Making the Most of Your Food: Lessons on food waste from Karamoja, Uganda
This article was written by a guest contributor, Tara Hammonds. Read about Tara here.
It’s been about nine years since I started to really reflect on the implications of what I was eating. In the past nine years I’ve worked on a dairy farm, designed 4-H education curricula for kids around environmental consciousness, read a LOT about food and farming, and earned a BS and MPS in International Agriculture and Rural Development. But, more than any of this, what has really given me significant (and sometimes unpopular) insight into the sphere of food, farming, and sustainability has been immersing myself in unique agricultural and culinary practices that one can only experience when engaging with a culture with radically different mindsets, resources, and values.
As an avid learner, traveler, and live-abroad-er, I’m always striving to pass on what I have learned from other cultures about food, farming, and the environment to any socially and environmentally conscious consumer.
I live in Uganda, a place where, for the majority of people, environmental consciousness is not typically an active choice, but rather, a necessity and instinctive behavior. Organic farming, for example, is the predominant method of farming here, because it is the traditional way of doing things, and because farmers often cannot afford synthetic fertilizers or pesticides. Additionally, food waste – the focus of this article – is largely unheard of.
Since the beginning of my time here, I had been eager to visit the Karamoja region of northern Uganda. Much more so than the rest of Uganda, Karamoja has maintained many of its cultural traditions, and generally lags behind the rest of the country in terms of development and agricultural commercialization—but it is where I found the most efficient and sustainable method of food production and consumption I have seen since I’ve been here. The Karamojong are traditionally pastoralists, so while you may find the occasional plot of maize or sorghum around the hills of Karamoja, the vast majority of Karamojong livelihoods (and diets!) are heavily dependent on livestock. Coming from the United States, where eating red meat is considered one of the least sustainable dietary behaviors, a diet consisting primarily of cow, goat, and sheep meat (and by-products) might seem highly unsustainable to the conscious consumer.
This brings me to my main point. What is most important, even more so than what you eat, is how you eat. Yes, the Karamojong consume a lot of animal products, but they eat everything – nothing goes to waste. The pastoralists don’t actually even kill their livestock very often, since doing so depletes what is often their only asset base. Instead, they survive day-to-day by utilizing many of the livestock’s byproducts. For example, a common practice is tying off a cow’s vein, draining some of its blood, and then patching up the vein to keep the animal alive. They consume the blood along with fresh milk, and that constitutes a large part of their diet, making the most of every animal they raise and the resources that go into raising each animal. I know it may seem a little barbaric to Western ears, and I’m not arguing that this type of diet prioritizes animal welfare, but it certainly is a sustainable way to consume animals and animal byproducts.
Similarly, when they do choose to kill an animal for meat, they consume all of the meat (organs, heads… everything). I was once hiking Mount Moroto, the highest mountain in Karamoja, and at one point, we came across a campsite that had been used by a group of herders the night before. The embers from their campfire were still warm, and my Karamojong guide found a leftover goat head nearby, stuck it in the fire for several minutes, and proceeded to eat the entire thing.
The pastoralists don’t stop there. They also use the animal hides for blankets, the bones for jewelry and utensils, the list goes on. People tend to get grossed out when they hear that McDonalds chicken nuggets contain bone and organ bits, but I think it’s an interesting way to rethink how we make use of the entire animal.How cool is it that they’ve found a way for millions of consumers to eat byproducts that would otherwise be discarded? In a sense, it’s the commercialization of the Karamojong mindset.
Yes, animals produce methane. Yes, raising livestock can be resource intensive. But if you can offset that by cutting back on food system waste and increasing resource efficiency through what you eat, you can actually develop a pretty sustainable and responsible diet! By no means am I encouraging readers to switch to a meat-based diet. I’m not asking you to sustain yourselves solely on ruminant blood and milk, and I’m definitely not promoting the consumption of McDonald’s chicken nuggets! But I am asking: how can we as consumers improve the efficiency of our food system and make the most of the food that ends up on our plate? Below are some ideas, but I encourage you to be creative! Think about how your food is produced, what the affiliated byproducts might be, and how you might make the most of those byproducts.
When you choose to eat beef, try to source from a dairy farm (you can sometimes buy directly from the farm). That way, the resources used in raising a single cow contribute to both dairy and meat, instead of just one or the other, thereby improving food system efficiency. If you’re interested, Mindful Meats is one company doing exactly that! You get bonus points if you hunt down the cow’s bones to make jewelry.
Take a look at Ben’s recent article about buying and using whole chickens, as opposed to buying packages of breast meat or wings. This helps you use up all the meat and reduce plastic packaging used for each part.
You know those vegetable scraps that you usually toss? Peels, leaves, etc.? Save them and follow Hannah’s recipe for homemade vegetable broth!
Fruit scraps? Flavor your water! Fruit peels and wilted herbs are a great way to encourage you to get your daily dose of H2O. You can add them fresh or freeze them in ice cubes for later!
Eat the uglies! Don’t shun produce for odd colors or shapes. Misfits Market is an awesome service that delivers grocery store reject produce to your doorstep. Check out this article about the ugly produce movement if you want to learn more too!
This article was written by a guest contributor, Tara Hammonds. Read about Tara here.
Are you interested in writing a contributing article to continue this discussion? Or are you interested in writing about something else in the food industry? Contact Us at anytime with proposals, we’d love to hear from you!
