Eat it, don’t waste it! Best blogs on foodwaste in Central Europe
The latest awards for best blogs on foodwaste reduction have some real highlights. Check out these amazing bloggers from across Central Europe…
Bloggers play an important role in raising awareness about food waste and how we can prevent it.
Do bloggers replace grandmothers when it comes to learning how to use and store food properly? We don’t know. Whilst the winners of the Central Europe STREFOWA (Strategies to Reduce Food Waste – an EU funded project) #reducefoodwaste blogger award 2017 sure don’t look like grandmothers, they do know a lot about food waste and what to do with leftovers.
The best blog articles in Central Europe to raise awareness about food waste
Everyone is talking about food waste and so are bloggers. But where can you find them? STREFOWA’s call for submission for the #reducefoodwaste blogger award received a lot of responses and you can now see the best 25 articles. The 4 celebrated winners, selected via online voting and a jury of international experts, were:
Annemarie Miesbauer (Austria) from “Ein Jahr im Glas” writes about living Zero Waste 365 days a year. In 2016 she started her project to only produce as much general waste (non-recycle) as would fit in a 1.5L glass. Sustainability is very important in Annemarie’s life and it is a matter of the heart for her to show how to estimate the precious resources. Her winning article covers the correlation of the Zero Waste lifestyle with food waste and is named “Was hat Zero Waste mit Lebensmittelverschwendung zu tun” (Article in German).
Jana Karasová, Michaela Gajdošová, Helena Škrdlíková from “Czech Zero Waste” inform their readers about the Zero Waste lifestyle and their personal experience from aiming to reduce waste in their lives. They started the blog because there was no platform that provided any information about Zero Waste in Czech. Their winning article offers recommendations and tips on how to reduce food waste in everyday life. These are based on their personal experience on Zero Waste and are inspired from numerous projects and activities that they have participated in.
Kristina Heilinger (Austria) from “Waste’s End” writes about the Zero Waste Lifestyle. She also writes about related topics to Zero Waste, namely about food waste and consumption habits. Her articles are available in German and English. Her winning article is the third part of a trilogy of articles about bananas. She writes about the wastage of bananas and wants to make people aware that bananas are not only tasty when they are in perfect shape and have a bright yellow peel.
Dorota Czopyk writes on her blog EkoEksperymenty in Polish about her ecological lifestyle – living in little village in the mountains, cycling and walking instead of using car, gardening, ecoparenting, upcycling and ecoDIY and ecological book reviews. In her winning article “How to cook without wasting food” she shares tips on how to plan your diet to avoid food waste.
Can bloggers #reducefoodwaste even more?
To honour the winners and to kick-off the idea of establishing a #reducefoodwaste umbrella organisation in Central Europe, a Blogger Meeting in Vienna was organised. To dive deeper in the topic of food waste, experts on the topic food waste and waste, Gudrun Obersteiner (ABF-BOKU) and Helene Pattermann (Zero Waste Austria), talked about facts and potentials to #reducefoodwaste. Start-ups, like “Unverschwendet” and “markta.at”, shared insights in their work dealing with food waste prevention. But then the ball was thrown back to the bloggers and other participants interested in the topic of raising awareness for food waste.
How can people’s interest for food waste be increased? What information can be shared by bloggers?
The non-blogger participants put their heads together and come up with a list of topics they would be interested in reading from bloggers:
- How to deal with leftovers (after special occasions, before holidays)?
- How to store food better (more than just freeze it)?
- How to shop economically, but avoiding big multi-packages?
- How to gain more confidence in cooking with leftovers?
- How to stay flexible when your plans change (eat-out)?
- How to raise awareness for the correct meaning of expiration date and best before date?
- How to find information easier about existing initiatives to #reducefoodwaste in your area?
What do bloggers think of increasing their impact to #reducefoodwaste?
Bloggers are aware of the potential to increase the impact and to reduce the current deficits in food waste communication. More information could be spread, like already existing content concerning food labelling. It is important to highlight the differences in the meaning of “best before” and “use by” as well as how the quality of expired food can be tested. Likewise, bloggers could give a better overview on local initiatives dealing with food waste. In order to make people use all the information that is already available relating the topic food waste, it may be effective to design nice graphics to use commonly. Bloggers think that good ways to communicate food waste prevention in social media including videos should be used. Bloggers also discussed the benefits and disadvantages of cooperations with bigger NGOs. The main advantages are that the content can be widely spread. Challenging problems might be that cooperating partners must fit in their philosophy, otherwise it is not authentic and that blogs should not act like a tool for fundraising.
A lot can still be done!
Maybe you want to start writing blog articles too? If you are looking for inspiration on how to reduce food waste in your home or to find interesting articles, check out all the great articles on https://www.reducefoodwasteaward.eu/ and when you have food that will go bad soon, remember, what would your grandmother have done?
What is STREFOWA?
STREFOWA, an EU funded project in Central Europe aimed to identify strategies to reduce and manage food waste, is giving visibility to the best European blog articles which help to reduce food waste.
http://www.interreg-central.eu/Content.Node/STREFOWA.html“Everyone is talking about food waste and so are bloggers. But where can you find them?“
