Could the food in your garbage help fight food insecurity?

What can you do with oddly shaped fruits and vegetables discarded by grocery stores orleftovers from your own kitchen? Feed 5,000 people, according to a group of food securityactivists.

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The group, which includes celebrity chef BobBlumerand the Second Harvest charity,hosted the event Feed the 5000 on ThanksgivingSundayto raise awareness about food waste in the Greater Toronto Area.

Feed the 5000 is a global movement that started in the United Kingdom. The Toronto edition saw community members pour intoUnilever plant in the east end for a free meal prepared by celebrity chefs made from products many may have thrown out.

Food Network hostBob Blumer told CBC News approximately a billion pounds or more than four million kilogramsof food wasted every year in the GTA.

That much waste, he says, comes from individuals throwing out usable food from their kitchenwithout knowing how to re-purpose it.

"You can make smoothies with fruits that don't look so good and are getting overripe, you can make soups, you can make fritattas theflavour is all there," Blume said.

Butthe problem goes beyond individual kitchens, he says.

"A lot of the problem is industrial. It'sthat consumers aren't willing to buy the ugly fruits and vegetables and because the grocery stores know this, they don't even stock them."

An oblong orange, crooked eggplant, bent pepper may not look polished, but can go a long way to ending food insecurity, some experts say.

Debra Lawson, the executive director of Second Harvest, says they partnerwith food markets and grocery stores to pick up discarded foods that are fresh and ripe each day.

"We can feed more than 5,000. We feed 30,000 people a day with the food that we pick up," Lawson said.

Feed the 5000 is a one-time event as part of a larger innovation program,but Lawson says the idea is to inspire people to think twice about buying and throwing out food.

"Behaviour has to change at the consumer level and at the individual level. When you recognize that fifty-one per cent of foodgoes to waste because ofindividuals, you have to change how you shop. Do you overbuy? Is that why you're throwing things away?Do you use half a cucumber and then forget about it? It all adds up," Lawson said.