One annoying part about trying to be an everyday environmentalist is how often you run into a price tag. Use less energy to heat and cool your house! That can be a $40,000 HVAC overhaul. Work from home and skip the pollute-commute! Not everyone is lucky enough to stare at a screen all day for money. Switch to an EV and stop spewing CO2! That’s tens of thousands of dollars, and your car still works.
Fortunately, some measures can actually save you cash; cutting down on food waste is one. It’s an easy environmental win that anyone can put on the board. And though we should all strive for perfection 🧘♂️, just doing *better* can make a massive impact. If everyone in America cut their food waste by half—that’s 50%, a letter grade of D—we could reduce the U.S.’s greenhouse gas output by 2%. That’s 104 million metric tons kept out of the atmosphere by cooking, ordering, and shopping smarter.
To the grocery store!
You can load up your bags and then try to throw out as little as possible once you get down to cooking, but that’s kind of like buying a stack of lumber and then trying to figure out what to make from it. Picnic table? Pirate ship? It’s way easier to minimize waste if you’ve bought food you already know how to use up.
So here’s the move: Construct your shopping list around the foods that are easiest to fully utilize. Share this with your friends, because everybody loves an action list.
I reached out to my food-friends. I scoured the Internet. I read cookbooks. (OK, I leafed through one cookbook.) I made a spreadsheet of the zero-waste recipes that looked good to me, highlighting the primary ingredient in each. Then I picked the fruits, vegetables, and beans that showed up the most and had the best blend nutrients for those of us who try not to eat meat. (Do your best—every meal can make a difference.) Yes, this list is subjective. Yes, this list is incomplete. Yes, this is my newsletter.
Here we go:
Cauliflower
Source of: Potassium, Folate, Vitamin C, Vitamin K, Magnesium, Choline, Sulforaphane
As I’ve said, you can eat every part of the cauliflower; no need to delicately extract the florets. So go to town like a muppet chef.
One of my vegan instagram faves is this guy Max, who has a killer and very easy roasted cauliflower recipe. Check it out: https://instagram.com/p/CPQoRvlJjmp/
Also, if you’re being careful with carbs (no judgments), cauliflower rice is the best fake starch, and those of you who must have perfect florets can easily make it from trimmings. Cut off the pretty bits and then throw everything else in the food processor. Blitz it until it’s the size of rice, spread it on a cookie sheet, mix in some oil, and roast it at 400 until it starts to brown. Here’s a good recipe if you need one.
Carrots
Source of: Vitamin A, Biotin, Vitamin K1, Potassium, Vitamin B6
Buy carrots with their greens intact, and don’t throw those leaves and stems out. Blanch them in water for a couple minutes, and then sauté them in oil and garlic. They’re healthy. You can also blend them up. Here’s a cool recipe for pesto. You can make pesto out of pretty much any green thing by blending it with olive oil and nuts.
Potatoes
(White) Source of: Protein, Potassium, Folate, Vitamin C, Vitamin B6
(Sweet) Source of: Protein, Vitamin A, Vitamin C, Manganese, Vitamin B6
I belong to the righteous multitude who believe that mashed potatoes should not have any skin in them. (I look forward to debating this trivial issue with you on Twitter.) But that’s not to say you should throw that stuff out.
Roast your potatoes—Idaho, sweet, or otherwise—scoop out the meat, and then turn the skins into bar food. Here’s a recipe, but honestly you don’t need one. You put them in the oven at some temperature above 350 until they look good to you, then top them with dairy if you eat dairy. If you don’t do dairy, salt them and dip them—bean dip, ketchup, whatever.
If you don’t want to turn your kitchen into a TGI Fridays, you can peel your potatoes, toss the skins in oil, salt, and pepper, and roast them at 400 to make chips.
Citrus
Source of: Vitamin C, Folate, Calcium, Potassium
Any citrus peel is delicious candied, and candying citrus peels is the easiest goddamn thing in the world. This recipe is for grapefruit rind, but it works equally well for lemon, orange, even lime. (OK, it kind of sucks for lime, but it technically works.)
You can also dry your peels, after which you can add them to recipes—including cocktails. Dried orange peel is great in a Negroni, and it is Negroni Season.
Cheese
Source of: Protein, Calcium
When you get down to the parmesan rind, save it. I chop mine up into small-ish pieces (like the size of a four-bump Lego) and keep them in the freezer. When I’m making soup or a tomato sauce, I throw a few frozen rinds in. As the sauce simmers, it takes on some of the savory, cheesy deliciousness of the cheese. Whatever doesn’t dissolve is like buried treasure. My friend Adam, the food writer who makes everything into stock, saves all sorts of cheese rinds. “I save parm and parm-adjacent rinds: so hard orange/yellow ones. They make a good soup into a better soup.”
And you know how sometimes you end up with small amounts of a bunch of different cheeses and the only solution is to cram them into your face by the handful—you know, for the planet? That’s one solution. Another is this yummy spread.
Apples
Source of: Vitamin C, Potassium
You can eat the apple core, so just get over yourself and go for it. If you’re not there yet, save the cores in the freezer and toss them in smoothies. (You would have to eat like 40 apples in a sitting for the arsenic thing to be a problem.) If you peel your apples, make chips.
Dark leafy greens
Source of: Vitamin A, Vitamin C, Vitamin K, Vitamin B6, Manganese, Copper, Calcium, Magnesium, Potassium, Iron (kale)
Reminder: These are a crucial source of calcium, zinc, and magnesium, so you should eat them a lot. But ugh, salad, right? For variety, try making pesto out of the ribs. Say it with me now: You can make pesto out of pretty much any green thing by blending it with olive oil and nuts. Spread your kale pesto on crusty bread, elevate your mashed potato game, add the stuff to a soup, whatever. It also freezes very well. Here’s a good recipe.
Broccoli
Source of: Vitamin C, Vitamin K1, Folate, Potassium, Manganese, Iron
I actually prefer broccoli stalks to the florets. They’re sweet and crunchy and roast up really well. If you are looking for something a little more elevated, here’s a great recipe for Broccoli stem vinaigrette from our friends at Saveur (thanks, Kat!).
Beans
Source of: Fiber, Protein, Folate, Iron, Magnesium, Potassium (black beans)
A few things to talk about here:
1. Buy dried beans. They’re cheaper, don’t take up as much cabinet space, and use way less packaging per serving.
2. After you cook chickpeas, save the liquid. It’s called aquafaba. If you’ve read any food publication, you’ve probably heard of it, because everyone is (rightfully) obsessed with it right now. You can use it to thicken sauces, make vegan desserts, and more. Here’s a good guide, and here’s a good recipe.
3. You can make a tofu-like block out of any bean. Here’s a reliable recipe. Why would anyone do this? It’s fun, it saves you money, and it cuts down on the plastic packaging your tofu ordinarily comes in. (It is not technically tofu, but soy milk is not technically milk so the scales are even.)
To make your shopping trip a little easier, I made you a cheat sheet. Feel free to download it or screencap it or whatever. I also put it up on Instagram, so you can find it there.
I’m sure you have tips, too, and I’d love to hear them. Share them with me however you like—Twitter, Instagram, or, as always, send me an email at the address below.
Take care of yourselves—and each other
Joe
joe@one5c.com