Zero Waste Heroes: Down to the Core

Sep 1

9 min read

How creative and conscious cooking can reshape how we value our food in a convenience culture

by Emma Tapp

(Read time: 10 mins)

Last year, around 2.1 billion people faced food insecurity and 645 million people were affected by hunger, yet one third of the world’s food is wasted.

Food production accounts for around a quarter of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions with food waste responsible for around 6% of total global emissions.

To begin to live more sustainably, we must first change the way we think about food. As we step towards an uncertain future, how could keeping one foot in the past help transform our relationship with the industry?

So ahead of Zero Waste Week, I spoke with four content creators based around the world, who are tackling food waste in creative ways in a bid to challenge attitudes to food. I explored the origins of a zero-waste mindset, how we can reconnect with our food in small ways and the misconceptions around the movement; with the idea of ‘perfection’ fuelled by trend-forward societies.

The zero waste movement represents being responsible in how we consume, produce and reuse our resources to help preserve the planet. Reframing our mindset to a more conscious one can not only transform our attitudes around the value of food but of our own ability to make an impact.

From Denmark to India, London to Australia, I peel back where it all began for these influencers.

Gittemarie Johansen, based in Alberg, Denmark, has been influencing around sustainability for the past 8 years.

Her journey began in the kitchen as a child where her grandmother taught her to make traditional Danish dishes from scratch, now engraved in her mind; “she created the perfect environment for me to just absolutely love cooking with a low impact”.

She now has experience as a lecturer and environmental advocate for NGOs and political parties on food systems, while her presence on Instagram under handle @gittemary (198k followers) and Youtube (149k subscribers) have been platforms for educating and entertaining. Her first book, a zero waste survival guide titled ‘Sustainable Badass’ was followed by a plant-based gourmet cookbook. “It was a very empowering project”, she shared, due to having issues with food and eating in the past.

Radhika Khandelwal is an influencer and promoter of zero waste and biodiversity movements in New Delhi, with a social media presence on Instagram, under handle @pandoodle (35k followers).

She trained as a chef in Melbourne, Australia, while in the city, she came across the overwhelming food wasted for being ‘ugly’.

One quarter of the calories the world produces is thrown away, in the supply chain or by restaurants or consumers.

“When did we become so superficial that a carrot with two legs is unacceptable for us?” she questioned.

Moving back to India, she opened her first restaurant. Her current deli, Kona, based in New Delhi, is her newest venture. “I just really love to chase flavour”. In her cooking, a pumpkin will feature in three dishes, but different parts of the pumpkin will be used for different things.

“I wanted to showcase that sustainability is delicious [...] It's nothing new, it's nothing superior, it's not a trend”.

Katerina Lazareva is a Russian-born chef living in Byron Bay, Australia and founder of Byron Bay Fermentary since 2019; one of the “greatest privileges” of her career, she shared.

Known as @allthings_cultured (12k) on Instagram, she was raised by her Slavic grandparents where wasting food simply wasn’t an option. She shared how stale bread became kvass, surplus vegetables fermented and fruit preserved.

"Nothing was considered too insignificant to have another purpose."

Working in professional kitchens, she was left uncomfortable by the overwhelming food waste. But when she began growing her own food in Byron Bay, she shared how watching vegetables take months to grow completely changed how she valued them.

Her experience has spanned from workshops and online courses, to speaking at international events such as Koji-con. From award-winning fermented products to collaboration with chefs, farmers and organisations that are genuinely rethinking the future of food, her message has showcased closed-loop food systems where “every ingredient has multiple lives”.

Alessandro Vitale is a content creator, author and writer born and raised in the North of Italy. He moved to London at 23, creating an urban self-sustaining garden. He’s known as @spicymoustache on Instagram, with a following of 6.3 million.

Alessandro’s journey with food began with his grandparents in Northern Italy where his grandfather taught him to grow food, teaching that if you look after nature, it'll always give something back. His grandmother never wasted anything in the kitchen showing him how to turn leftovers into another meal and vegetable scraps into stock. “It was just how people cooked”.

Years later he moved to London and realised how disconnected most of us had become from food. We buy perfectly shaped vegetables wrapped in plastic without thinking about how much work went into growing them. “That contrast really stuck with me”.

“Combining what my grandparents had taught me with life in a big city became the foundation of everything I do today”, he added.

This detachment Alessandro speaks of is an inherent symptom of a fast-paced society. Most of the creators I spoke to shared how their grandparents had created roots in their attitudes to food. These origin stories provide a window into a past generation, where the world of cooking painted a different picture.

Food can be ordered in minutes through a screen or picked off a shelf, wrapped in plastic. Cooking is now the only part of the process that offers a tangible connection to our food. The journey is invisible, the value; a price tag, which Gittemarie states is a “really difficult thing to unlearn”.

But where cooking from scratch is no longer a requirement in many parts of the world and convenience becomes the priority, every part of the process can be outsourced, desensitising us to food waste.

"Food has become so convenient that we've forgotten its value" - Alessandro

Alessandro encourages thinking deeper about what food really is, “it’s connected to nature, to culture and to the people who produce it”.

Katerina agrees: “Every vegetable represents healthy soil, water, sunshine, biodiversity, months of growing, and someone's hard work”, she shared, “we’re wasting far more than food”.

So what about growing our own food? It’s up for debate whether growing your own vegetables at home carries a greater carbon footprint than buying them from a supermarket, but is it all that simple?

Gittemarie advocates for growing food at home despite the data challenging otherwise. “All of this started, for me, once I grew my first tomato [...] It would be so surreal for me to grow that tomato and bin it”.

If you’ve ever foraged for your own food, you know the time and patience required just to fill one small container; where each unspoiled berry is a treasure. Given our current food systems make it difficult to connect to the process of farm to mouth; taking small steps to re-kindle this relationship may be all we need.

“It doesn't matter whether it's one tomato plant on a balcony or a few herbs on a windowsill”, encourages Alessandro.

"Growing something yourself completely changes your perspective".

Buying local and sourcing seasonally used to be a way of life, a method of connecting to the land around us and the earth’s natural cycles. Visiting local farmers or shopping seasonally gives you a face and a way of looking at produce and where it comes from.

We are largely unaware of the possibilities of food that’s around us every day and what is edible. Radhika shared, “If I'm just taking a walk on the road, I can identify like 20 different edible plants, but will I ever find those ingredients in a market? Never”.

For me in the UK, nettles, often dismissed as weeds, are one of the most nutrient dense ingredients growing abundantly, in addition to a bounty of medicinal herbs used by our ancestors.

So how have we lost that knowledge and forgotten our roots across the world?

“India has always been a land of preservation,” noted Radhika. Through her cooking, she pays tribute to indigenous Indian ingredients, and experiments with lesser-known, local and seasonal products. She shares how Indigenous food knowledge has been lost due to lack of documentation.

"I feel like if we don't hold on to that knowledge, we will be losing a lot more"

She shared how fasting shifted from a tradition evolving around the seasonal availability to merging with spiritual disciplines over time. “Working so closely with the seasons has shaped everything I do”, she explained.

Creativity in the kitchen can help bring this alignment with the earth back, where we can retrieve knowledge from history or parts of the world that do things differently. Thinking creatively about food opens up endless possibilities. Katerina recommends “Instead of asking, ‘what can I cook tonight?’ start asking what else can this ingredient become?’”

Alessandro too often wonders; “Can watermelon rind become jam? Can herb stems become seasoning? Can stale bread become dessert?”. This curiosity keeps him creating.

When creating menus, Gittemarie enjoys finding a red thread, where ingredients are used over and over in innovative ways, stepping away from following set recipes. It can give a cohesive experience where they can see the story being told. “Then you can also flex, because it’s super cool to not throw things away”, she said.

Daring to branch out and experiment with an ingredients’ potential can be a rewarding process, not just for the planet, but for your palate.

You don’t feel you get enough umami out of your mushrooms? Gittemarie suggests dehydrating them. “It's a completely fantastic hack, both in terms of flavour and sustainability”.

Staying on fungus, Katerina’s experience with fermentation makes Koji a personal favourite due to totally transforming ingredients turning what many would consider waste into one of the most valuable ingredients in the kitchen. “It unlocks flavours, aromas and textures that didn't exist before” turning what many people would consider waste into one of the most valuable ingredients in the kitchen.

Radhika’s favourite recipe is preserved limes. She cross-sections each lime, stuffing salt in it, and pours lime juice on top to use in a marinade. “It's just too easy”.

Turning vegetable scraps into stock is Alessandro’s personal favourite hack. It's simple, costs nothing and completely changes the way you look at leftovers. “Suddenly what used to be waste, becomes the beginning of another meal. That's the kind of mindset shift I love”.

Social media has given these creators a platform to showcase how accessible this alternative approach to cooking can be, consequently inspiring millions. However, in a world where we’re regularly flooded with new content, Gittemarie thinks I think many are information fatigued.

Meanwhile, content online often paints this picture of ‘perfection’, an aspirational and yet unattainable lifestyle for the average consumer.

One of the biggest misconceptions is that the zero waste movement is expensive, restrictive or only for a certain type of person. But the influencers debunked the idea that you have to use absolutely everything.

Alessandro believes zero-waste cooking is about making the most of what you already have, encouraging creativity rather than perfection.

Gittemarie also reminds us that we don't have to do everything all at once. “It will make us miserable if we try [...] taking it one step at a time is definitely the way forward”.

So where can you begin?

The prospect of adopting a sustainable lifestyle in its complete form often discourages people from trying new approaches. But just making an effort to reduce the amount of food that goes in the bin is a fantastic start. As Gittemarie says, “it's like ripples in water”.

Despite the problem of food waste spanning beyond the consumer, we can still make an impact.

“Zero-waste cooking is something you can start today, in your own kitchen, without waiting for anyone else”, said Alessandro.

Despite Alessandro holding a huge following across social media, he shared how his top highlight is hearing how he’s inspired real change in people’s habits. “Knowing that a simple recipe or gardening tip inspired someone to waste less food or grow their own vegetables means more to me than any number on social media”.

“My goal has always been bigger than sharing recipes. I want to help people build a closer relationship with the natural world and show that sustainable living can be practical, enjoyable and accessible to everyone”, he added.

Whilst beginning to change small habits to reduce your food waste is an achievable first step, Gittemarie adds it’s important to not forget about the impact animal agriculture has on the planet. Globally, 766 million tonnes of grain is wasted by being fed to animals in factory farms. She believes “You can't really talk about sustainable food systems without phasing out animal products. Doesn't exist, can't happen”.

So how can people learn more about all of this?

In 2020, Radhika led the #zerowastehero movement on social media educating people across 45 days about reducing food waste. She suggested how a shift in the curriculum to incorporate teaching on sustainable food systems, especially in culinary programmes, will have a knock effect on society. One quarter of the calories the world produces is thrown away, in the supply chain or by restaurants and consumers. By chefs taking a more consciously creative approach they can be more than just advocates, they can pass down knowledge and change the way people cook.

Meanwhile, Katerina’s fermentation workshops, where she teaches people about zero-waste food systems, has been rewarding. “Seeing people begin to look at food with entirely new eyes never gets old”.

If we're to move towards ending world hunger through responsible consumption and production (Sustainable Development Goals 2 & 12) we must change the way we approach food. We must look back to move forward; to untangle and reveal our rooted relationships to our ingredients and reveal the colours of creativity. Shifting our mindset to one where food holds more value than a price tag on a supermarket shelf, has never been more important to determine the future of food security and the planet.

Find the influencers here:

Gittemarie:

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/gittemary?igsh=M2trNHhqejNsZnFp

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@Gittemary

LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/gittemarie-johansen-04a1826b/

Alessandro:

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/spicymoustache?igsh=cGo5azVnNDNnMWU0

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@SpicyMoustache

LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/alessandro-vitale-a3130b232/

Radhika:

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/pandoodle?igsh=cnFkNDNyZHc3cThm

LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/pandoodle/