RTX1SJB7
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon (L), Lars Lokke Rasmussen (C), co-chair and Danish Prime Minister, and Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, co-chair and Uganda's President, applaud at a plenary meeting of the United Nations Sustainable Development Summit 2015 at United Nations headquarters in Manhattan, New York, September 25, 2015. World leaders on Friday adopted the most sweeping agenda ever of global goals to combat poverty, inequality and climate change, described by the United Nations secretary-general as "a to-do list for people and planet." REUTERS/Mike Segar

World Leaders were served a surprise lunch at the United Nations headquarters in the New York City on Sunday to highlight food wastage and its damaging effects on the environment. The chefs cooked up an unusual lunch from “trash” for the world leaders gathered in the city to attend the global summit on sustainable development agenda.

Few of the items served at the eco-friendly lunch included a vegetable burger made from pulp leftover from juicing and starchy corn fries that would normally end up as animal fodder.

"It's the prototypical American meal but turned on its head. Instead of the beef, we're going to eat the corn that feeds the beef," ABC news quoted Dan Barber, a prominent New York chef and co-owner of the Blue Hill restaurant, as saying. "The challenge is to create something truly delicious out of what we would otherwise throw away."

United Nations Secretary General, Ban Ki Moon, said that the vegetarian dishes were made of ingredients that usually end up in landfills, emitting methane-- a prominent greenhouse gas.

"Food production and agriculture contribute as much to climate change as transportation," Ki Moon said. "Yet more than a third of all food produced worldwide -- over one billion tonnes of edible food each year -- goes to waste. That is shameful when so many people suffer from hunger."

Barber planned the menu along with former White House chef Sam Kass, who is well known for spearheading U.S. First Lady Michelle Obama’s anti-obesity campaign. The idea to make leaders follow what they preach was first gestated by Kass, when he came to know about this UN summit on global climate change.

"Everybody, unanimously, described it as the most important negotiation of our lifetime," he said. However, Food waste was not on the agenda for the summit, he added.

A group of 30 world leaders headed by French President Francois Hollande and Peruvian President Ollanta Humala attended the summit.

Contact the writer at feedback@ibtimes.com.au, or let us know what you think below.

RELATED STORIES