“Waste not; want not.” It’s a motto to live by in the kitchen, especially if you feed a growing family with a hearty appetite.
But sometimes, you can’t avoid having leftover ingredients after you cook. And when you waste food, it also means wasting the time, energy, and money you spent purchasing it. On top of that, our food waste turns into a toxic greenhouse gas that causes major problems to Mother Nature.
Our planet has sustained us for years with its resources, and now it is asking us to give back. We’ve seen the consequences of harming the environment, but it’s never too late to act and do our part.
If you’re thinking of going green, start with your plate. Learn more about how creating less waste in the kitchen does less damage and leads to a healthier life here on our planet.
What Really Happens to the Environment When We Waste Food?
Food waste is a widespread environmental concern. The amount of food wasted daily is staggering, and it’s a problem that keeps growing.
- The Food and Agriculture Organization says food waste is a major contributor to climate change. Decomposing food in landfills releases methane, a greenhouse gas that warms the Earth. Plants and animals can also absorb methane, which harms their health.
- Food waste plays a part in the formation of dead zones in the ocean. The food we throw away frequently winds up in the water, where it rots and releases nutrients that deplete oxygen. As a result, it creates dead zones that cannot sustain marine life.
- Food waste breeds world hunger. Each year, we produce enough food to feed every man, woman, and child on the planet, but we leave one third of that unconsumed.
10 Ways to Be More Mindful in the Kitchen
Reducing food waste involves a lot more than simply not tossing it in the trash. Here are some steps you can take to be more efficient in producing and consuming food.
- Prepare a shopping list before visiting the grocery. Ensure that your list contains only the ingredients you need at home. This practice will keep you from buying unnecessary items that create food waste.
- Save your scraps. Scraps like lemon rinds, onion skins, and vegetable trimmings can be the base of stocks or sauces. You can also mix stems of parsley, cilantro, thyme, or rosemary with olive oil and salt to make a tasty condiment. You can even save bread crusts to make breadcrumbs or croutons.
- Use everything you can. Think about the multiple ways you can cook an ingredient to use as much of it as possible. For example, you can break the head of cauliflower into florets and roast them. Meanwhile, you can turn the core into purée and braise the leaves with other vegetables.
- Reuse your leftovers. If you’ve made extra portions after cooking, a great way to reduce food waste is to reuse the leftovers. For example, if you have leftover vegetables and rice, you can keep them to make vegetable fried rice the next day and stir-fry veggies the day after that.
- Keep greens fresh longer. As much as possible, remove the green stems from vegetables. Then, store them in a jar filled with cold water to keep them fresh and crisp longer than a sealed plastic bag can. You can also do this to regrow plants like asparagus spears, rhubarb, and green onions.
- Keep it simple. Make your recipe as simple as possible. When you’re making stir fry, try to pick ingredients roughly similar in size so that they’ll all cook at the same rate. Save the complicated curries for later.
- Store food properly. Keep your pantry organized to avoid buying duplicates. Store all dry goods in glass jars so that they’re easy to see, and label them with the opening date or expiration date.
- Prepare your ingredients before cooking. When preparing a meal, it’s important to know the exact ingredients you need beforehand so that none go to waste. For example, if a recipe requires one tomato and you have two, use only one.
- Grow your herbs. Buying herbs is out; planting is in! Growing your own herbs reduces food waste because you can harvest them as needed and store them for later use. This practice also saves you trips to the market.
- Buy sustainable food products. Making a conscious choice to consume sustainably produced plant-based food will lead to a healthier life for both you and the planet. On top of that, sustainable food has positive effects on your body, like boosting the immune system and giving you sustained energy.
Karviva’s Zero-Waste Production Process
The demand for food increases together with the human population. But how can we meet these needs without destroying our planet?
The answer lies in environmental innovation.
Always at the forefront of sustainable transformation, Karviva brings the daily dose of nutrients your body needs while promoting waste reduction and reducing its carbon footprint.
We are serious about our mission to be an eco-friendly business, so we provide you with drinks containing sustainably produced plants like berries, beans, and sprouts. We also carefully measure each ingredient to give you the highest antioxidant level that will detoxify, energize, and rejuvenate your body.
Our mindful production process allows us to master the art of growing clean and nonperishable plants. Through vertical hydroponic farming, we find it easier to grow food at scale without diminishing the nutrients of the crops. Soon after harvesting them, it only takes six hours to produce our whole-plant drinks.
Blanching also allows us to eliminate the use of chemical additives that prevent pathogen contamination. Thus, it preserves the purity and freshness of our plant ingredients even after mechanical juicing. In addition, our juicing process reduces waste by using all edible parts of a plant, making it healthier than the typical juicing process.
Celebrate a Greener Planet with Us
There’s no better time than now to make the promise of a greener tomorrow a reality. But we know it can be hard to think big when all you see are the small and slow steps you take on your own. So why not join hands with us to make a bigger impact? Just like you, our passion for sustainability is never-ending. As we practice mindfulness on our farm and you in the kitchen, we can all help keep our planet alive and healthy for generations to come.
Want to know more about our drinks and the all-natural, plant-based goodness they bring? Check us out on Amazon! Our wellness drinks are on special sale from April 22 to 25, in celebration of Earth Month. Don’t miss out!
