A fresh take on food waste is changing how food is produced
The demand for “ugly” fruit and vegetables is surging as consumers, and businesses, look for new ways to lower food waste. (Photo Source: There San Diego)
You’ve heard the phrase one person’s trash is another person’s treasure. But how about one person’s food waste can become a delicious meal—or fruity beverage, plant-based milk, or gluten-free flour?
That sentiment, along with the desire to lower food waste, is motivating celebrity chefs to find inspiration in garbage. Nigella Lawson famously turned banana peels into curry for The Times, and Chef Priyanka used them as a substitute for pulled pork.
They’re part of a broader movement known as upcycling, which focuses on using up food products that would otherwise go to waste. Banana peel curry aside, upcycling is become so popular it’s on its way to making a serious dent in food waste with the promise of doing much more.
Food producers are turning juice pulp, spent barley, imperfectly shaped produce, and the byproducts of plant-based milk manufacturing into all kinds of new food products, prompting Whole Foods Market to name upcycling one of its top 10 trends for 2021. The Upcycled Food Association (UFA), established in 2019, estimates that more than 400 upcycled products are now sold in the United States, and a report by Future Market. estimates the market sector is worth $46.7 billion.
Food waste is a major problem contributing to climate change. (Photo Source: Flatland KC)
This is all for the good, because we have a problem. This country wastes 63 million tons of food a year with the average American trashing about one pound of food a day, and food decay is a major source of methane, a greenhouse gas with 80 times the warming power of carbon dioxide. The enormity of the problem is often summarized by the following statement: If food waste were a country, it would be the world’s third-largest greenhouse gas emitter after China.
Experts suggest it’s possible to change that sorry scenario. An analysis by ReFED, a nonprofit dedicated to ending food loss and food waste, found that a $1.9 billion annual investment in upcycling solutions could divert approximately 1.9 million tons of surplus food, avoid 4.8 million metric tons of greenhouse gases, and generate a net economic benefit of $2.7 billion each year.
Discussion about food waste was all but left out of talks at this year’s climate summit, in spite of a pledge to lower methane. But it doesn’t mean we’re going to stop thinking of new ways to use food waste—on an industrial and individual level, because it’s really not that hard to do.
Q: Reusing banana peels? Really?
Flavorful vegan bacon made from banana peels. (Photo Source: Garden Grub/Summer Storm)
A: Yes! At first glance it doesn’t seem like banana peels belong anywhere except the compost pile (preferably chopped up, so they break down more quickly). But banana peels are a versatile ingredient that can be used for a variety of treats like banana peel bacon, and banana peel chutney (though admittedly some of the reviews have been mixed). Since banana peels are full of nutrients, many gardeners use them to make compost tea.
Q: How can I repurpose food scraps?
Kitchen scraps can be used to make a delicious vegetable broth. (Photo Source: Food Waste Feast)
A: Who looks at a pile of onion peels and carrot tops and says “this is going to be my next meal!”
But kitchen scraps, including broccoli stems, kale ribs, onion and garlic peels can be used to make stews, soups, and vegetable broth.
Potato skins can be seasoned with salt and baked to create fairly addictive potato crisps. Citrus peels can be candied, or dried and powdered. While technically not a peel, watermelon rinds can be pickled candied, or turned into kimchi. (Learn how to pickle just about anything!)
If you want a super cheap food garden, try regrowing your onions, garlic, carrots, and other partly used vegetables.
Scraps can also be composted, of course, and used as worm food, rewarding you with organically rich soil you can use to grow more delicious food.
Q: Whenever I juice, I have a ton of leftover pulp. How can I reuse it?
A: For all you juicers, you’ll be happy to know leftover pulp can be used in a variety of dishes, from savory hummus to sweet desserts.
Add vegetable pulp to your next batch of homemade veggie burgers or fritters for more fiber and nutrition. If you’re juicing beets or carrots, a little of the pulp can color up hummus and give it a nutritional boost. To make refreshing “pulp-sicles,” scoop your pulp into a popsicle mold with a little bit of juice, or coconut milk, and freeze until solid.
Q: Can I buy upcycled food?
To verify you’re buying a certified upcycled food product, look for this brand new certified label from the UFA.
A: Upcycled foods are definitely for sale since many brands are tackling food waste by adhering to sustainable practices, such as using upcycled ingredients.
Following is a partial list of brands that sell upcycled foods, or foods made from upcycled ingredients.
Imperfect Foods and The Ugly Company address food waste at the commercial level. Grocery stores typically won’t accept misshapen or deformed food, which means a lot of farmers and grocers are forced to throw away or leave rotting in the fields good, albeit odd-looking, fruit and vegetables; an estimated 20 percent of organic and conventional produce” is wasted every year.
Imperfect Foods intervenes by taking the ugly food and selling it at discounted prices, using a convenient subscription and home-delivery business model. The Ugly Company, which turns throw-away fruit into dried fruit snacks, rescued 142,866 pounds of fruit from the landfill last year.
Renewal Mill uses okara, a byproduct of tofu manufacturing, to make pure okara flour. (Barron’s/Brent Crane)
Renewal Mill upcycles byproducts from food manufacturing into pantry staples like flour and baked-good mixes. Its premium line of high-fiber and gluten-free flours is made from the byproducts of plant-based milk and tofu manufacturing.
Chia Smash uses ‘imperfect’ but still perfectly delicious fruits for jellies and jams.
Take Two Foods, which defines upcycling as a practice of “wasting little and using all of what you have,” created plant-based barley milk from spent grain, keeping hundreds of thousands of pounds of spent grain out of landfill thus far.
Reveal discovered a way to upcycle avocado seeds. Its ready-to-drink beverages are brewed from avocado seeds and come in a variety of flavors, such as grapefruit lavender and mango ginger.
Amiyah Lee is a Stone Pier Press News Fellow based in Riverside, CA.
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