Reaction Paper about the article Cut Down Edible Waste

It has been customary to us Filipinos that whenever we have special occasions or gatherings, we should prepare something for it and the thought of food is the top priority for most of us.

Foods are the highlight of the celebration and the more food you put on your table, the more people go rush in to your house. Well, things can go as planned but one thing that brings menace after the festive and lavish party is the tons of dishes to be washed and the one that we didn’t notice, the horror of looking at the leftovers in our trash bins.

The idea of trashing out food from one’s dish is a painstaking to think about, much more to those dishes whose foods were not yet touched. You just can’t throw it away but you need to or it’ll get spoiled right away. 

I agree that billion tons of food is wasted annually. It is a ‘no doubt’ fact since restaurants are growing over the metro and even households do these things without knowing its effects in our environment and even in our money. 

As I’ve read the article, I understand that instead of wasting food, why not have some ways on how to reduce it, to be concerned in our environment?

I realized that there are so many ways to reduce food wastes. Throwing it all away is not the solution. In order to have an eco-friendly environment, I have come up some ideas on how to reduce it.

We should be more conscious about its shelf-life, storage temperature and its availability so as to remind ourselves that we should consume it earlier before it spoils. I agree that we should consider the number of people to be accommodated so that we can easily estimate how much food we are going to prepare.

Well, some tips in the article told me that I’m not that negligent when it comes to disposing food wastes because my family and I observe it too. After having dinner, we collect the food scraps and we give it to our pets. Sometimes when we have leftovers, my mother used to be a creative cook when she turns the food into another one by adding seasonings to make the food more flavorful.

To know that tons of food wastes were dumped in landfills is to know that billions of people suffer from hunger. This issue should teach us a lesson that we must not waste food. Since most of us can’t help having some leftovers from the parties, why let some of our less fortunate neighbors to come by your house and share to them your blessings? It would be more fulfilling and the party would be more meaningful since you build a good relationship to your neighbors.

The bottom line of this article is this: always remember the 3 Rs which are to Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle. For me they are certainly applicable to food wastes since you have an option to reduce it as well as make something out of it. We all have creative minds and I’m confident that we can do something about it. Above all, we should be thankful that until now we still have something to eat and we should put in to our minds that we eat anything on our table to eliminate food waste.

from Bato Balani Magazine "CUT DOWN EDIBLE WASTE"