How much food is thrown daily in school canteens in our country? Too much, no doubt. How much of that food that is thrown is in perfect condition to be consumed? Almost all, for sure.
Two questions to which Cristina Romero was answered with a “and why don't we do it?” And created a petition to ask the responsible authority to please do not throw more food in perfect condition in Spanish school canteens. Because it is immoral having thousands of people in this country who do not have a plate of food to live with every day and because this is also education for children who come to their study center every day.
According to estimated FAO data one third of all food produced on our planet is lost or wasted. It is such a brutal macro-figure that we are not aware of what it really means on a finite planet, like ours.
Landing from that macro-figure to our environment it turns out that something as common as the school canteen is no exception to this waste of meaningless food. Tons of food are thrown away from school canteens in our country while we all know that there are families by our side or perhaps much closer, who cannot feed themselves as they should.
A reality that can be changed
And that is what Cristina Romero has done, a mother from Girona who has created an action on the Change.org platform for which she is collecting signatures to try, among all, that school canteens are not a huge garbage can for tons of food every day.
“My initiative comes after attending a meeting last October at the school where my son studies, with the catering company that offers their services. The person in charge commented that the rations they serve are the same for a 3-year-old child as for a 12-year-old and when asking what they did with what was left over, she responded that following the Food Safety Law they should throw away the surplus food. ”
Cristina got the company to carry out an internal evaluation in the month of November last year to check why food was thrown, in February she herself attended the evaluation commission and was able to verify that currently nothing is practically thrown away. “This for me is already a victory” Cristina recognized us with whom we have been fortunate to be able to talk about her idea and initiative.
He is clear, because he has seen him in his own school where his son studies that "The operation to take advantage of this surplus of food already handled (it is important to emphasize this point) would be to package, label, freeze and subsequently distribute it while retaining the cold chain to social entities"
Packaged or unprocessed foods, such as yogurts, fruit, uncooked vegetables or containers that have not been opened, can be left in the same schools for later distribution.
Act locally ...
It is a simple and cheap operation that is already being implemented in schools regardless of its size, which they carry out on their own initiative and with their own resources.
Cristina Romero has addressed her request through Change to the Ministry of Health, Agriculture and the Spanish Consumer Agency so that “review this Food Safety Law (Law 17/2011) and facilitate the use of this surplus of food ”. She is already "Contact experts in the field to find out how it would be without having a great economic impact and of course it would not affect the users of school canteens."
We are talking about the reality that from the school canteens in our country tons of food in perfect conditions of consumption go directly to the garbage. Cristina Romero is trying to apply a little common sense to that expense, to that waste, to that unjustified waste.
... think global
“My environment has had a positive reaction and they collaborate and support my cause. In fact, I began to spread my request via whatsapp, emails and Facebook to friends and family, then I started sending emails to schools throughout Spain and finally social dining rooms throughout Spain. ”
Currently (at the time of writing this post) the campaign that Cristina has launched has collected 200,000 signatures, which she translates as a very positive response "The fact that there has already been that positive change in my son's school is already an achievement, but we must continue!"
Personally for many years I ate in the school canteen, of the different schools in which I studied and in all of them they taught me that the food on the plate was never thrown away.
My parents continued with that teaching and now I try to instill in my children also respect and common sense when it comes to sitting at the table and I can not help my heart hurts every time they can not finish what is on your plate , as little as it is and you have to throw it away.
Throwing food has always seemed like an aberration, to the point of not liking me or using food to play or paint, yes, the same is a bit excessive but each one is each.
Photos | iStockphoto
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