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

As part of the NSW Government’s Love Food Hate Waste initiative the Office of Sustainability and Engagement and International have worked in partnership with Penrith City Council to deliver some exciting workshops for UWS staff 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.

Please see the clip below about the workshops conducted by Penrith City Council consultant Vanessa Steele.

Love Food Hate Waste

UWS has recently become a partner in the Love Food Hate Waste Program.

As part of our new partnership with Penrith City Council, MasterChef contestant Jay Huxley will be running free ‘Low budget healthy meals’ workshops on each campus, a joint initiative between UWS Student Welfare Service and the UWS Office of Sustainability. Visit our Latest News page for dates and more information.

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 Office of Environment and Heritage (OEH) partnering with corporate, government and not-for-profit organisations committed to reducing food waste in NSW.

OEH 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 for how your household can avoid food waste. Visit:

Buy It for great ideas on food shopping
Cook It to find out how much food you really need and for delicious nutritious recipes that use up leftover ingredients
Save It for how to keep your food fresh and prevent it from ending up in the bin
Love food to learn about the issues and how wasting less food helps our environment.
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 e.g. pineapple skins, tea bags and fruit and vegetable peelings. It is the food waste we can not really do anything further with apart from composting it or putting it in the bin.

Information sourced from the Love Food Hate Waste website. 

 Love Food Hate Waste Workshops

As part of the NSW Government’s Love Food Hate Waste initiative the Office of Sustainability and Engagement and International are working in partnership with Penrith City Council to deliver some exciting workshops for UWS staff on food management, cooking demonstrations 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.

We invite you to attend a workshop conducted by Penrith City Council staff member Vanessa Steele that will give you some tips that will help you save some time and money by planning weekly meals and making the most of those leftovers.

Details:

Wednesday 23 November
12.30pm -1.30pm
Penrith (Kingswood) campus
Building 0, Meeting Room 02, Level 2
Lunch will be provided including a nude food lunch box for staff to use at work.

and

Thursday 1 December
12.30 - 1.30pm
Penrith (Werrington North) Campus
AD.LG.18 (Meeting Room 5)
Lunch will be provided including a nude food lunch box for staff to use at work .

For catering purposes please email Dr Beatriz Cardona, b.cardona@uws.edu.au if you would like to attend. There are limited places so please RSVP as soon as convenient. 

Jay Huxley cooks easy, low budget meals at UWS