We should all strive to be zero waste for the sake of our planet, but in reality this is a difficult goal and will remain so until action comes from the likes of the supermarkets that still wrap their food in excessive amounts of plastic. These big supermarkets are the ones who need to ditch single use plastic and solve mass food waste, but in the meantime we can try to do our bit too! Below is a list of easy zero waste food tips that you can introduce at home.
How to keep half an avocado from going brown. Put your halved avocado face down (edible bit in the water) to stop the oxygen from getting to the avocado. This will keep it from going brown.
Save that banana that’s on the turn. You can also chop your speckled banana into pieces, freeze the chunks and then blend them into a delicious, one ingredient ice cream alternative. Alternatively, you can pop your banana into a blender with some other fresh or frozen fruit and some coconut milk to make a delicious morning smoothie. If you’re a baker then you could instead transform your sad bananas into a nice chocolate chip banana bread or a breakfast muffin.
Soft vegetables? Are your vegetables feeling limp and on the turn? Roughly chop them and make a stew, any combination of leftover vegetables will do. Fry some onion and garlic and add this to your big boiling pot, then do the same with your roughly chopped veg. Also add a couple of stock cubes and enough water to cover the veg. Add a tin of lentils and/or a tin of butter beans along with the water from the tins. Add a teaspoon of Dijon mustard and then let it simmer for about 30 to 40 minutes. You can eat this as a stew or take it off the heat and blend it into a soup once it’s lukewarm. When you’re ready to eat it, just make sure it’s nice and hot again. If you’re not a soup fan, then try bubble and squeak - anything tastes good if you fry it and add a stock cube or two! Try this with any limp or leftover potatoes, carrots, parsnips, greens and so on.
Pasta and vegetable water. Use the excess pasta water when making your pasta sauce, or the water you used to boil your potatoes as the base for your gravy. It saves you boiling up a second load of water, but the main headline here is that this starchy water is great for thickening up soups and sauces as well as giving you a few extra nutrients. If you find that you don’t need the water, pour it into a container and let it cool down before using it to water your plants. They’ll thank you for all the nutrients you’d have otherwise poured down the drain. You can even add pasta water to your empty sauce jars or chopped tomato tins and give it a swirl to make sure you’re getting every last drop out! Don’t forget to only boil the kettle with roughly the amount of water you need to boil your pasta/veg in the first place, as it takes a lot of energy to boil a kettle.
Freeze everything! Check the packet of any ready-made meal to see whether it is suitable for freezing. You can freeze bread, chopped vegetables, chopped fruit and most homemade vegan meals, just remember to be careful when reheating, and note that some things require defrosting before cooking. You can freeze herbs too, but only if you’re happy to stir them in to a risotto, curry or other similar meal as they wont be able to be sprinkled on top of a dish as a pretty topping once they’ve been frozen.
- Megan Wheeler