Food
(ELTE Radnóti Miklós)
The meeting in ELTE Radnóti, Budapest took place between the 19th and 23rd of September. During this week both students and teacher participated in various activities which aimed at raising awareness about the impact of the diet we have and food waste on the environment and explored ways of making food consumption more sustainable. Visiting sights was also included in the program.
Here is the list of activities which concerned the topic of food and the environment.
Presentation on phone applications
One way to fight food waste is to reduce the food that is not bought buy customers. Shops, cafes, and restaurants normally have superfluous food at the end of the day. This food is still suitable for consumption and should not be thrown away. The Hungarian start up company “Munch” is working on reducing this waste by connecting consumers with shops with the help of a phone application. The food you can buy here in the application is “pot luck” which means that you do not know what exactly you will get, this also emphasizes the fact that much food is wasted because we are used to having so much choice and an abundance of products.
Workshop in Szentendre
During the workshop students and teachers could try what breadmaking was like before food making became industrialized. They learnt about how the ingredients were prepared and they could bake and taste a traditional bread roll. The workshop took place in the Hungarian Museum of Folk Architecture and the bread was made with traditional kitchen utensils and bake in a traditional fireplace.
Community garden in Budapest
Community gardens are becoming more and more popular as people enjoy growing their own food even in bigger cities. Unfortunately, there is limited space for such gardens, but we can grow food even in an apartment on the 5th floor. In the community garden in the 14th district we took part in two workshops that explained ways of growing food in a jar or a pot. In one workshop we prepared glass jars for growing mushrooms in the other one we learnt about growing microgreens. The workshops were presented by Capsule Farm.
Vertical plant growing
As more food is needed for a growing number of people it is important to find ways of producing food in small spaces. One solution for saving space is vertical farming where plants are produced in a small area. Such farms have artificial conditions for growing food, but this also means that they do not use pesticides and can save water as they are in a closed space.
