UAE residents urged to save one-third of food this Ramadan

Emirates Nature-WWF on Tuesday called upon the community to be more conscious of excessive food waste by taking simple steps towards decreasing food wastage through the ‘Save 1/3’ food waste campaign.

Launched by the World Wildlife Fund, the campaign aims to fight food waste by providing feasible solutions encouraging the community to change their daily food consumption trends by shopping, cooking and eating smarter.

Currently, one-third of all food produced globally goes to landfills, which points to waste of not only the actual food but all the resources used to produce it.

Up to 1.3 billion tonnes of food is wasted at every step of the journey from farms to the dining tables every year.

Residents may contribute to saving food and resources by saving one third of what they consume especially during Ramadan, according to Emirates Nature-WWF. By making changes as small as creating a shopping list and a meal plan to avoid impulsive buying and freezing leftover food, the level of waste would decrease dramatically.

Laila Mostafa Abdul Latif, Director-General of Emirates Nature-WWF, said: “We are all interconnected and depend on healthy and abundant food and natural resources for survival. This Ramadan, Emirates Nature-WWF encourages all residents and citizens of the UAE to reflect on their eating habits and learn how to shop smarter, cook smarter, and eat smarter. Through our Save 1/3 campaign, we hope to support the UAE in addressing the global issue of one third of food produced going to waste.”

Emirates Nature-WWF recently launched a blog titled “Yalla Green” which serves as an informative guide offering tips on how to shop, cook and consume food more efficiently.

For more information on how to prevent excessive food and household waste, visit: Bit.ly/YallaGreen

OPTIONAL BOX: Did you know?

— Saving a single egg saves 185 litres of water which is enough for three showers.

— Saving 1kg of beef saves 15,413 litres of water, equivalent to 3.43 million litres for all the meat in one animal. This amount of water can fill an Olympic-sized swimming pool.

— If we save 1/3 food, this will give us 250 trillion litres of water per year enough to provide water for 30 years to all 7.6 billion people in the planet today.

— If we save 1/3 food, we will save 10 per cent energy worldwide that can power more than a billion homes for a year.

Source: saveonethird.org