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On International Day for Awareness of Food Loss and Waste, the Minister of Social Development and Family, Karla Rubilar, visited the Food Bank of the Lo Valledor market, an instance in which together with Choose Living Healthy they presented a guide with practical recommendations for decrease food loss at home.
During the tour, Minister Rubilar highlighted the role of the Food Bank, a place that is responsible for recovering fruits and vegetables that are not marketed for different reasons, but they still maintain their nutritional value.
These products are subsequently delivered free of charge to foundations, homes and institutions that serve more than 20,000 vulnerable people in the Metropolitan region.
Rubilar commented that “when one talks about food waste, one talks about a third of the food produced in the world being lost and we are talking about the same reality in Chile”.
The Secretary of State explained that in the country 3.7 billion kilos of food are lost annually. “If we could make citizens understand, we would be talking about almost 1,500 Olympic swimming pools full of food that we would be losing,” he exemplified.
In the activity, Minister Rubilar also provided figures from the Covid-19 Social Survey, where she revealed that one in five households in the country (19.4%) has food insecurity moderate to severe in the last month, while 2.2% face a situation of severe food insecurity.
In that sense, he pointed out that “when we are in a pandemic, where we are food insecure, which is that citizens cannot access food safely and can go hungry, they can spend days when they cannot feed themselves, where we see a percentage of households with women heads of households who have a suspended contract or are unemployed, this cannot continue to happen ”.
That is why he said that he is working with the Executive Secretariat of Choose Vivir Sano, with the University of Santiago and Lo Valledor, in recommendations to avoid food waste at home.
For his part, the Undersecretary of Agriculture, José Ignacio Pinochet, lamented that “one in every 50 people in Chile” is suffering severe food insecurity. “
“That is why we are highlighting an initiative as important as that of the Lo Valledor Food Bank and presenting the guide so that everyone in Chile can collaborate by reducing the amount of food we lose,” he added.
Guide to avoid food waste
This Tuesday, a guide with recommendations to avoid food waste at home, document that was prepared with the support of the Lo Valledor Food Bank Foundation and the Center for Studies in Food Science and Technology of the University of Santiago, following the guidelines of the FAO and other institutions.
In this regard, the executive secretary of Elija Vivir Sano, Daniela Godoy, called on the public to review the guide, specifying that “it has tips for planning purchases, for store and make fruits and vegetables last longer at home, to preserve and freeze other foods such as meats and some ideas of preparations with those foods that we usually throw away, but that can be used, such as beet leaves ”.
Likewise, Godoy added “these simple tips serve to support families in their diet and in their pockets, since they allow us to save and, incidentally, take care of the environment with small actions.”
The guide is available in print and digital version to download here and includes more than 80 tips for planning food purchases, how to store fruits and vegetables, how to preserve and freeze food, as well as ideas to take advantage of foods that are generally thrown away due to lack of knowledge.
Check out the guide below:
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