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
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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 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.

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)

It all starts with an organised pantry:

before

pantry after

Over the last week I have been following Jamie Oliver on twitter and his mission to educate people so they can feed their kids sustainable food. One commentator on a blog wrote at length about Jamie’s astonishment when he found out, that there are a lot of kids in America growing up not using knives and forks to eat. For them food is always finger food.
I found this quiet shocking too and I don’t think that we here in Australia are much different.
I think it’s a parent’s duty to give their kids basic manners and social skills – and I know it is hard, I am still struggling with two of my kids using the knife as an aid to put things onto their fork (the knife as a cutting device is much more appreciated by the boys.)
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. I am talking about the later, because I honestly believe, that’s where eating disorders start. Food needs to be appreciated – kids have to develop a relationship with food, they have to learn about food, and, to come back to where I began, to learn the socially accepted way to eat it.
But it’s not just lack of cooking skills, time and ability to use a knife and fork. I am coming 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 one, 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. And when dad comes home, the parents do the same, balancing their plate on their knees.
I would say, 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.
So, I am going to  tweet to Jamie Oliver to show him this other obstacle in the way to fulfill his mission of family dinners.