'Upcycled' dinner in Guelph to show recipe for reducing food waste

A free community dinner is being offered in Guelph on Sunday and it will featurefood people might normally throw away, like stale bread, bruised produce and products nearing the end of their shelf life.

John Dennis is helping co-ordinate the meal. He's also chair of the Living Better on Less program, which is run by the Church of the Apostles.

"We thought, 'Hey, let's call it the garbage dinner,' but that didn't seem that appealing," Dennis said with a bit of a laugh when asked about the idea for the free community meal.

People involved with the Living Better on Less program are working with the city as part of waste reduction week, which runs Oct. 21 to 27.

"One of the biggest areas that we, in general, need to tackle is how much food waste is generated. And one of the reasons that people generate a lot of food waste is how they plan their meals and also how they deal with the food they purchase," Dennis said.

People often buy more than they need, perhaps because sales offer more produce than a person needs, and much of that food goes in the garbage, Dennis said.

A study by University of Guelph researcher Michael von Massow looked at the amount of food being thrown out by study participants in Guelph. He found that each household tossed more than 2.5 kilograms of food each week, which cost them approximately $18.Disposing this amount of foodgenerated 23 kilograms of greenhouse gases.

In the study, published in the journal Frontiers in Nutrition,von Massow said educating shoppers about wasteful behaviours could help address the issue as well as targeting stores for promotions, discounts and packaging that encourages buying more than a person needs.

Repurpose leftovers into a new meal

The idea for the meal is also inspired by the free PDF cookbook Rock What You've Got: Recipes for Preventing Food Waste released by the researchers doing the Guelph Family Health Study, which is being conducted at the University of Guelph.

"So you have a fruit, an apple it may not be perfect looking, but it is awesome to eat," Dennis said.

"The apple has a couple of spots, maybe has a little bruise on it, but you can turn that into beautiful apple pie or into an apple crumble or some sort of apple dessert."

Food for the meal is being donated by Hope House, the Ignatius community shared agriculture, Two Rivers Community Market and the Seed, a partnership with Food Rescue.

The idea behind each dish will be that it can be repurposed to make another meal.

For example, Dennis said people will enjoy food like roasted chicken and peppers which can be later turned into sandwiches, a sausage and cabbage skillet which can also be made into a frittata, as well as sweet potatoes with shallots where leftovers can be made into soup.

The dinner runs Sunday from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. at The Church of The Apostles at 86 Glasgow St. N. in Guelph. It is free, but people are welcome to give a donation. People are asked to RSVP for the meal. More details are on a Facebook event page.