FoodWise is a national campaign that's organised by the action group Do Something!. The aim of our campaign is to get Australians to reduce the environmental impact of their food consumption. In short, we want people to become FoodWise.

Like most Australians, we love our food. Actually adore is a better word. We're passionate about it. But we're not so keen on the amount of food that we throw out. Indeed, our initiative began after I found that Australians waste milions of tonnes of food every year.

Initially, the FoodWise campaign focused on getting people to reduce their food waste. However, our recent research shows that many people are unaware of the 'paddock to plate' environmental impact of food. In order to change that situation, we've expanded our campaign to help people reduce this impact (you can see our full list of aims here). Simply put, we want Australians to become more educated and informed about the food that they buy or grow.

As Kylie Kwong points out in her FoodWise viewpoint, there seems to be a real disconnect between the food we buy and the impact that it has on the environment when we throw it away. People no longer get that when you throw out food, you're also throwing out all of the resources, fuel and energy that were used to get that food to your plate. This lack of knowledge about the wider impact of food, is one of the reasons why we waste so much of it.

Our campaign partners and content contributors include The Food Safety Information Council, Growcom, Biological Farmers of Australia and the major food charities OzHarvest, Fareshare, Second Bite and Foodbank. It's a formidable alliance to tackle a formidable problem.

All too often, we're buying food that is out of season and grown far away from where we live. Many of us have forgotten how to compost or grow food at home. We buy processed foods, even though fresh food is better for us and can save us money. On the issue of food safety, many of us lack even the most basic knowledge with many people unable to differentiate between 'best before' and 'use-by' dates.

And when it comes to buying, storing, freezing, refrigerating and reusing our food, we've lost many of the basic skills that our Grandparents had - skills that helped them to make the very most of the food that they grew or bought.

The 4 million tonnes of food waste Australians are throwing out every year is equivalent to 178kg of food waste for each Australian. We've now reached the point where we are spending $7.8 billion a year on food that we buy but don't eat.

That's a significant proportion of the food we take home. In a comparable Western economy, the UK, the government's Waste Resources Action programme (WRAP) estimates that a 1/3 of the food bought is wasted. Stopping this waste would be the equivalent of taking 1 in 5 cars off British roads. According to official figures, food production, distribution and storage is responsible for 20% of the UK's greenhouse gas emissions.

Given the cost of today's food, our level of food waste is clearly not sustainable for the family budget. That's why we're strong advocates for the simple shopping list - it helps to make us more careful about what food we buy.

Going beyond the financial cost of food waste, our wasteful habits are simply not sustainable for the environment. When food waste rots in landfill it produces methane, a greenhouse gas that's 25 times more potent than the CO2 pouring out of your car's exhaust. When we throw away food, we also waste all of the resources, fuel and energy that were used to get that food from the paddock to our plate.

That's why this web site is so full of tips and solutions. Despite the popularity of cooking shows, there is still a poor understanding among Australians of how to purchase, prepare, store and freeze food, and how to effectively use our leftovers. Our FoodWise campaign aims to change that. That's why you'll find a new recipe section that will help you to use up your leftover ingredients. We're also enabling the public to post their own leftover recipes so that they can share their food knowledge with others.

If you have any ideas on how the campaign can be improved, or have tips that you think should be on the site, please get in touch. Thousands of Australians have already joined the FoodWise community of people who love and celebrate food. We'd very much like for you to join us too.

Wasted food is a waste of money. But if we don't mend our wasteful ways, we'll be eating ourselves out of an environment that can sustainably support future generations. We simply can't afford for that to happen. That's why we need you to join our campaign. We need to make a real difference - we all need to become FoodWise.

Jon Dee

Founder, Do Something!

Please get on board by signing up in the 'Join the Campaign' panel on the right to receive our updates and news. You can also use the 'Tell a Friend' function below that panel to spread the word.

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