How Food Waste Can Nurture New Food
Posted on: 29 January 2019
Australian households throw away some 3.1 million tonnes of edible food each year. This is a staggering amount and doesn't even take commercial food waste (such as food discarded by restaurants and supermarkets) into account. Some of this waste is repurposed, such as being placed in a household composting bin, but a huge amount of edible food is destined for landfill. What about if this food, in a manner of speaking, could be used to nurture new food?
Many suppliers offer stock feed made from recycled food, which is of an exemplary standard and is a decisive way to reduce food waste. This creates a circular motion, in that food wasted by humans is repurposed to create nutrition for animals which then create food for humans, whether through meat or milk. How does it work?
Food Waste in Commercially Viable Quantities
The logistics of obtaining a useable amount of waste food from private households would be problematic, so most types of stock feed made from food waste are produced using food discarded in commercial quantities, namely by supermarkets and other food stockists. Though the majority of collected food waste is edible and appropriate for the animal's digestive system, this is not a universal truth.
Processing the Stock Feed
The food waste is sorted, with anything unsuitable (generally determined by the age and nature of the food) discarded. The remainder is then dehydrated and turned into stock feed, which addresses the nutritional needs of a particular type of animal. Additional enzymes (nutritional supplements) might be added at this stage if the original source (the collected food waste) is thought to be lacking in any way. The feed is also biodegradable so that spoilt or unused food can quickly compost into the soil, acting as a fertiliser.
Additional Benefits
In addition to being a common sense approach to the sheer act of wasting edible food, the process also has additional benefits. Preventing the food waste from making its way to landfill can reduce the number of greenhouse gasses produced by the degradation of organic materials in a landfill. It also addresses the environmental impact of commercial farming in that the animal's nutritional needs are met by recycled food, as opposed to a traditional stock feed made from raw, first run ingredients.
Feeding animals with a product made from human food waste can make for a happy marriage between the needs of commercial farming and environmentalism.
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