Disco what? It might sound bizarre, but ‘Disco Soup’ is a simple idea, a happy mix of bopping and chopping, ending up with a mug of hot soup made from surplus vegetables that would otherwise have gone to waste – a win win!
Last November Cottenham Primary School, with support from Sustainable Cottenham and Cambridge Sustainable Food, ran a fun day with a serious message for the whole of Year 6 – over 70 pupils in all. Leaving their usual classrooms for a kitchen-cum-dancefloor, they all helped prepare the soup while learning about the eyewatering quantities of food thrown away every day – mountains of bread, lakes of milk – food waste that adds a lot to the harmful emissions feeding climate change*.
Ken, aged 11, reports on his day: “We learnt about food waste and seasonality of foods – what foods are ripe during different seasons. We decorated paper plates with how not to waste food. My tip was to use old bananas to make banana bread. We made soup out of onion and broccoli. We used all of the broccoli, the flower and the stalk. We don’t usually use the stalk at home so that’s something my family could do. I really enjoyed it.”
The event was part of Sustainable Cottenham’s Eco Eats project, delivered in partnership with Cambridge Sustainable Food and funded through South Cambs District Council Zero Carbon Communities. A big thank you to CPS for their commitment to the project and brilliant organisation on the day.
* ‘Globally, around one third of all food produced for human consumption is wasted. UK households throw away 4.5 million tonnes of edible food each year. 25% of this wasted food is due to cooking, preparing or serving too much.’ WRAP Love Food Hate Waste
‘When food breaks down at landfill sites, it releases harmful greenhouse gases like methane into the atmosphere. Approximately 8-10% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions relate to food waste. If food waste were a country, it would be the third biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, behind the US and China.’ Energy Saving Trust