Cooking is hotter than ever, and more people are whipping up tasty home meals with the environment in mind. In the 21st century, the idea of zero-waste cooking (which is the practice of cooking without generating any waste) is turning a lot of heads. Zero-waste cooking celebrates and appreciates the privilege of putting food on the table in many ways. At the same time, this cooking practice made many people realize that its many ingredients are more versatile and purposeful than initially meets the eye. Unfortunately, despite its benefits, zero-waste cooking remains a challenge for many home cooks.
Luckily, the path towards zero-waste cooking can be done slowly and with a lot of fun. So home cooks looking to help the planet can try incorporating these zero-waste cooking challenges inside (or outside) their kitchens!
10 Make Homemade Meals From Scraps
Are you thinking about throwing away potato skins, banana peels, onion skins, or chicken carcasses? Wait! Did you know that you can still make delicious meals from these scraps?! One helpful tip for a zero-waste cooking experience is to make delicious meals using food scraps. For example, craft delicious cake pops using leftover cake pieces or makes a rich broth using leftover scraps of veggies (or even some scraps of meat or bones). As long as the food scraps are washed properly and handled safely, many can be used as ingredients for flavorful dishes!
9 Use Pantry Items For Meal Prep
Pantries can be like a gateway to Narnia: vast, large, with hidden compartments hiding treasures. In this case, the treasures are opened packages of dried goods or gently dented cans of non-perishable items. When it comes to zero-waste cooking, one fun challenge to try for a day (or a couple of days) is to cook meals exclusively from the pantry. This challenge reduces food waste and can do wonders for cleaning out a disorganized pantry.
8 Compost Food Scraps
It's hard to incorporate certain food scraps into delicious recipes, like eggshells or avocado pits. For these scraps, challenge yourself to bring them to the garden for composting. This challenge serves three purposes: reduce waste leftover from home kitchens, provide rich soil for homegrown plants, and eliminate the need to buy expensive compost at the store (saving you some money)!
7 Generate Zero Trash For A Week!
This is a challenge not for the faint-hearted! Generating no trash is incredibly challenging in this day and age, but it can still make for a fun (and eye-opening experience). In this challenge, one can closely monitor how often they generate trash daily for a week, trying their best not to generate waste instead of focusing their efforts on reducing, reusing, and recycling. To sweeten the challenge, it may be fun to place all trash generated in a single week within a single glass jar, like a bulky mason jar or bottle.
6 The No-Takeout Challenge
It's hard to say no to a tempting Chicago deep-dish style pizza or a juicy fast-food burger with french fries. However, greasy paper bags and spoiled takeout containers can add to the heaping landfills. People can devote an entire week (or however long they wish) to not ordering food from restaurants or fast-food establishments for this challenge. This challenge aims to reduce the waste generated from going out to eat versus eating home-cooked meals at home. This challenge is also great for budget-friendly people and those looking to achieve a healthier lifestyle!
5 Repurpose Clean Recyclables
Do you find yourself throwing away perfectly reusable glass jars or plastic containers? Stop! As long as they're clean and washed thoroughly, they can definitely be repurposed as food containers. So embark on this challenge to keep reuseable containers from your bins and into your kitchen. One may find that this challenge can also be a money saver, as it reduces the need to buy food containers for dried goods, spices, and other kitchen essentials.
4 The No-Plastic Bag Challenge
It's hard to avoid plastic bags, especially at grocery stores. Plastic bags can be carelessly thrown in the trash or left out on the streets like litter. Instead, bring a couple of reuseable totes for shopping trips during the next trip to the grocery store (or even at the mall). Sure, stores offer plastic bags, but more and more stores are providing customers with a reusable alternative, just a couple of cents more. What's more, these totes are durable and can even place more contents inside their space than a conventional plastic bag.
3 Replanting Veggie And Fruit Scraps
Growing a produce garden can be as easy as counting to three using leftover kitchen scraps. Before throwing away the root ends of vegetables, try keeping them fresh with some water before heading outside to plant them in the soil. People can definitely do this challenge for the root ends of vegetables like spring onions, cabbage, lettuce, and onions. Growers have also grown plants using the stems of pineapple crowns or avocado pits!
2 Eat Only Seasonal (And Local) Ingredients
Making meals using seasonal or local ingredients may not necessarily reduce food waste per se. However, not only will buying local support growers in your area, but it can also support the growing movement of buying ingredients "closer to home," which will reduce one's environmental footprint. In many cases, environmentally-friendly cooking or consumption practices go hand in hand with zero-waste cooking!
1 Shop In Bulk
Bulk bins may not be as flashy compared to packaged food gracing numerous aisles at the grocery store. However, what they lack in flashiness, they make up for in simplicity. This challenge involves buying local food staples only using the bulk bins at local grocery stores. Many stores carry flour, rice, pasta, tea, coffee, sugar, and spices inside bulk bins. Better yet, some stores even permit customers to bring their own containers! This challenge may not be as difficult as the ones previously listed, but it's an eye-opening endeavor, encouraging people to buy only what they need. In many ways, this reduces food waste inside a home kitchen.
