regretted the food that was not consumed; either because it was too much, didn’t really like the taste, or other reasons? This phenomenon peaks in the month of Ramadan, a month where the main point is to control yourself. Be careful, because this can increase food waste that will endanger our Earth.
Do you believe that the problem of food waste is the strangest and most stupid issue on the list of climate crisis issues? The strangeness and stupidity of the food waste problem lies in the juxtaposition of the following two things; hunger or food insecurities, and wasted food. Logically, with the increasing population on Earth, the demand for food will also increase. Famine and food insecurities are rampant because of the lack of optimal food distribution, or many other influencing factors. But strangely, a lot of our food is wasted. Strange, isn’t it? The food that is wasted is estimated to be sufficient for the needs of everyone in the world. So, how can this happen? Check out the following explanation!
One-third or more than 30% of the world’s food is thrown away, equivalent to 1.3 billion tons of food. The problem is, not all of the food that is thrown away is inedible. In the early stages of food, especially in harvesting, most of the food that is thrown away is because it does not meet the factory packaging standards – too small, oddly shaped, different colors, and so on. In the second stage, namely in distribution, some of the food decreases in quality due to unsafe packaging, unsafe storage areas, or conditions in the field of food delivery that cause its quality to decrease. Furthermore, in the third stage, namely in the market, food is selected again more strictly with the aim of “presenting top quality food to consumers” which indirectly, throws away a lot of food that does not pass these standards – even though it is still very edible -. This circle has been occuring for decades, all over the world.
Looking back at the opening sentence of this article, food waste is one of the issues on the list of climate crisis issues. Let us help explain the correlation. It’s actually very simple; when a food item is thrown away, the energy spent growing that food is also wasted. When you throw a potato out of the fridge, you’ve wasted not just the potato, but the labor it took to grow the potato, the water it took to irrigate the potato fields, the diesel it took to run the tractors to plow the potato fields, and so on. In short, food waste is a climate crisis problem because the energy used to process the food is also wasted. In addition, food releases methane gas, which is many times more earth-warming than carbon dioxide. On a large scale, the methane released by food waste can accelerate global warming.
A solution that may seem small but slowly reduces the burden of food waste, without you realizing it, is a restaurant with a take-it-yourself system – a buffet or prasmanan, if termed in Indonesian local terms. With this system, restaurants can sell food with sufficient portions for each costumer, without worrying that a lot of food will be wasted. However, this solution will not solve the problem of food waste if the issue is not resolved structurally together. Agricultural business facilitation needs to be improved, including the provision of adequate food storage areas. This needs to be done by the government, which has the resources and authority. In addition, as individuals, we can play a role by changing consumer behavior to be more mindful in shopping and processing food, especially in this holy month.
