Food for thought

Food for thought

Som tam is a staple that I eat almost every day, but always skipping the tomato and long bean that end up in the restaurant's bin. The other day, I started drinking soya milk -- it was too sweet. The remaining amount was discarded in the kitchen sink. I often have to throw away rotten carrots and other vegetables as well as unconsumed kub khao in plastic bags. Those ready-to-eat foods became expired items in the fridge.

These bad habits are exhibited in video clips from the "New Generation Without Food Waste" campaign initiated by CPRAM and the Media Arts department of King Mongkut's University of Technology Thonburi (KMUTT).

Tomorrow afternoon, CPRAM and KMUTT will be holding a talk on the food-waste crisis as well as launching the second video clip contest at True Digital Park near BTS Punnawithi Station.

The winner of the first contest was a team from Patumwan Demonstration School Srinakharinwirot University. Their "Eat Time Trash" video depicts the increasing degree of food wasted through the ages, from the Stone Age to the present day.

The 2019 scene presents how nowadays people can easily call for a food delivery. Likewise they can easily throw it away when unsatisfied with the order. It portrays a student, who wouldn't eat a sandwich because it doesn't look like its picture that he shows his schoolmate, from a smartphone.

The other winner was a team from KMUTT, whose video features a university student refusing to eat her favourite fare because she has recently broken up with her boyfriend. The gloomy girl asks her roommate to put the food in the fridge, where a two-month old piece of cake hasn't been consumed yet. She then suggests throwing away leftovers.

This upsets the other student, who raises the immensity of the problem if Thailand's population of 69.04 million have a habit of wasting food. The environmental impact includes global warming from methane, a greenhouse gas released by food decomposing in landfills. The video also whimsically shows the global economic loss from food waste could be used to buy 3,937 VIP tickets for a Blackpink concert.

The ongoing "New Generation Without Food Waste" campaign raises awareness of the local and global crisis.

Four years ago, the government in collaboration with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) launched the national Save Food Campaign, which was the first of its kind in the Asean region, to address food loss and food waste in Thailand.

The FAO defines food loss as a loss in the production, post-harvest and processing procedures. Food waste refers to ready-to-eat meals or products that are left over because they cannot be finished or are considered unsuitable for consumption.

According to the Think.Eat.Save website operated by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), an FAO study reveals that worldwide about one third of all food production gets lost or wasted in the food production and consumption systems, amounting to 1.3 billion tonnes.

In industrialised nations, retailers and consumers discard around 300 million tonnes that is fit for consumption. One-third of all unused food in developed countries is wasted by households.

Under the Save Food Initiative, the Think.Eat.Save website calls for global action in reducing foodprint.

Thais currently generate about 1.14kg of waste per person per day while 64% of the waste is food, which was a concern for participants of the "Towards SDG 12.3 Food Loss And Waste" workshop organised by the Pollution Control Department in collaboration with GIZ and other partners, held in October last year at The Sukosol Bangkok.

The SDG 12.3 is one of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which is a part of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development launched in September 2015 by the United Nations General Assembly.

By 2030, the SDG 12.3 target aims to halve per capita global food waste at the retail and consumer levels and reduce food losses along production and supply chains. Achieving the long-term goal is driven by sustainable production and consumption.

The Thai phrase kin ting kin kwang -- which refers to people who always throw away food -- has become even more relevant today, and we all need to change bad habits and be on board in reducing our environmental foodprint.


Kanokporn Chanasongkram is a feature writer for the Life section of the Bangkok Post.

Kanokporn Chanasongkram

Feature writer

Kanokporn Chanasongkram is a feature writer for the Life section of the Bangkok Post.

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