Chef Michael Smith joins Earth Rangers for Food Waste Warrior challenge

Chef Michael Smith is urging kids across Canada to reduce food waste in their homes by cooking up leftovers into new recipes instead of throwing them away. 

Smith has stepped up to be a judge for the Earth Rangers Food Waste Warriors cooking challenge. Earth Rangers is a Canadian non-profit organization with more than 175,000 members that involves children in environmental issues.

"Create it, cook it, eat it, take a picture of it," says Smith — it's that easy for kids to take part.

"We as adults are the ones that screwed it up and our kids are the ones that are going to have to fix it," said Smith.

The idea, said Smith, is to present environmental challenges in an engaging way. In this case, kids are told Canadians throw out $31 billion worth of food every year.

Food waste warriors are assigned two missions.

• Go for a whole week without throwing out any food.
• Create a recipe that uses up common leftovers from your home.

As a recipe judge, Smith said he will be looking less at the creations themselves than at the approach the kids take.

"What we're looking for is kids that obviously embraced the challenge," he said. "That took the time to understand the role that food and food waste plays in their family, and then came up with something creative and delicious that worked for them and their family."

Winners will get a mini chef prize pack that includes items like animal-shaped cookie cutters and polar bear oven mitts.

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