4 Simple Tips to Help Reduce Food Waste During Raya (Eid) Season

HARI RAYA 2018 is ALMOST HERE!

Hari Raya (Eid al-fitr) is getting near and Muslims all over the country has started their journey back to their home towns to gather with their family members for the celebration.

It is indeed a joyous time of the year for Muslims all over the world. After a month long fasting, it is time to celebrate. It is also a time for us to be thankful for everything that we have achieved in life, no matter how big or how small.

In continuation of the spirit of Ramadan, we thought it would be a good idea to remind ourselves and everyone to enjoy responsibly and particularly, avoid wasting food.

Sometimes, in the heat of celebration, we tend to let loose and let it all out. Let’s, for a change, stop overindulging ourselves and try to keep the celebration within control.

It is a fact that food wastage tends to increase during the festive seasons. According to a research conducted by Solid Waste and Public Cleansing Management Corporation (SWCorp), food waste rises about 15 to 20% during festive seasons.

So, we would like to share just a few simple tips to help you and I reduce the food waste.

1. Cook Just Enough Food

Cook food that is just enough for your guest. Cooking too much food often leads to wastage.

Have a rough estimate of how many guests you are expecting and plan your meals accordingly.

However, if you do have excess food, you can straight away give it to your guest when they are about to leave. Always keep some food containers handy for this situation.

Bonus Tip: You could also quickly refrigerate or keep them frozen. Refrigerated food can be keep up to 2 weeks while frozen food can be safely kept for 3 months.

2. Share Your Leftovers

If you have leftovers, consider sharing the food with your neighbours or with those who needs it the most. This is a good way to help reduce food wastage.

Remember that there are others who struggles to make enough money to buy food for their family.

Instead of throwing away leftovers, donate to them and make them happy during this festive season.

Apart from being rewarded with your good deed, you will also create a sense of happiness in your heart knowing that you’ve done something good for others.

3. Avoid Piling Up Plate

Tip number 2, avoid piling up your plate. We’ve all done this (come on, be honest now).

We would stuff everything onto our plate until sometimes, we can’t even see the rice anymore. All the chicken, fish, vegetables, fruits and many more side dishes are covering it!

Be modest and take the food in small batches. Finish what you can first before adding more food.

Often times, stuffing you plate with everything results in overeating anyways. Do you really want to gain back the weight that you just lost?

Sometimes, we also tend to not finish the food that take. It is even more likely to happen if we stuff everything on our plate.

Once you do that and can’t finish, you can’t really give the food to anyone else or keep it in a way that is safe anymore.

4. Turn Food Waste into Compost

Another way for you to avoid food wastage is to turn the waste into compost. This is a good way of repurposing waste into something useful.

Instead of it going to landfills, the compost you make can become a source of nutrients for the soil. You can then either use it at your own garden or give it to people who can use it.

You can learn everything you need to know about composting here.

Conclusion

There you have it, some simple tips to help you reduce food wastage during this festive Eid season.

Let us all take part and help reduce food wastage so that we can contribute to the environment as well as to the humanitarian causes.

Selamat Hari Raya Maaf Zahir Batin from all of us at Slurp!

If you are a restaurant owner, read our blog post on how to market your restaurant during the festive season.