Shopping for what you need and storing it properly
Zero waste cooking focuses on shopping for what you need, not what randomly “looks good.” Grocery stores strategically set up their shelves and displays to entice you to buy more. They place seasonal items at your eye level, and companies pay a premium for the best shelf placement. But shopping only for what you need will ultimately help reduce your food waste. You’ll find lots of tips and strategies for sticking to your food budget and grocery list in Chapter 6.
A good shopping list makes trips to the grocery store more efficient. Your list should include everything you need to create meals for the next week or two. You might break your list into a big order or a few smaller orders, so think of your list as a running inventory as well. These are planned purchases that fit your budget and meal planning. Chapter 4 helps you analyze what you have, what you don’t use or need, and what may be ending up in your garbage can too often. Here are a few reminders to get you started:
Use a list. Consider a digital app or keeping a running list on your smartphone.
Delay a purchase. When you see that tantalizing endcap, tell yourself to make a note and think about it for your next trip. This will eliminate an impulse buy but not deny the possibility of putting the item into your cart next time.
Don’t overspend. Have a budget in mind before you go and keep a rough total as you shop.
Choose quality over quantity. In most cases, it’s worth paying more for a high-quality food product (say, cheese) than getting a larger portion of it (more than you may need or be able to use).
Store food properly. Once you bring the food home, storing it properly helps preserve its quality and safety longer, thereby helping you reduce food waste. Chapters 4, 5, and 6 offer you lots of ideas and tips for making food and ingredients last longer. You may be surprised to find out what those best-by dates really mean, or why you shouldn’t store avocadoes near bananas.
Making the most of scraps and leftovers
There are two kinds of people: those who love leftovers (usually the cooks of the house!), and those who say, meh. I hope this book inspires you to look beyond reheating a plate of turkey and mashed potatoes or a bowl of chili and instead create completely new dishes with those previously cooked ingredients.
As a wise cook once said, “Cook once; eat thrice.” Making use of leftovers, as well as doing some batch cooking, will save you both time and money. It’ll also take some of the day in, day out stress out of preparing dinner every night.
The meal planning ideas in Chapters 6 and 7 use the concept of creating a grocery list with common ingredients that you can use in various ways through the week to make different meals.
Adopting a Zero Waste Mindset
You probably picked up this book because you want to waste less in your kitchen and you care about the environment. The goal of the book is to help you get started and maintain a mostly zero waste lifestyle (mostly because, hey, nobody is perfect). While Chapter 3 gets into the nitty-gritty of creating a zero waste mindset, an overarching theme throughout the book is “progress, not perfection.” As you wrap your mind around the idea of wasting less food, the book addresses several things:
How the idea of sustainability fits into a zero waste mindset (see more in Chapter 2)
The three pillars of sustainability in agriculture and how they allow for the efficient use of natural resources to feed hundreds of millions of people
How various sectors of the food supply chain conserve resources and work to reduce food waste
How to analyze your personal food waste habits and create a plan to waste less
How to choose foods with both your budget and health needs in mind
How to organize a zero waste kitchen
How to plan meals, waste less, and cook delicious meals
You may wonder why I cover things like sustainability, the food supply chain, and the U.S. agriculture system that brings you your food. Well, it’s important to know how the environmental piece of reducing food waste fits into the larger picture of where food comes from. There’s a lot of conflicting information about the “best diet,” the many sources of greenhouse gas emissions, and how various sectors impact the environment. Hopefully, this information will give you more to think about.
Benefiting from a Zero Waste Approach
Zero waste cooking can save you money, improve your diet quality, and help the environment. You could say it’s a win-win-win! You may be reading this book because you want to do your part to support a healthy planet, or maybe you want to waste less and save money, but you may not be aware that a zero waste approach may also indirectly improve your health. How? Well, there’s money savings in taking a little bit of time to work on your grocery shopping strategy and use of leftovers. And when you become more mindful of food storage, meal planning, and using up fresh fruits and vegetables, you actually end up increasing your consumption of those nutrient-rich foods. Read on, dear reader.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimated that, in 2018, 63 million tons of food were wasted, with 40 percent of that coming from households like yours and mine. Check out apps such as Too Good To Go that help connect people in need with surplus food supplies that they can purchase at deeply discounted rates.
Wasting food isn’t just an environmental issue; it’s a social issue, too. It’s estimated that about 10 percent of U.S. households are food insecure at some time during the year. And hunger and undernourishment throughout the world continue to be a major concern.