UAE: Repurpose meals, pack extra food; how residents reduce waste this month – News

Earlier this year, a step-by-step guide was published to reduce food waste in buffets, restaurants and cafeterias

For Ashik, a night security guard in Dubai, who is in his first Ramadan in Dubai, he worries about how to source Suhoor – the pre-dawn meal during Ramadan – while on duty. To his delight, however, a restaurant in the building where he worked offered to serve him the meal for free.

“We always have extra food because we have a steady stream of customers from Iftar to Suhoor,” says Ahmed Bilal, manager of the Arabian restaurant. “So we provided Suhoor meals to several security guards and cleaners who worked in nearby buildings. We have been doing this for over 10 years and by God’s grace, we have never had to throw away excess food or face food shortages.”

Encourage more UAE residents to share extra food with others this Ramadan. The National Food Loss and Waste Initiative, ne’ma, encourages the community to focus on food waste by sharing, donating and saving extra food, supporting the UAE’s vision to protect food resources for a sustainable future.

Mariam bint Mohammed Al Mheiri, the UAE’s climate change and environment minister, called on residents to do their part in her tweet on Tuesday, which was accompanied by a video.

“This Ramadan, let’s save food and share our blessings with those in need. Food waste reduction is your decision. Join me in reducing food waste and spreading joy,” she tweeted.

Earlier this year, the minister announced guidelines to gradually reduce food waste in buffets, restaurants and canteens. The blueprint is based on a successful pilot at two major hotel chains in the UAE, which helped achieve a food waste reduction of more than 40%.

For many residents of the UAE, Ramadan is a time when they carefully plan their meals to avoid waste. Emirati mother Umm Khalid says she has repurposed Iftar and Sohour. “When there’s leftover food, I always like to repurpose it,” she says. “For example, when I have leftover rotisserie chicken, I chop it up and use it as a sandwich filling in my young kids’ lunchboxes because they’re not fasting.”

ne’ma is a partnership between the Ministry of Climate Change and Environment, the UAE Foundation and the Crown Prince’s Court of Abu Dhabi to reduce food waste by 50% by 2030.

Faten, a Syrian resident, said she always shared extra food with the cleaners, janitors and delivery people in her building. “When there is extra food, I bring a plate of food and some snacks to the people who are on duty in the building during Eid and Ramadan,” she said. “They are usually happy to receive it because they brought it from the camp. Their food is usually cold when they eat it. So they always like to eat hot meals.”

Indian expatriate Zehra Khan carefully plans her meal prep to make sure nothing goes to waste. “The week before Ramadan, I was making a batch of snacks and I had to dip them in a couple of egg whites,” she said. “I saved the egg yolks and made them into custard the next day, which I used as a filling in a few dishes.”

Zehra also plans her grocery shopping accordingly. “For example, when I buy a lot of veggies to make a stir-fry or noodles, I also plan to make a mixed vegetable dish on the weekends and use up the rest of the veggies in the fridge,” she says.

“So I ended up either making pies or doing ‘pav bhaji’ to use up the veggies. This helped me reduce waste tremendously. I’ve been practicing this for years and I continue to do it [so] During Ramadan. “