Opinion

Food for Thought – Literally

Macau, the Creative City of Gastronomy that it is, recently hosted the Michelin Guide Hong Kong and Macau 2024 ceremony, filling the culinary scene with bliss and surprises. But it has often been noted that there is a price to pay for fine dining experiences: food waste.

Four years ago, the Michelin Guide introduced its Green Star, awarded to restaurants championing sustainable practices, which has, noticeably, brought much more attention and thoughtfulness to supporting sustainable practices in kitchens.

Roganic, the One Michelin-star restaurant under British Chef Simon Rogan, retained its one of only four Green Stars within the Hong Kong market this year. While the London-based brigade receives fresh produce from Rogan’s 12-acre farm in the Cartmel Valley, its Hong Kong team also sources heavily within the locale and meticulously incorporates the ingredients into its British-themed tasting menus. It has got to be challenging, though taking avid action for a sustainable future is important to the industry as a whole.

I’ve always been told that it is almost impossible to operate a fine dining outlet and be sustainable at the same time. It is a relief to see that many restaurants and acclaimed chefs are making a positive change to show the dining world that it can become a reality.

Something that I have personally been opposed to since my college days are buffets and all-you-can-eat restaurants. Don’t get me wrong; I was beyond ecstatic when I first landed in Los Angeles and discovered eateries such as Sizzler’s, Souplantation, KBBQ joints and more. One of our Spring Break rituals was to enjoy a luxury buffet at one of the resorts in Las Vegas among other college-student activities.

The last time I was at the M Buffet (in 2007), while getting my hands dirty with a plateful of Snow Crab Legs, I just asked the table out of the blue, “How is it possible that there are so many crabs to fill all the buffets, regular restaurants, and supermarkets in the whole world?”  Then the giant TV screen across from my seat shifted to an infomercial on the Food Network, showing starving children in Africa. It was then that I started to stay away from buffets because I began to notice the horrifying amount of food waste from every table, at every buffet line; and that was just one restaurant in the one of the smaller-sized properties in the U.S.

Fast forward two decades later and it is estimated that 2.5 billion tons of food is wasted each year, which is approximately one-third of the total production. Around 3.1 million people in the world lack access to a healthy diet, which indicates “a widespread issue of food insecurity and inadequate nutrition, posing significant challenges to the health and well-being of these people,” the UN Chronicle states.

According to the U.S.Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the global population is expected to increase by 2.2 billion by 2050, which means farms will have to grow roughly 70% more food than what is now produced.

I’ve always told my friends that one of the key reasons for my hesitation in having children (aside from the fact that I just can’t find an eligible gentleman around) is that, I don’t want to bring a life into our world and have it end up fighting battles over access to subpar, lab-engineered, 3D-printed food in about 50 years’ time.

Some tell me I’m being pessimistic, but the past five years have definitely taught me that nothing is impossible anymore, and just when we thought that world events could not be any more incomprehensible, well just keep reading the news!

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By Juliana Kung

Local Member of Chaîne des Rotisseurs Disciples Escoffier International Wine Society Macau

Instagram: @julesbites

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