5.2 billion $ a year are wasted in Australia on food that’s bought but doesn’t get eaten.
With a projected population of 22,836,899 for Feb 2012 that is $227 per person per year. For an average family  of four: $908 per year. A big enough amount of money to start thinking and changing something. A considerable amount of production cost, packaging  and transport wasted. What’s the ecological footprint of that sum and what can we do about it?
I tried to get information about the ecological footprint, but found that too hard to calculate, as even experts are not agreeing on what needs to be taken into consideration when coming up with a meaningful ecco footprint number. But I do have a few ideas about why we do it and what can be done about it:
I think everybody is  guilty of throwing some food out – but it should be the exception, not the rule. Nobody does it intentionally and there are varied reasons why it will get to that point.
·       People have very high standard when going shopping and all good intention to “home cook this week”. And then never get around to it.
·       Lack of planning ahead and impulse buying.
·       Some people can cook and would love to do it, but are so overwhelmed with the clutter on bench top and dinner table that they rather feed the kids baked beans in front of the TV.
Sometimes it is the second generation eating like this. A lot of my clients tell me, that they never learned. When Jamie Oliver filmed his Food revolution in America he made a comment about his utter surprise about kids who had never, at the age of 10, used knife and/or fork. For them food is always finger food!
I think we have to distinguish between eating as the task of putting food in one’s mouth so you don’t starve and eating as in family dinners, sharing stories and food. Food needs to be appreciated – kids have to develop a relationship with food, they have to learn about food. But it’s not just lack of cooking skills and time and ability to use a knife and fork. I am a Professional Organiser and come across a lot of families that basically don’t have a dinner table they can use.
And that’s not because they don’t have that piece of furniture, but because it’s so full of clutter that nobody eats at it.
So mums feed the kids in front of the TV, that’s easy and very non confrontational. As far as I am concerned, you might as well serve Play- dough! And when dad comes home, the parents do the same, balancing their plate on their knees.
No wonder kids grow up with some sort of eating disorder, either too much or too little, because who would go to the effort of cooking nice food if nobody really gets what’s eaten , distracted by watching TV or bored because they eat on their own
·
By being mindful of these reasons, there are easy ways to work against that over consumerism:
·       meal plan
·       Shop with a shopping list.
·       Organiser your pantry – every half year!!!!
·       Ask for help and learn
·       Always unpack the dishwasher – this one sounds a bit out of line, but if you treat the dishwasher as a cupboard for dirty dishes rather than clean ones – you are not going to have to clean away mountains of dirty plates before starting to cook all that delicious produce you bought.

LessMess is the expert commentator on this week’s feature article on the InShape NewsFlash blog

“Many of us are guilty of having a cluttered household. This, not only makes it stressful to find what we want, when we want it, but it also can lead to health issues.

According to McMillan & Company Professional Organizing, some 80% of clutter in your home or office is the result of disorganisation, rather than a lack of space. They also estimate that by decluttering your home you could eliminate 40 percent of your housework.

Susanne Thiebe, an accredited expert professional organiser who holds a an engineering degree in interior architecture, says that clutter is a health concern.

“Professionally, I realised that people with a lot of clutter often have health issues,” she said. “So by helping them declutter, I help them get healthier,” said Thiebe.

Thiebe says she was motivated to develop her professional organising concept because a lot of customers had health issues.

“It occurred to me that my customers health issues might not be the reason for their clutter, but rather, the other way around,” she said. “You get depressed if you have too much stuff.”

“Just by observation, I realised that some people hold onto stuff and this includes their weight,” said Thiebe. “It’s about change management, loosing fear, embracing new ideas and following healthy routines,” she said. “It might sound like a weight loss program, but it is more of a stuff loss program.”

Thiebe believes that by starting the program and shedding clutter, people often discover that they can lose weight, and vice versa.

“I am motivated by my customers tears of gratitude,” said Thiebe.

Thiebe says that listening to yourself and making time is important.

“Listen to yourself, it’s your life, not someone else’s,” she said. “There is no such thing as ‘not enough time’. If you claim not to have time for something then you should really say that you don’t find it important enough.”

Thiebe believes in incidental exercise and using your daily surroundings to workout. She says that it is vital to maintaining your health and fitness.

“Replace driving with cycling and walking, and take the stairs, not the lift,” she said. “Also have a weekly meal plan and stick to your shopping list.”

Decluttering your life begins with your home and then it progressively develops into a lifestyle choice.

David F. Tobin Ph.D., director of the Anxiety Disorders Center in the United States, says in Consumer Reports on Health that clutter can be hazardous and unhealthy.

“Clutter might create a fire hazard or vermin infestation, or keep them [people leading cluttered lifestyles] from walking around in the house,” said Tobin. “They have an exaggerated attachment to items and that prevents them from discarding things,” he said.

“We recommend cognitive-behavioural therapy, in which we help the person identify and change irrational ways of thinking and practice new patterns of behaviour,” said Tobin.

According to a study conducted by Clutterless Recovery Groups Incorporated, a clutter addict recovery group situated in America, some 74 percent of clutter addicts felt they needed therapy. Some 37 percent of the 1000 people surveyed said they suffered from clutter anxiety, and 24 percent considered themselves to be depressed most of the time.

Karen Kingston, author of ‘Clear Your Clutter with Feng Shui’, states in her book that clutter can make you feel tired and lethargic, can affect your body weight and cause confusion, as well as generate a sense of shame.

“A curious fact I have noticed over the years is that people who have lots of clutter in their homes are often overweight,” said Kingston. “I believe this is because both body fat and clutter are forms of self-protection,” she said. “By building layers of fat or clutter around yourself, you hope to cushion yourself against the shocks of life, and particularly against emotions you have difficulty handling.”

This is the LessMess Christmas checklist. I know, that some of you have already seen it last year – but there a re so many new subscribers, I wanted to share this again: Just amend the details to suit your family’s needs. Hang it up in a prominent place around your house and keep working on it, adding things and most importantly crossing things off.

3 weeks to go Entertainment and food

• Decide on activities, events. Theme it (colours) even if you don’t make that official. It makes decision making and shopping easier
• Invite guests to Christmas activities & events
• Order food (ham, pork, turkey)
• Make Christmas cake, pudding biscuits
• Eat through your freezer

Gift giving

• Draw up a gift list of people for whom you need to buy presents
• Start writing down present ideas
• Start buying presents
• Check supply of wrapping paper, cards, ribbons
• Post overseas presents and cards

General

• Take last year’s received X-Mass cards to produce list for this year – throw last year’s out
• Purchase Christmas Cards (unless you have enough to last you a lifetime)
• Purchase Christmas stamps
• Check Christmas decoration & lights – buy new ones if necessary

2 weeks to go Entertainment and food

• Clean your freezer
• Clean your fridge and oven
• Plan Christmas food menu. Plan something you can prepare as far ahead as possible or at least parts of it  – even better something that freezes well
• Decide who brings what (entree, desert, and alcohol, soft drinks) asks for help!!!
• Write up additional items list (bon bons, serviettes, glasses, chairs, table deco…)
• Buy non perishable food and drinks
• Prepare  whatever possible: chop onions, cheese, herbs,… and freeze

Gift giving

• continue purchasing presents
• make notes of what you bought for whom and where you hid it
  (my mum always forgot at least one present – I actually loved it; getting just one more the next day!!)
• Wrap presents
• Check list for outstanding presents
• Check whether any toys require batteries & if necessary buy them now

General

• Post Christmas cards
• Put up Christmas tree & start with other decorations. With children: do something every day

1 week to go Entertainment and food

• Draw up timetable for Christmas lunch. From when to start defrosting the turkey to serving coffee & mints.
• Remind friends and family about their contributions

General

• Check camera/video for batteries and recharge if necessary

2 days to go Entertainment and food

• Buy perishable food
• Prepare what’s possible

Gift giving

• Wrap remaining presents

December 24th enjoy Christmas

LessMess was featured in the August Issue of Prevention Magazine.
Here is the article by Sally Kuzemchak and Christina Sexton

The kitchen is the heart of your home, but it might also be the heart of your unwanted weight. Everything from the size of your plate to the wattage of your bulbs has a direct effect on what and how much you eat, according to research published in the Annual Review of Nutrition. Here are seven signs that you kitchen ins sabotaging your waistline – and simple fixes to get the scale moving in the right direction.
You Stack Mail On the Benchtop
“When your kitchen becomes a dumping ground for clutter, you tend to avoid cooking, which is a problem,” says Susanne Thiebe, owner of Sydney-based organising company LessMess.” Often, people might have healthy fresh food hidden in the back of the fridge, bought with good intentions to cook. But when your kitchen bench or dining table is covered in homework, paperwork and odd socks, it’s too easy to give up on preparing a nutritious meal and just order takeaway. About 95% of my clients keep clutter on their dining table and eat from trays in front of the TV and wonder why they’re overweight!”
Solution
Take baby steps with kitchen clutter:” Clear one area of the fridge at a time,” advises Thiebe.” This can take as few as seven minutes. When you finish plan to do another the next day, so you don’t get overwhelmed and stop.” The best advice Thiebe gives her clients? Always unpack the dishwasher. “It’s not a cupboard for clean plates! If you leave clean plates in the machine, there is nowhere for dirty ones to go except in the sink or on the benchtop. Lack of bench space discourages you from taking time to cook a healthy dinner.” Organising is a skill.”
Anyone can learn to keep their kitchen in order, but you have to want to,” adds Thiebe.

DeclutterOnline
The ABC of Organising

A live on line group coaching course aimed at people who are overwhelmed with stuff.

We tackle decluttering, organising and time management to get you back on track and give you more time to live your life.

Live and interactive. You get time during the sessions to put into practice what you learned. We don’t just talk – we DO. We get over the procrastination.

Courses are currently conducted via SKYPE.

31/08/2011    Bathrooms
7/09/2011       Wardrobes
14/09/2011    Laundries
21/09/2011    Time Management

Lessons start at 12.30 and go for 90 min. In this time you will learn the secrets and get started on your own organising mission.
You can book the whole course for $289 or book separate units for $60.
to book go to my website and find the right course under the DeclutterOnline tab – and hey, I finally figured out how to make the PayPal button work!!

You know, when I started this blog a year ago, I did some soul searching, got some advice and did some planning. And I would have never anticipated, that the “product tip” part of the blog would be the hardest one to get together.
There are heaps of creations out there, I thought. People like to read about products, because most people like shopping, right? But then, when you look a bit deeper into most gadgets, they might be nifty, but are they really necessary. I don’t wan to burden anybody with more stuff than they already have. I see too many clients that have half a Howard’s Storage shop at home and still no space (I had a client some years ago, that had a whole room of empty and half filled containers). Happens too often.
And it’s about sustainability, too. From an organising point of view, there is no difference between an old shoe box and a pricey stainless steel container from Philippe Stark. As long as it fits into the space and holds what it should hold.
Have that in mind when purchasing any organising products – even the ones suggested here!
So for this post, no product tip and in case you are wondering: I do cherish good design and love Philippe Stark’s lemon press. But the lemon juice with the plastic one from Target tastes just the same

This weekend a  friend of ours popped in with, this story:
“I have been buying Philip’s irons for over 40 years, they used to last 10 years, now they just do 5. I kind of accept that loss of quality. Last week I bought their middle of the range model, and it didn’t even last at all. It was kaputt straight away. So I went and returned it – got another one, which, in turn had the same fault. Going back to the shop I was offered an upgrade to the top end model, which cost twice as much. I am very happy with what I gained, but felt the need to write to their operations manager for Australia (someone with a ‘van’ in his name, being Dutch!) informing them of my ordeal and that really this shouldn’t be necessary. I also included a copy of my travel ten (public transport ticket in Sydney) and asked for a refund of the travel cost.”
He got his refund and a better, brand new iron. This story highlights two things for me: the necessity to keep receipts, an understanding of which ones could be relevant for how long and the need for all of us to make use of our right for perfect products and customer service.
I pride myself as being a bit of a queen of refund and return: I returned stockings with a run (luckily I still had the packaging in the recycling) and last week I returned some flour to Aldi. It wasn’t flour. It tasted all right, but everything I baked was dense and gooey. I did a test with two identical loafs of bread, baked with two different flours. The Aldi one was UN edible (except Mr. 8 eats everything, so he toasted it and gobbled down the whole loaf). On returning the flour (without a receipt – who keeps that?) I got my refund and the remark: “but you are the first one returning it.” But it wasn’t what it is supposed to be – and NOBODY realised????

Aldi is my favourite grocery store. There are a couple of reasons; it feels a bit like home. I grow up shopping at Aldi and it sustained most of us when we were at Uni -  in Germany Aldi has Alcohol!!! (So do the ones in Victoria)

Nowadays I love it because it offers NO CHOICE. It’s a no brainer and super quick. Where else can you shop (almost) everything for a week in 20 min with 3 kids in tow? Where else can you send hubby or the neighbours to do the shopping for you? If the shopping list says: rolled oats, they will bring the right stuff. It’s the grocery version of an organised household.

To make the most of it I sort my shopping list. All items on the right side of the list can be bought at Aldi, everything else I need to get at a speciality shop or a normal supermarket.

I also trust their specials products, which saves on the shopping around. And they re appear in an almost yearly cycle – so if my iron is kaput, I just don’t iron till Aldi sells one. (Fantastic excuse!!)

These fridge baskets from Howard’s Storage a fabulous because:

• they are plastic which is very hygienic,
• They a long an narrow. Perfect to use the whole depth of your fridge
• They have a handle so you can take two at a time in and out of the fridge

Fridge Basket Large
Ventilated with high sides and sturdy handle. Ideal for the fridge or cupboard.
Product cod Hll100
Dimensions (Width x Depth x Height): 15 x 31.5 x 13 cm
Howard’s storage $ 4.95

Fridge Basket small
Product cod Hll100
Dimensions (Width x Depth x Height): 16.5 x 27 x 11 cm
Howard’s storage $3.95

To stop small vegetables rolling all over the drawer and eventually turning into compost below everything else…  use a plastic cutlery holder from a  one dollar shop

Did you know it takes just 7 min to sort and clean one shelf in the fridge? So don’t be scared of your fridge.
It helps when you have some categories going on in the fridge; label your shelves so everyone in the family knows.
For example,
Top shelf: mine is the meat chiller – and I store chocolates there in a separate container
First shelf: all condiments, opened food, leftovers
Second shelf: breakfast and sandwich ingredients
Third shelf: bottles
Drawer :veggies on the right side, fruit on the left?
I know a lot of people swapping the intended use of drawer and fresh food and put their drink cans in the veggie drawer. As long as it works for you
Give your fridge a quick clean before going shopping. It should be half empty (otherwise you shouldn’t go shopping)