Over this past year my partner (Andy) and I have been discussing our food choices in fairly serious ways. We'd been slowly reducing the amount of pre-made food we purchased and our food bills had dropped significantly. We did this by replacing things such as tortillas, bread and pasta with home made versions and buy simply limiting the amount of 'junk' food we purchased. The majority of our shopping is now for the ingredients to make food instead of ready made food. We can also afford to purchase more organics and high quality products. When we see shelf-stable products on special we purchase multiples and stockpile. We also signed up for our local Community Supported Agriculture group Food Connect. Food Connect provides subscriptions of fruit and vegetables sourced from local, sustainable, chemical free or organic growers and gives a fair price to the farmer (approximately 40% of the sale price compared to 4-6% the large chains offer). The food is great and it has put us back in touch with the seasons and the effect weather can have on food production.
We also spoke about meat. I'm a vegetarian and have been all my life. Andy has always eaten meat, and was raised in a meat-and-three-veg family. He has reduced his meat consumption since we've been together. I don't think this is due to any sort of guilt tripping from me (I hope!) but because of the tasty vego food we make together. Andy has also learnt more about nutrition and so understands appropriate portion sizes for meat better now. We like the idea of 'meat as a treat' - choosing great quality, free-range or organic meat and paying more for it but buying less. As the quality is higher, you need to use less and having it less often makes you appreciate it more.
In the past I have been an active dumpster diver. I have collected food from bins all over Brisbane. When you start doing this it can really shock you. The quality of the food is amazing but the quantity is the really shocking thing. One of my regular haunts regularly had half a dozen wheelie bins full of fruit and veg on every visit. The photo below is a selection from one night's diving. There would have been 10 times that amount left after we were finished. It is estimated that we throw out over $6 billion of food a year from Australian households...I'd hate to think what the value for retail stores and restaurants would be.
I dumpster dive less since signing up for Food Connect. I'm not against diving any more, I still stand by the reasons I started doing it in the first place (namely, reducing the amount of food going to landfill) but we get enough food from our subscription. I also like that I'm supporting the farmers and hopefully making small steps to change. This is the reason I've always struggled to wholly support the freegan idea. I don't think we can see change unless we support those attempting to produce better products. Choosing to not spend at the large chain stores is one thing but neglecting the little guys trying to make a difference as well doesn't create change.
Since reducing my dumpster diving nights (or possuming, as I like to call it - after overhearing some packing staff say "Here come the possums" one night), I've been looking into some ways others are working on the supermarket food waste problem. I was glad to see a post on one of my favourite blogs about this here. Tricia gave some great links to charities and groups working to redistribute the food before it gets sent to landfill.
I guess this whole (rather long) post is about making the choices that are right for you. You can only work within your limits of time and money. Research your food and make active choices about what you buy. You'll feel better for it!
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