Scranton Women's Leadership Center

In Indonesia, environmental issues are aspects that still need to be resolved together. One of the closest aspects to our daily lifestyle is food. According to a study from the Economist Intelligence Unit, Indonesia is the world's second largest food waster, binning almost 300 kilograms of food per person for each year. This problem is particularly sensitive in countries such as Indonesia, where millions of people still suffer from malnutrition and poverty. Throwing away food is called food waste, referring to food waste that is ready for consumption and meets balanced nutrition but is simply wasted.

In addition to food waste (food waste and food loss), Indonesia is also still at war with malnutrition that still exists in the midst of society. According to the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), until 2020 alone the number of Indonesian children who are victims of malnutrition is more than two million people, and this number could continue to increase with the family economic crisis due to the pandemic so that parents can no longer provide nutritious food to their children.

One of the factors in the occurrence of food waste is influenced by the existence of wasteful people's food consumption patterns. The increasing condition of food waste is also influenced by the emergence of various entertainment content on social media that makes something with excessive food ingredients. For example, a Tik Tok content creator named @wasildaoud, he intentionally creates content that shows himself making food by using excessive ingredients and is done by throwing it away without any consideration.

In addition, recently there is a new trend called Mukbang has emerged from content creators from South Korea, where Mukbang itself is an activity where a content creator shows himself eating a large portion of food and it is not uncommon for the food to be served is an extreme food (say very spicy). So it is not uncommon for these foods to end up being wasted because they are not consumed by the content creator.

However, the Mukbang's lifestyle eventually became a genre of its own in the realm of food content, with many other creators outside of South Korea starting to create similar content. In Indonesia itself, the trend of Mukbang which was initially only digital media consumption has finally succeeded in touching the national television screen, such as an event that was aired on Sunday, July 7th 2019, where a TV company, ANTV presented a new culinary program Mukbang hosted by a Chef Ragil where the concept of this event program presents a food cooking competition with very large portions.

The question is where does the leftover food that is so plentiful on the table go? Do humans eat them all? Or perhaps more accurately, does the human body need to devour that much food at one time? What happens now is that there are no limits to proper content creation. The content creators seem to be hiding behind the label "creativity" as a justification for the events they make. Mukbang is a glorification of wasting food activities. Therefore, there must be a strong awareness from the creators to be able to present events that are more responsible and encourage good initiatives.

This Mukbang's lifestyle must be changed with a new trend that is not only beneficial for our bodies but can also save our earth, namely by doing the zero food waste movement. The zero food water movement is a lifestyle that applies the concept of reuse on products or food to prevent the food from being wasted in landfills, or even the sea. Food waste itself is divided into 3 categories based on probability, the first is food waste that can be avoided as in the case of Mukbang, the food should still be able to be selected but due to human negligence. Then proceed with the rest of the food that should be avoided, namely the leftovers that can be consumed by some people, such as the edges of the bread, potato skins, vegetable sticks. Then the last one is food waste that cannot be avoided, such as bones, eggshells, fruit skins. A movement that looks simple can actually fulfill 5 SDGs values, namely SDGs No. 11 for sustainable cities and communities, SDGs No. 12 Responsible consumption responsibility and production, SDGs. No. 3 Health and Welfare, SDGs No. 6 Clean Water and Sanitation and SDGs No. 14 Underwater Life.

Then what project can be implemented in preventing food waste itself? I have made a project that can be done by all of us very easily. The project that I made is using cassava peels because cassava peels often are thrown away for nothing, even though cassava peels can still be used as food dishes.

The first thing we need to prepare is the cassava peel, then grab the cassava peel into a boiling pot of water to remove the sap that sticks to the cassava peel. After that, slice the cassava skin into thins slices, when finished add the spices to the pan according to taste, and mix them with the thinly sliced cassava skin, stir until cooked. Cassava peel is ready to be served.

Utilization of cassava peels waste as a food product shows that simple things such as using foods that we initially thought were dregs, however, if the dregs are processed properly then a useful new product is created that can reduce food waste and this trend is to be expected will become a hot trend in the future beat the current Mukbang trend. By utilization food waste we are also saving money, helping to feed the world, and also protecting our beloved planet.

Life runs on food, so show your respect!