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Lourdes Juan and her team at LeftOvers are working hard to get food destined for landfill diverted to those that need it.
Dave McGinn in the Globe and Mail last week said:
“We waste approximately 40 per cent of our food, or $27-billion worth, according to the Value Chain Management Centre, an independent think tank based in Guelph, Ont. And just over half (51 per cent) of that gets tossed from households.
Keep in mind, we’re not talking about the strawberries that have been sitting in your crisper so long they’ve got grey fuzz on them, or those tomatoes with the gross green splotches that stink. The report is talking about edible food that simply gets chucked. Why? Partly because we load our plates with giant portions we can never finish, partly because we throw out food based on best-before labels, even if we’re not reading them properly or the food is still good. But mostly we toss food because, unlike so many other places on earth, food is cheap to us.
“A lot of food waste is an outcome of behaviour that is shaped by attitudes that really themselves are based on perceptions of abundance and affluence,” says Martin Gooch, director of the Value Chain Management Centre.
In other words, we think food is cheap and it’ll be easier to buy more of it, so let’s just scrape our plates in to the garbage and call it a day.”
Many families in Calgary are not so lucky that are able to throw food away. They rely on food organizations and dumpsters to feed them or go hungry. LeftOvers is working to take food from stores and markets that would otherwise go to waste at the end of the day and takes to the people who can distribute it to the needy. In the current economy the need for their services is increasing daily.
Becoming a volunteer is easy and the commitment is light. Training is provided as the service strictly adheres to current food safety guidelines.
Have you got a few hours to make a difference?
Contact LeftOvers: help@rescuefood.ca
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