Love Food Hate Waste

Did you know the average household wastes $1036 worth of food each year?

As part of the Love Food Hate Waste initiative the Office of Sustainability and Henry Double Day (at Hawkesbury EarthCare Centre) are working in partnership to deliver some exciting workshops for UWS staff and students on food management, menu planning and reduction of food waste. Every week, food waste that could have been avoided, like leftover meals left in the fridge too long and expired foods, are thrown in the bin - costing you money and hurting the environment.

Workshops

Do you love food (opens in a new window)? Find out more about the issues and how wasting less food helps your wallet and our environment at our Love Food Hate Waste (LFHW) Workshops. LFHW Workshops are currently being held across UWS campuses during 2013. These workshops are free to all current UWS students and staff. For more information on locations, dates and times keep and out on our latest news page or email sustainability@uws.edu.au.

Please see the clip below as an example of the workshops conducted in 2011 in conjuction with Penrith City Council consultant Vanessa Steele.

Fresh in a Box 

The UWS Office of Sustainability is trying to establish a local food coop across UWS for staff and students, starting with a pilot at our Hawkesbury Campus in May. Find out more about our Fresh in a Box initiative and how to get involved.

Love Food Hate Waste Program

love food hate waste imageUWS is an associated partner in the Love Food Hate Waste Program.

Food waste is a complex social, economic and environmental problem that is having an increasingly negative impact on our world. As food lovers, we can enjoy the taste of our food and the social side of eating together. We can also buy, cook and save our food better, reducing our environmental impact and saving us time and money.

Love Food Hate Waste aims to raise awareness about the impact of food waste in NSW and reduce how much 'good' food we waste. Love Food Hate Waste is managed by the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) partnering with corporate, government and not-for-profit organisations committed to reducing food waste in NSW.

EPA is the lead NSW Government agency responsible for protecting and caring for our environment and developing and coordinating programs to help us become more sustainable and to also address impacts of climate change.

Explore the Love Food Hate Waste website (opens in a new window). for how your household can avoid food waste:

  • Buy It (opens in a new window) for great ideas on food shopping
  • Cook It (opens in a new window) to find out how much food you really need and for delicious nutritious recipes that use up leftover ingredients
  • Save It (opens in a new window) for how to keep your food fresh and prevent it from ending up in the bin 

Learn from others and share your own buying, cooking and saving food experiences. Become a Food Lover and we will add your tip to the website.

What is food waste?

Food waste results from preparing and cooking food. It is the food we throw in the bin, we feed to our pets or toss in the compost or worm farm. It's the food we bought to eat but then threw away. There are two types of food waste: 'avoidable' and 'unavoidable' food waste.

Love Food Hate Waste focuses on 'avoidable' food waste. This includes food that:

  • gets wasted because we buy more than we need
  • is out of date before we use it
  • gets wasted because we cook more than we need

'Unavoidable' food waste is food waste that can not usually be eaten: This includes foods like:

  • tea bags
  • egg shells
  • fruit and vegetable peelings

It is the food waste we generally can not really do anything further with apart from composting or putting it in the bin.

Information sourced from the Love Food Hate Waste website (opens in a new window).

UWS Community Cookbook

The UWS Community Cookbook is full of great and easy to cook recipes - as well as tips on how to reduce your food waste, buying food locally, saving your leftovers and much more. You can download a free sample or buy a full copy from any uwsconnect book store for only $7. Grab yours today.

Love Food Hate Waste Cooking Demo for Students

As part of our workshops series MasterChef contestant Jay Huxley ran free ‘Low budget healthy meals’ workshops on each campus for students. This was a joint initiative between UWS Student Support Service and the UWS Office of Sustainability. Check out the video below for full details.

Food Security

Food security refers to the availability of food and one's access to it. A household is considered food-secure when its occupants do not live in hunger or fear of starvation. The way we use our resources to produce food is a major issue facing sustainability and securing food for our future.

For example in total we use 15,400 litres of water to produce 1 kilo of boneless beef. Find out more about the amount of resources we use to produce our food (opens in a new window).