February – Reducing Food Waste

There are so many issues related to climate change and creation care. You’ve assembled your team and are ready to start introducing these ideas to your community. Reducing food waste is a great place to begin, and it is one of the top three actions we can take to address climate change and at the same time we increase food security.  

Food helps define our communal life. What we eat as a community has ritual significance both in worship and outside of worship. For Christians, we share the bread and the wine as a remembrance or re-creation of Jesus’ last meal with his disciples. We share food in times of fellowship to deepen our connection with one another, at sharing potlucks, spaghetti dinners, sharing soup (or pizza at Church of Nativity), in church or in one another’s homes.

Our very beginnings as God’s people emphasize the stewardship we have been given over the earth that provides all our needs. Perhaps our stewardship might include some care and thought around how much we need, and how we are intentional about not wasting our excess. An example of this might be weighing all the leftover food after a potluck or fellowship event, calculating the cost of the leftover food that would go into the trash, and making a similar financial contribution to an organization that addresses food insecurity in your local community.

Communal meals are a place for hospitality, and a place for us to share with one another our gifts to feed and nourish one another. It is very tempting to load up our plates! How much uneaten food do we find on our plates at the end of the meal, and where does that food go? There is something about faith and trust that God will provide for our needs and that our hospitality can be enough and need not be so abundance that only seeks to impress. There is rich spiritual food about values around food, hospitality, and abundance that might be explored.

“Faith communities can help individuals understand that change is possible – Faith Communities can model change, teach change, demystify change, make it more accessible. Buying and cooking only what you need, avoiding waste and spoilage is good stewardship and good economics!”  -Dr.  Kathy Shea, Moravian Environmental Stewardship Conference, 2013.