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One day in November 2015 I picked up the newspaper Le Monde and I came across an article about Freegan Pony, a restaurant in Paris whose raw material was fruit and vegetables that were about to be thrown away and that were rescued in a market on the outskirts of the city. I had studied Gastronomy, and after a couple of years working in Quito and New York, I decided to leave that profession because I did not feel comfortable with the productivist maelstrom that seemed to present itself to me as the only professional horizon. So I went back to university to study journalism and, years later, I went to live in Paris, where, working as a reporter in Radio France International and how freelancing for Latin American media, I dedicated myself with some emphasis, thanks to the affinity that my first career gave me, to deal with food and nutrition issues.
That article about Freegan Pony encouraged me to do my own report, and when I looked for information about that place, I saw on their Facebook page that they called for volunteers to help cook. The following week I was there, working as a cook and a journalist at the same time. That double immersion would later mean a two-way repercussion for me.
Freegan Pony operated out of a former railway depot outside of Paris. It was a concrete behemoth of 800 square meters that had been abandoned for years, until a group of squatters took it over, somewhat precariously adapted the basic services facilities, got a couple of kitchens and half-used utensils, furniture and ornaments from a charitable association and, with a cozy atmosphere in its untidiness, he installed that restaurant there at the beginning of the freeganism.
The freeganism it emerged in the United States in the mid-1990s from the environmental and anti-globalization movements. It promotes a lifestyle that avoids capitalist consumerism and, although in its broadest sense it encompasses all aspects of life, its focus is on food, particularly in the fight against food waste. Usually the freeganos They obtain their food from the garbage containers outside the supermarkets, food that is largely in optimal conditions to be consumed and that is usually discarded due to the sin of having aesthetic flaws or because it is approaching its expiration date.
Within a week of volunteering, I became the chef at Freegan Pony. We prepared more than 100 daily menus of vegetable food. One part was sold to the general public, and another part was shared with people in vulnerable situations, such as migrants from the Middle East or prostitutes who, on those cold days, on that peripheral edge of Paris, warmed their bodies with bonfires lit in barrels. of oil. In parallel, I was delving into the understanding of the phenomenon of food waste, something that until then was completely unknown to me and that I had never identified as a concern of public institutions, academia or the gastronomic environment of my country, Ecuador, and not even, relevantly enough, that of France.
A distinction needs to be made between food loss and food waste (FLW). Loss refers to everything that spoils or is discarded in the phases of harvesting, slaughtering, processing, storage and transportation, even before reaching retail sale; and waste refers to food thrown away in the retail, foodservice and household sectors. In the latest report on the matter (2021), the United Nations Environment Program points out that 931 million tons of food were wasted in 2019 alone, an amount that we cannot even imagine. Of that, 61%, that is, almost 570 million tons, were generated in homes. This report also indicates that the world average of wasted food is very similar among high, medium and low income countries: 74 kilos per capita per year, which shows that it is a problem that cuts across all societies and that, thus, Since it dramatically focuses on consumer habits, it is also up to us to take action to combat it.
In global figures, the UN itself has indicated that a third of all food produced every day is lost or wasted in the world; that is, to exemplify it in some way: one out of every three apples. While, according to The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2022the most important study on the subject developed annually by five United Nations agencies, 828 million people are currently hungry, 46 million more than in 2020, a scenario aggravated first by the pandemic and now by the war in Ukraine.
In economic terms, the FAO estimates that food loss alone is equivalent to 400 billion dollars a year, a figure similar to the GDP of Austria. In terms of environmental impact, FLW generates 8% of global greenhouse gas emissions, including methane, a gas 20 times more powerful than carbon dioxide and the one that contributes most to climate change. If FLW were a country, it would be the third most polluting. And it should not be overlooked that each piece of wasted food takes with it a considerable part of the resources invested in its production: energy sources, water, soil, seeds, human and animal labor. Nor should we lose sight of the ethical crossroads that this scourge poses. It is absurd to live with such numbers of hunger and poverty while such amounts of food are wasted. It is not necessary to consider that the food security of the growing world population depends on a greater production of food when a third of what already exists is thrown away. The problem, therefore, suggests a paradigm shift: it is not necessary to produce more, but to distribute better.
The Freegan Pony experience allowed me, through journalism, to delve into this complex universe and develop an ethical commitment to understand and disseminate it. At the same time, as a chef who resumed the trade, I reconciled myself with gastronomy and identified with its sustainable side, as well as with its solidarity and political potential. In this way, it was natural for me to think that, when I returned to Ecuador, I would create a project based on those principles.
I returned at the end of 2017 and a year later, after polishing the idea together with the person who would become my partner, Estefanía Gómez, a specialist in development, environment and food sovereignty, Ideal – Food Rescue, a socio-gastronomic project whose background is the fight against food waste and its use for the benefit of vulnerable populations. The management model is somewhat simple. We rescue from markets, fairs and farms in Quito and other cities in Ecuador, vegetables and fruits that are going to be discarded, generally because they do not meet the aesthetic standards of the market or because they constitute surplus production, and we prepare lunches, dinners and snacks with them. of vegetable cuisine that are then offered to the general public at reasonable prices and, free of charge, to people in poverty. Contributions from diners allow us to maintain a fund that pays for some operating expenses, and others are covered thanks to a small financing granted by an international organization that supports social and environmental projects.
The nature of the project is itinerant and experimental, so that for one or two days we settle in friends’ restaurants or in unconventional places, such as a church or a school, and organize events that combine gastronomy and pedagogy, because before the service we offer talks about what constitutes global and local food waste. The tasks of harvesting, cooking, service and cleaning are supported by volunteers who identify with the principles of the project and, in culinary terms, creativity begins to unfold the moment we have the result of the harvest in front of us, an activity that is carried out in the early morning the same day we offer meals. The chefs of the restaurants that welcome us contribute their styles and concepts, and, in this way, we usually achieve menus of between three and five steps with eclectic identities and flavors. There are no proven recipes or standardized protocols; our dishes are the result of improvisation, convictions put into practice and risk.
Thanks to its characteristics and the purposes it pursues, Idónea enjoyed a good reception from the moment of its launch. In the three and a half years that it has been in operation, it has managed to increase its presence in the gastronomic, academic and even institutional spheres, where food waste, although still insufficient, seems to have attracted some attention.
We have produced around 40 gastronomic and educational events to raise awareness about this problem. We have received more than 1,000 guests and another 2,000 have benefited indirectly from our actions. We have been supported by more than 300 volunteers and we have collaborated with almost 40 organizations. We have coordinated the work in community kitchens during the last two national strikes in Ecuador, and supported humanitarian assistance in cases of natural disasters. We are currently visiting several cities in the country to share the experiences of the project and offer workshops on cooking optimization and the problem of food waste. Of the three tons of food that we have rescued, 80% has been suitable for human consumption.
Certainly, these figures are minuscule compared to the great problem we face, but they have been enough to convince us that gastronomy is not only that sphere of show business, mercantile logic and chauvinist discourses, but that it is also exercised, as a form of micropolitics, in the community field.
#gastronomy #waste