Rosanne Rust - Zero Waste Cooking For Dummies

Do you sometimes ponder how in the world your kitchen garbage gets so full so quickly? When you’re on a zero waste journey, you’ll want to rethink what you send into that kitchen can. Proper food storage is a key aspect of a zero waste kitchen. Find out more about how to store fresh produce, what you can freeze, and how to keep a pantry organized for zero waste in Chapters 4and 5 .

How you store food can impact how quickly it ripens or maintains its overall quality. Because produce is perishable and one of the top wasted categories, it’s important to store it properly to get the most from it. Fruits and veggies give off gases as they ripen, and some interact with each other. Simple changes, like keeping things that need to be used quickly on the counter or in the front of a refrigerator shelf, can help.

Because eating a balanced diet is important to health, I don’t want to discourage you from keeping fresh produce or dairy products on hand. You just need a plan! And of course, mixing in some canned and frozen fruits and veggies works too.

Think of your refrigerator and freezer as important tools in zero waste cooking. Some appliances today are pretty savvy, so I encourage you to read the appliance manual or instructions (an unknown idea to my husband, but really, there are good tips in there!). Some foods that can be left on the counter or shelf will last longer in the refrigerator. Other foods that are refrigerated can be frozen for up to 6 months or, technically, indefinitely (but I don’t recommend it since quality begins to subside after 3 months, and significantly after a year). So even when your best-laid meal plan gets a kink in it, know that you can always rely on your freezer to stash food until you have the time to prepare it.

Food shouldn’t sit out for more than two hours without proper refrigeration or cooling.

Once you’re home, you need to know when and how you’ll cook and store the food you purchased. You’ll want to properly store the food you bought right away. (More on how to rethink your food storage habits in the next section.) As you plan for zero waste cooking, think about what you might cook early in the week that creates leftovers to use throughout the rest of the week. Ideally, many cooked leftovers can serve as a time-saving step for a new meal another day. For instance the leftover cooked pork from the Spice Rubbed Pork Tenderloin with Roasted Sliced Grapes can create the quick Pork Pita Pockets with Cucumber Cream later in the week for a quick lunch. Also, plan to use the more perishable fresh fruits and vegetables from your shopping haul first.

You’ll find a lot of ideas in this book for using up leftovers and even food scraps. For example, the next time you bring home a rotisserie chicken for dinner, don’t throw out the carcass. Instead, bag it up, save it in the fridge, and add any veggie scraps to it over the next few days. Then you can throw it all into a large pot of water and boil it down for stock to be used to flavor new dishes or add to soups and sauces. (Check out the Homemade Stock recipe in Chapter 10.)

Finding new recipes that make the most of your leftovers (see Part 3) is also going to help you reduce waste. You may have noticed that food seems to have gotten, well, bigger, over the years. I’m talking about those muffins as big as your head and half-pound dinner portions of pasta. It’s sometimes just too much. When dining out, simply reducing the portions you eat can ultimately help reduce food waste (and bonus — help you maintain your health). Instead of cleaning your plate or sending leftover food back to the kitchen, you may come up with more creative ways to use that doggy bag, beyond just reheating it for lunch the next day.

You can even create cocktail garnishes out of some of your food waste or scraps. Parts from a zested lemon can become Sugared Citrus Peels, and the liquid from a can of chickpeas (aquafaba) can be whipped for a whiskey sour. Celebrating your zero waste goals at the end of the day with a refreshing mocktail or cocktail sounds like a good deal to me!

While you may not be able to reuse every scrap or spoiled food, some food waste can continue to work for you (feed a houseplant) or the planet (composting). Things that often go into the garbage (citrus peels, leafy greens, vegetable peels) can be turned into compost. (I cover what and how to compost in Chapter 4.) Other common items like coffee grounds can be sprinkled on house plants or over your garden to balance or nourish the soil (they may help repel garden pests, too).

Keep in mind as you work through your zero waste journey that it’s about small steps and progress. Despite the title of this book, I don’t expect you to be 100 percent waste-free. Zero waste cooking may be 20 percent waste cooking some days and 5 percent waste cooking others. That’s okay! Nobody’s perfect. Every little effort counts, and the goal is to move in the right direction of reducing, reusing, and recycling more often. Just do your best!

Like any meaningful change in your behavior, zero waste cooking takes effort. You may sometimes buy food on a whim and not take time to store it properly, or ignore spoiling food in the refrigerator and throw out what smells the worst on garbage night. It may feel easier to do that rather than to perform weekly fridge checks, create a food waste plan for shopping, come up with a food storage plan, compost, and use up leftovers. However, like any positive change you make in your life, the rewards are almost always worth the effort. This book is here to help you establish eco-friendly behaviors even when you’re busy.

I’m sure you’ve heard the jingle — reduce, reuse, recycle. These are considered the “Three Rs of sustainability.” Even if you’re busy, you can work on a few things to get started on the zero waste journey. The main goal of this book is not only to encourage you to waste less food but also to get you to think about your role in household sustainability.

I know you can do your best to make a few easy changes in the ways you shop, use, and cook food and ingredients. However, you can also follow a few easy steps to take beyond the kitchen. Start small and begin working on a few ways to reduce all waste in general. Soon you’ll find that using fewer single-use and more reusable items allows you to more easily manage a sustainable household.

Invest in a good reusable water bottle or tumbler to keep your beverages cold or hot. Then use them exclusively. This may seem like a no brainer, but it’s a great first step.

Pack lunches for school or work in a reusable lunch box or bag instead of paper or plastic bags.

If you use a car daily, keep an insulated bag with you. This can help save leftovers or other items for the trip home.

Think twice when you wrap birthday or holiday presents. Consider reusing a gift bag or using a more biodegradable butcher paper.