In Canada, almost half of the food we waste occurs at a household level. To address this, Too Good To Go, a social impact company behind the world’s largest marketplace for surplus food, launched of a new-to-Canada initiative, called Look-Smell-Taste.

According to Too Good To Go research, 92 per cent of Canadians check best-before dates on foods before consuming them. Not consumed before the date is the second most frequent reason people throw away food at home. Forty per cent of Canadians toss past-dated items at least once per week, even though 50 per cent don’t understand what a best-before date means and how it differs from an expiration date.

Reducing food waste is the number one action you can take to help tackle climate change.  The UN Food Waste Index Report 2024 revealed that at least one billion meals are wasted by households globally, every single day.

It is the responsibility of a food business to ensure that the food provided to customers is safe to consume. Different types of date markings on packages are used depending on the product are: –

Best-Before Date.   States when the durable life period of the food ends. According to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, durable life means the anticipated amount of time that an unopened food product, when stored under appropriate conditions, will retain its freshness, taste, nutritional value, or any other qualities claimed by the manufacturer.  Failure to adhere to the guidelines for handling and storing a particular product will affect its quality by the best-before date. Remember that the best-before date no longer applies if a package is opened.

Packaging Date.  Displayed on retail-packaged foods with a durable life period of 90 days or less. The packaging date must be displayed in combination with the durable life period. The durable life period can either be a best-before date or the number of days that the product will retain its freshness.  The purpose of the packaging date, in combination with the durable life information, is to inform the user of how long the unopened product will retain freshness.

Expiry Date.  This is not the same as a best before date. These dates are required on certain foods that have specific nutritional compositions that could falter after the determined expiration date. In other words, after the expiration date has passed, the food may not have the nutrient content as described on the label.  Expiry dates are required for formulated liquid diets, foods sold by a pharmacist, meal replacements, nutritional supplements and infant formula.

There exists a popular misconception that the best before date signify expiry.  You can buy and eat foods after the best before date has passed. It may have lost some of its freshness, flavour and nutritional value, and its texture may have changed. Best before dates are not indicators of food safety. They apply to unopened products only. Once opened, the shelf life of a food may change.

Too Good To Go, since its launch in 2016 in Denmark, has helped to save over 330 million meals from going to waste, the equivalent to avoiding 891,000 tonnes of CO2, 267 billion litres of unnecessary water use and 924 million m2 of land use per year. With 95 million registered users and 160,000 active partners across 18 countries across Europe and North America, Too Good To Go operates the world’s largest marketplace for surplus food.

The Look-Smell-Taste label, an initiative by Too Good to Go, will be on the packaging of 15 different food brands found at the Canadian grocery stores to remind consumers they may still be able to enjoy their products past the best before date. Cracker Barrel, Epic Tofu, Greenhouse, Kopi Thyme and Ristorante are among the brands slated to begin brandishing the Look-Smell-Taste label.

For generations, people trusted their senses – mostly look, smell and taste – to tell if food was good to eat or not.  Some food items containing seeds, nuts, vegetable oils turn rancid and tastes and smells differently. This rancidity is due to oxidation of fat. Oxygen in the air attacks fat molecules and causes a series of chemical reactions that lead to the formation of new and decidedly smelly molecules. These reactions occur even more quickly in the presence of light and heat. The new molecules that form as oxidation occurs may lead to digestive issues. Rancid foods are also less nutritious because oxidation destroys the good fats and some of the vitamin content.

Our sense of smell in responsible for about 80% of what we taste. Without our sense of smell, our sense of taste is limited to only five distinct sensations: sweet, salty, sour, bitter and the newly discovered “umami” or savory sensation. All other flavours that we experience come from smell. This is why, when our nose is blocked, as by a cold, most foods seem bland or tasteless. Also, our sense of smell becomes stronger when we are hungry.

Researchers have found that when volunteers wore nose plugs, their sense of taste was less accurate and less intense than when they tasted the food without the nose plugs. Smell did appear to make a difference. However, nose plugs did not completely block all ability to taste. Because the nose and throat essentially share the same airway, chewing some foods allows aromas to get the nose through the back of the mouth even when the nostrils are closed.

Peonies are outrageously beautiful in bloom, with lush foliage. They bloom from late May through June in Toronto.

Peony is named after Paeon, a student of Asclepius, the Greek god of medicine and healing. They are also the 12th anniversary flower. The peony symbolises honour, fortune, and a happy relationship. It is the state flower of Indiana.

No wonder Marco Polo described Peonies, when he first saw them, as: Roses as big as Cabbages. Their stems are not strong enough to support the heavy blossoms, hence they need support. Peony cages are placed in spring around the plant as they grow.

Peonies – native to China – Chinese name for the peony is Sho Yu meaning Most Beautiful.

Peonies of three types grow in our garden- Tree Peonies, Herbaceous Peonies and Itoh peonies.

Herbaceous peonies (also known as bush peonies) die to the ground in Winter. They re-emerge in March, or when the snow melts. Many find that they are deer resistant, but not always. Peonies are long lived, minimal care plants.

Tree peonies with their woody stems that t defoliate in the fall, but the woody stems stay intact, above the ground. They tend to bloom earlier and with larger flowers than the bush peony.

Itoh or Intersectional peonies are a cross between the herbaceous (or bush) peony and the tree peony. These crosses have produced new, exciting colors. The plants have the lovely leaf form of the tree peonies, but die to the ground in the Winter.

Itoh Peonies derive its name from Japanese horticulturist, Dr. Toichi Itoh, who successfully created seven peony hybrids from a tree peony bred with an herbaceous peony. Dr. Itoh passed away before ever seeing his creations bloom. Years later, American horticulturist, Louis Smirnow bought some of these original Itoh peonies from Dr. Itoh’s widow and continued Itoh’s work.

Peonies come in yellow, red, pink, and white colours and there are neither blue nor black peonies. Peonies can live up to a hundred years.

The irony with peony flowers is that the flowers last only two weeks and if there is a shower, even lesser.

Any type of plant with blue flowers is always worth a closer look because the color blue is not always easy to find in any garden. Blue is a relatively rare colour in nature. This post is about the blue flowers in our garden that bloomed this spring.

Lungwort with its lung-like leaves, a kind of heart-shaped leaves are slightly hairy on the upper side and marked by several white or pale spots. Any plant whose name refers to a body part, it mostly resembles a human organ and was believed that the plant can be used to treat diseases on that organ. This is the case with the common lungwort, which modern science proved to be a mere myth.

In spring, the little blue flowers appear on elongated stems . Each inflorescence has 5 to 15 flowers with five petals. The flowers start red and as they age, they change color to purple and finally blue. This change in colour occurs because the pigments are affected by pH, being red in acidic environments and blue in alkaline ones.

Brunnera macrophylla ‘Jack Frost’ has hairy heart-shaped frosty silver leaves and sprays of blue flowers in spring.  

Bugloss comes from Greek meaning Ox Tongue with reference to the roughness and shape of the leaves.

The leaves are intricately detailed with narrow green veins.

Clematis native to China and Japan, the name Clematis comes from the Greek word klematis, meaning vine, is known as the queen of climbers.

Large double purple-blue flowers adorn our garden in late spring. With the summer setting in, white, pink, red, and purple clematis bloom. The silver center of the petals expands as the flowers open.

Petunias are from the tomato, potato and tobacco plant family. The name comes from South American word Petun, which is another name for Tobacco. Back in the old days it was a huge insult to gift Petunia’s as it was believed that they carried the message – I don’t like you.

Blue is my faourite colour.