Inspiring Climate Action Since 2009
Hello Tribe, last month Sustainability Tribe hosted a community awareness event about ‘sustainable food’ at Novotel world trade center Dubai on Friday, 18th October to celebrate ‘world food day’. Thank you to all of those participants from our Tribe, who joined our event!
The event is the October edition of Sustainability Tribe’s monthly social awareness campaigns focused on social and environmental sustainability. The aim of this event was to make UAE residents aware of different aspects of food and its impact on the environment, society as well as human health. And most importantly understanding what could be sustainable food options in the UAE.
During the public awareness talk, I shared how we all consumers can increase the demand for sustainable food to help sustainable food production, reduce world hunger, decrease adverse impacts of current food systems on the environment and the right selection of food required for our nourishment.
The first half of the talk focused on making our Tribe aware of the problems created by our current food systems and industrial food production. Some of those problems include Greenhouse gas emissions and contribution climate change, soil erosion, food security, farmer’s welfare, animal welfare, lifestyle diseases and why there is a need to focus on food sustainability. You can further read here the environmental and social aspects of food systems.
While explaining sustainable food, I also emphasized on how we need to consider at environmental, economic, social as well as cultural aspects and find a right food ingredient, based on the region we are located. Whenever I am speaking it could be a public awareness talk, training professionals for different subjects of sustainability or be it a speech at a conference I prefer giving real-life examples. Most of these examples first hand, with the aim of letting my audience not just be engaged in the topic but also to relate with the example. So I shared in my experience of reusing food waste for beauty care routine and re-growing food from scraps and finally composting food waste. As well as how to buy package-free food as part of her Zero- Waste, sustainable lifestyle.
It was lovely to see some enthusiastic vegan in our Tribe and audience on that day, they had a lot of questions. So I shared a few tips especially for vegans, about how to choose sustainable vegan food? For example, being Vegan is really great for the planet but if you tend to increase the demand for industrially made vegan food then you are actually not doing good for the planet, societies, or even your health. So stick to local, fresh, artisan vegan food to make it truly sustainable. For regular meat-eaters, start reducing your meat step by step over the period of time as it might not be difficult to stop eating meat overnight culturally. Meanwhile whenever you are eating meat, source it locally & sustainably made meat and ditch industrially made and processed meat, and try nose to tail cooking methods to reduce wastage.
When it comes to food, one of the important aspect is food waste. As part of our #ZeroWasteUAE Social Initiative, I explained a few ways to reduce food not just at home but even when eating outside. I am always keen on sharing my tried and tested hacks of reducing food waste like an empty fridge day.
To include all members of the family to understand the significance of food waste, we hosted the ‘Zero Food Waste Cooking Workshop’ in association with Novotel World Trade Center and their team did a great job at executing the idea.
The event was attended by a lot of families with kids as the main attraction for the kids was the ‘Zero Food Waste Cooking Workshop’. However, it was amazing to see all the kids sat through the public awareness talk, listening attentively. Older kids took notes in their notebooks and the younger ones were asking questions to their parents in between. Honestly, as a Sustainability Speaker, my favorite audience is students, our future generations; whenever I get invited to educational institutes, I get delighted at how intrigued these future citizens are about aspects of sustainability.
After the public awareness talk, Novotel WTC Sous Chef Vinay Sadanand, hosted a kids workshop to teach kids how to prepare ‘zero food waste’ snacks, to give a nod to Sustainability Tribe’s #ZeroWasteUAE social initiatives. Kids enjoyed making plant-based snacks under Novotel’s chef’s guidance.
The kids enjoyed making plant-based sandwiches that included healthy and delicious ingredients like quinoa, cucumber, and Feta cheese.
At each of our events, I love hosting homegrown sustainable businesses and make my Tribe aware of these locally available brands of sustainable alternatives. At a sustainable food event, we set-up a market-place by inviting brands like C&H, The Eco Loop, and Rootz Organics who supported the cause by showcasing their sustainable, bio-degradable, and organic products to the guests.
Our ‘Sustainable Food’ event was all about fun learning and was able to put smiles on many faces. While parents enjoyed getting some valuable insights about Sustainable Food and young culinary masters were delighted to make their own healthy & tasty snacks and eat them right after.
One of the fun elements at this event was our photo booth with props. Our Tribe loved taking fun photos at the photo booth. Particularly the kids were enjoying the photo booth where they took some lovely photos with stylish props to end the day in sustainable smiles.
Novotel World Trade Center Dubai supported Sustainability Tribe’s ‘Sustainable Food’ monthly campaign as part of their CSR commitments. They were no doubt lovely hosts and had a big share in making this event a huge success!
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Contact us, if you are a sustainable business and want to join our sustainable marketplace Or if you want me to come to your venue or office and hold events, workshops, sustainability talks & training.
Amruta Kshemkalyani, an expert sustainability professional turned social entrepreneur, is the founder of the Sustainability Tribe, AK Sustainability
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