Taste the waste

A topic that really bothers me is the waste of food and how food is made today. Lots of times I ask myself: 'Why do we throw away so much food? And how can we stop this kind of waste?'

The way we eat has changed more in the last 50 years than in the previous 10,000. Today even more than half the food lands on the dump. The food we throw away in Europe would be enough to feed all the hungry people in the world two times over.

Another issue is that the food industry doesn’t want us to know where the food comes from because if we knew we wouldn’t eat it anymore. The companies don’t want farmers talking. You always hear farmer this, farmer that, but it’s really just a few big companies that are controlling the food.

For this reason I always try to eat all the food I bought, I really hate it when something has gone off and I need to throw it away. That’s why I’ll explain you the probably easiest recipe because all I did was using the food I found in my fridge. In my case that was not more than three courgettes, a spring onion, some tomatoes and carrots. If you mix that with noodles you already got a tasty meal.

1.       Boil some water for the pasta.

2.       In the meanwhile chop all the vegetables up into little pieces and stir-fry everything in a pot.

3.        Add a bit of tomato sauce to the vegetables and let it simmer a little bit.

4.       If you want to spice up the sauce and the veggies make sure you sprinkle some chopped herbs over it.

5.       Once the pasta is ready, drain off all the water. Now mix it with the sauce and the vegetables. If you prefer to eat pasta with parmesan cheese then  of course you can grate a bit of it over the top.

6.     Et voilá - it's ready! :-)

     

Obviously it’s not a very extravagant dish but it’s yummy, filling, inexpensive and not time-consuming. Plus - as I mentioned before - you can try it with any vegetable you like.


If you are also interested in how the food supply system in the USA works I definitely recommend this video:

Hi, it's me!

Dear fellow students! (:

As required, I am going to give you a glimpse into my life.

My name is Mirjam Urach and I come from a small, rural village in Carinthia. As I have lived there for all my life, I am enjoying life in the city all the more.  It was quite a positive change of scenery to move to Graz, I have to say. Last fall I began to study English and Spanish in Graz and I believe it was the best decision I could have made.

Two hobbies of mine I want to mention are music and reading. Music is a great part of my family, so it has always been in my life. I enjoy singing in a choir and playing the piano. In my childhood, I was pretty crazy about nearly all the flutes available. In secondary school I took guitar lessons, but if you would ask me now to play something, I could not. Therefore, I plan on picking up that instrument again at some point in the future. So, it's just the piano right now. Of course, I also love listening to music. As I mentioned, reading is another passion of mine. I believe it's important not to just read one particular genre. Right now, I am working my way through a pile of books from my aunt. They are mainly about the Dalai Lama and Tibet, which I think is a very interesting topic.

In search of something in my room to show you, that card I got in a restaurant caught my eye. The fun thing is that only today I became aware of the fact that the text on it is kind of my motto. Keep calm and eat pasta! As I am too nervous and worried about things in general, I often tell myself to just keep calm. Keep calm and look on the bright side. Also be more relaxed and most importantly enjoy life, do things which make you happy and be with people who make you happy. The second part is “eat pasta” and to that I can say that I am a vegetarian who loves eating everything related to pasta. Over the years, I have gained more insight into how bad the massive meat consumption is for humans, animals and the environment. So I am glad to have abandoned my animal eating self years ago and I can only tell you to follow Barilla's advice. Eat pasta. It tastes better anyway! (;

So, that was it from my part.

Bye! :D