Sustainability at home: 7 ways to move your kitchen towards zero waste

Indians have grown up with lessons on not wasting the food on our plates, but true sustainability begins in the kitchen. Restaurants across the world, including India, are now trying to incorporate methods and ways to minimise their food wastage, contributing to a cleaner and greener environment. On our part, we need to ensure that even our home kitchens follow some of these methods. Not only does it contribute to a healthier you, but also to a healthier and cleaner environment, as these practises can reduce methane emissions We spoke to two chefs—Anahita N Dhondy, chef partner, SodaBottleOpenerWala Cyber Hub and Arina Suchde, consulting chef at The Pantry, Kala Ghoda to share some of their tips and tricks.

1. Use all parts of veggies and fruits

One of the most effective ways of reducing food wastage at home is to try and use all components of the fruits or vegetables. “In my research, I realised that almost 33 per cent of food waste at home comprises peels and trimmings. Why not take a step back and try and think of what you can do with each different component?” says Suchde. She suggests investing in a good vegetable scrubber to begin with. “There are many veggies that don’t necessarily need to be peeled. For instance, if a recipe calls for potatoes to be used in a non-mashed form, just scrub them well and use them with the skin. Carrots and radish, too, don’t need to be peeled—just a good scrubbing is enough,” she suggests.

It’s a good idea to read about the stems, leaves and roots of certain vegetables, that one casually chucks off in the bin. One of the veggies that Dhondy likes to makes an example of is broccoli. “Instead of throwing away the stems, chop them and keep them in your fridge. Use them the next day for breakfast in a frittata or oven-roast them with potatoes. You could even add them to a pulao,” she says. Not only can you use stems, leaves and roots, even the seeds of some fruits and veggies make for a great addition to chutneys and salads. Oven-roasted dried seeds with added spices makes for a great evening snack. Tender stalks of coriander and spinach can be added to chutneys or used to flavour stocks. Not only is this cost-effective, it also improves the nutrition of your food.

2. Grow herbs at home

Remember the last time you had to use one sprig of rosemary in a dish and the rest of the packet was left to get spoilt in the fridge because you couldn’t think of more ways of using it? Instead of the rest of the rosemary or any other herbs ending up in the bin, Suchde suggests drying them out and bottling them for future use. Better still, grow some of the more frequently-used herbs at home itself. “They don’t require too much space and are not difficult to grow either. Use as much as you need and share them with your family and friends too,” she says.

3. Repurpose leftovers

How many times have we called for a home delivery and chucked away the leftovers in a bin? Too many to recall, right? One of the hashtags that Dhondy often uses on her social media to educate people is #leftoverscanbesexy. “In some cuisines, when you have something that’s been left overnight, it actually tastes better the next day,” she says. However, if you don’t want to have the dish in the same form the next day, there are many ways of repurposing it. For instance, leftover cooked dal can be mixed with multigrain flour the next day for an energising breakfast of dal rotis. “The same dal can be turned into a dip using garlic and a bit of vegetable puree. You could also turn it into a soup, using some stock and milk or cream,” she adds.

4. Eat seasonal

You must have often heard your doctor or nutritionist tell you to eat seasonal. There are many reasons why eating fruits and veggies that are grown locally and are in season, are better for us. Health, of course, is one of the main ones. There’s a science behind eating what’s in season, says Suchde, adding that if nature is providing you with certain produce at a given time, it’s because your body needs that kind of nutrition at that time of the year. Since the food hasn’t travelled too many miles or been in cold storage, it’s loaded with flavour and nutrition. It’s good for the environment too, since all that travel and storage would have meant more greenhouse gas emissions.

5. Buy only as much as you need

A well-stocked fridge might be a comforting thought, but not if there are weeks-old veggies rotting in the drawers. A cursory look inside your kitchen cupboards will probably reveal food products that are well past their expiry date. Most people don’t realise how much food they waste on a daily basis because they end up buying in bulk. “We all have access to fruit and vegetable markets or can call for them easily, so why buy more than what we need?” says Suchde, who believes that if one plans in advance, it’s easy to buy fresh produce once every two or three days. Making a weekly list of the meals and planning your shopping around it is one of the easiest ways to ensure that less food is wasted.

6. Pickle it, preserve it

Every once-in-a-while though, you do end up with more than you need—a large batch of organic mangoes that your cousin sent or the fresh strawberries you couldn’t ignore at your local fruit vendor’s stall. But there’s only that much you can eat! That’s when simple preservation techniques like pickling and making jams or preserves come in handy. “I’ve seen my mother make use of these techniques very often and I have picked up from her,” says Dhondy. One of her favourite things to do is make a preserve of any kind of berries that lasts for almost a month if kept in the fridge. “Have it with vanilla ice cream and it tastes delicious!” she suggests. When it comes to mangoes, she makes a fresh puree out of them and freezes them in ice-cube trays. “When I want to have a mango smoothie later, I just throw in some of those cubes in the blender,” she adds.

7. Donate and recycle

It’s not just inedible parts (or what we think of as inedible) of vegetables and fruits that end up in the bin, but also empty milk cartons, plastic packets used for lentils, sugar and spice powders etc. From a single household on a daily basis, it might not amount to much, but think of all such waste generated by a single apartment building in one day and you can imagine the huge burden it puts on the municipality services. But now, there are ways of managing that trash as well. Carton collection centres in your city ask you to donate used, washed and flattened Tetra Pak cartons to them, so they can be recycled and used to make coasters, pen stands and even park benches. You can also donate your used plastic, metal and glass waste to collection centres that recycle them into other products.

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