WHEN it comes to starting a food revolution in Malaysia, there’s really no better place than with our culinary arts students.
And that’s why on Earth Day a couple of weeks back, a very unique cooking competition was held among the young people studying at KDU University College’s School of Hospitality, Tourism and Culinary Arts – to encourage them to reduce wastage in the food industry.
Organised by KDU and corporate training consultancy DJungle People, the competition saw culinary arts students rushing to prepare dishes using ingredients that are often discarded in kitchens – chicken feet, liver, gizzards, wilted vegetables and so on.
Kam giving the contestants a motivational talk before the cook-out began, telling them how their efforts could make a huge difference in the campaign against food wastage.
And guess who had to taste all 20 dishes? Our very own BRATs lead trainer and R.AGE editor Ian Yee. He swore he has never had that much liver his whole life.
The other judges, KDUUC senior lecturer Chef Mohd Noor Izam and Chef Shairi Jirwan (who owns El Libre, an online food business selling Asian-inspired burritos, and who also happens to be a BRAT =P), were much better prepared for the task. They scored the aspiring chefs not only on their technique and prepared dishes, but also how little ingredients they wasted.
Izam said the ingredients were all recycled leftovers from the school’s culinary arts exams a week before.
“We didn’t have to buy any ingredients for this at all,” he said. “And yet the students did so well! I was very impressed. I didn’t think they would be able to produce such good dishes in so little time (there was a one-hour deadline).”
The winning team – (from left) Wong Kean Pong, Maw Kaw Hong and Lim Zhi Han – received a cash prize as well as a free stay at the Eight Acres resort in Raub, Pahang.
According to a 2011 study by the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations, an estimated 1.3 billion tonnes of food produced for human consumption is wasted every year.
That, in turn, has a huge impact on the environment. The carbon footprint created by food wastage is equivalent to 3.3 billion tonnes of CO2 being released into the atmosphere every year, and over 1.4 billion hectares of land (28% of the world’s agricultural area) is being used to produce food that is wasted (statistics from FAO.org).
“It’s time all of us in the corporate sector do something about it, or at least remind people what Earth Day is all about,” said DJungle CEO John Kam.
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