My Zero-Waste Kitchen: Easy Ways to Eat Waste Free

by Kate Turner

Learn how to reduce food waste with quick tips and simple solutions in My Zero-waste Kitchen.

Live sustainably and embrace the three R's: reduce, reuse, and recycle. In My Zero-waste Kitchen, find creative and unexpected ways to eliminate trash, save money, and give leftovers a new life. Plus, learn how to grow your own vegetables and herbs from scraps, and how to nourish your plants with compost.

With 15 nutritious and versatile recipes in which nothing goes to waste, this guide shares the secrets to smart shopping, meal planning, and the nutritional value of often-discarded food products. Turn beetroot peelings into delicious falafel, pesto, or a melt-in-your-mouth cake. Revive produce nearing the end of its shelf life with "flexi" recipes--for risotto, stir-fry, smoothies, and more.

The tips and tricks in My Zero-waste Kitchen show how easy it is to live more sustainably without making a complete lifestyle change.

Genres: Nonfiction, Cookbooks, Food, Cooking, Sustainability, Ebooks, Environment

72 pages, Hardcover

First published February 1, 2017

Reviews

[Sheri · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wouldn't say this is a zero-waste book, but it will help you to reduce waste in your kitchen. Not an in-depth book, more of a pretty introduction to the three R's -- reduce, reuse, recycle. Might be the book that motivates someone to think more about their consumption and waste, and to take steps towards a more sustainable life.

[Kristina · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love it when books are useful, practical and provide simple but great ideas 🙌

[Marta · Rating 2 out of 5]

Small, with lots of pictures, this book is easy to zip through and see if there is anything useful. I found the unoriginal: make soups!, the intriguing: replant romaine heart bottoms, and the questionable: many ways to use unwanted cake. Is this a problem for people? Also, isn't obesity a more pressing national concern than cake entering the waste stream?

[Kelsey Forkner]

There are some tips on using food scraps in here, but this book isn't really about zero waste. There are some simple recipes and advice on when foods go bad, but the author often advises storing things in plastic and other wasteful practices. This reads more like a series of life hacks from Pinterest strung together. I have read more nuanced and thorough approaches to the zero waste kitchen on blogs, which is disappointing because I was hoping for something more comprehensive and well organized.

[Tori · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great mini guide

Great little book full of lots of easy tips, tricks and things to switch! As I vegan a was concerned about the recipes but most of them are animal product free or have easy alternatives! And there's only a few pages on meat, eggs, etc!
Really handy, and a good quick read. I'll definitely be trying a few things soon

[Caro · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a pretty good book. Easy to understand and read, great pictures and drawings, interesting ideas (although some didn't really sound appetizing to me) and good hints and tips on saving money and waste. Good for a toe-dip into the pool. I don't really think I would use a lot of this and some of it I have already heard/read about, but there were some I didn't and some good info on how/when your food can't be used. I'd say this is good for beginning and doesn't go way into detail. Start with the basics. Good luck

[Dna · Rating 5 out of 5]

There are some GREAT tips and unknown (to me) facts about food, food storage and preparation. DK Publishing does it again! What a cool little book! My only complaint is that it's not massive and full of information.

[Krista D. · Rating 4 out of 5]

A short, but colourful refresher on cleaning out your fridge.

[Tina L · Rating 3 out of 5]

Came by this book at a book sale, the cover looked promising but the tips given were not particularly practical. The recipes did not seem very appealing as they made use of uncommon ingredients in Western countries, e.g. banana peels, which are is the only thing that comes to mind. Perhaps it would have been beneficial to add some facts about the nutritional benefits of such an ingredient, where it is eaten and how to safely prepare it within recipes considering the mainstream use of pesticides.

One section I could take away from was about home composting, detailing which foods to avoid in order to deter unwanted guests in the garden. Otherwise, this book would be more suitable for those as a beginner to recycling, reducing and reusing in the household.

[Frances · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting book with some good practical ideas.

[Jessica Cleghorn · Rating 4 out of 5]

While the title and design made it somewhat unclear what age group this was aimed at, it was appealing to read and full of useful, practical, and realistic tips and ideas.

[Melly · Rating 2 out of 5]

If you have absolutely no idea about reducing food waste this could totally be a place to start. It's short and has lots of pictures to engage the reader. However if you're well versed in attempts to deduce your food waste you probably will have heard it all before and find it lacking.

Things I like about it: It briefly touches on a lot of parts of the topic (Composting, meal planning, storage, ways to use up common foods) I like the tips on labeling when you open something or make homemade food with that date, making biscotti from cake, and growing your own plants from food scraps.

Small nitpicks that bothered me: the cover had "freeze avocados" on it but I couldn't find anything about that in the book! They claim that any gum can be composted which makes me uneasy because some gums are made from plastic. In the "use up bread" part there are ways to use the bread that unnecessarily involve cutting the crust off but no ways to use up the crusts. One recipe brags about using up asparagus spears and I just thought "In what world do people eat asparagus but not the stalks? I mean the vegetable is basically all stalk." then I was like "maybe they mean the dry light colored part that people cut off" but no the recipe calls for cutting that part off. So what recipe calls only for the very top of the asparagus? I've never seen one. I would rather more vague recipes like "this muffin recipe uses a puree, you can use any fruit or sweet vegetable puree" instead of: "recipe for muffins using carrot or swap out carrot for tired sweet potato, tired beet, or tired zucchini". I also dont know what makes a vegetable "tired"

[McKenzie Richardson · Rating 3 out of 5]

For more of my bookish opinions, see my blog: Craft-Cycle

A nice intro with various tips for reducing food waste. This book covers quite a bit of ground in a short amount of time. Includes ideas on cooking with and regrowing from food scraps. Also includes some basic information on storage, meal planning, composting, and guidelines for judging freshness.

Note, this is more of a reducing-food-waste book than a zero-waste book. It goes a little bit into reusing items and utilizing reusables, but its more heavily focused on what to do with food scraps and leftovers.

There's a wide range of tips from the easy to implement (veggie scrap chips, freeze bananas for smoothies) to the more involved (egg shell powder) to the downright odd (I draw the line at bananas in my guac).

Includes fairly simple base recipes (soup, smoothie, hummus, muffins, etc.) that can be adapted based on what ingredients you have on hand to use up.

The index in the back in broken down by food item (tomatoes, basil, etc.) for easy reference.

Overall, a nice little starting point in a visually-appealing package.

[Góczán Judit · Rating 2 out of 5]

A szándék nemes, de a gyakorlati megvalósítás nem túl gusztusos. A "puha" határok miatt nem igazán értelmezhetőek az alapanyagok. Más egy ráncos alma, amit kidobásra javasol a szerző, mint egy "öreg" dió vagy más olajos mag. A vásárlási és tárolási kisokos jó tippeket ad, de ha már a kötet elején megfogadhatnánk ezeket, a receptek nagy részére nem is lenne szükség. A felfrissítésre, komposztálásra és újranevelésre vonatkozó ötletek persze nagyszerűek és izgalmas kísérletekre buzdítanak. A könyv legfontosabb tanulsága számomra: fő a tudatosság és a gondos tervezés. Más gondolatmenetre felfűzve jobban tetszett volna, így sajnos inkább taszít. A leginkább talán a gyerek- és családnevelési javaslatok hiányoznak. Nagyanyáink paraszti bölcsessége...
Ami külön bosszantó volt a számomra, az a tipográfia. Dizájnos betűk, de olvashatatlanok; a nagytöbbség számára fáradságosan kisilabizálható betűméret, néha túl sötét háttér és pocsék kontrasztok. Ez is valahol a pazarlásról szól - idővel, türelemmel...

[Olivia · Rating 5 out of 5]

I recently have been trying to decrease the amount of waste I am producing in order to do my part in saving the planet. I’ve always liked to cook and this book is an awesome resource on how to avoid food waste in the kitchen! This book is filled with tips, tricks, and recipes on how to decrease the amount of food you toss out every week! (As a college student, I think I do pretty well with eating everything I buy because I’m #broke, but even then, rinds, peels, and skins are things I didn’t even know I could save!)

I will definitely return to this book as a resource when I have left over potato peels and no idea what to do with them! Pick this up if you want to decrease your food waste!!

[Mandy Crumb · Rating 3 out of 5]

First of all, who has leftover cake that is drying out?? This is not a problem that I have ever heard of but I guess someone has this emergency. This book offers numerous suggestions to save the cake. You can turn it into a milkshake, slice it and make french toast and more.
I never peel potatoes because who has time for that? If you are the type who does, this book tells you what to do with the leftover peels. Make chips. Yep, chips.
There are a few gems in here but overall this is the same stuff we've heard time and time again.

[Jaime Lee · Rating 3 out of 5]

I definitely learned a few tips about composting and growing foods from scraps that I hadn’t been aware of before. There were also some helpful charts about when foods can still be salvaged vs. when they need to be tossed.

I was disappointed in the recipes throughout the book. There weren’t many and all of them required a base preparation which (in many cases) would require me to shop for ingredients before adding the 1/2 cup of “waste” add-in they were suggesting. I was expecting more whole recipes using misfit kitchen items.

[Colona Public Library · Rating 2 out of 5]

I liked the format of this book and the pictures were amazing. There were tons of tips on how to re-use food from your leftovers. There were also tons of recipes included. The only draw back was the recipes had tons of ingredients and steps. There was also tips on how to compost your left overs on things that you could not use elsewhere. If you did everything in this book, it would be too time consuming for me. Try to pick things that are doable for you.


~April

[Lone Damgaard · Rating 4 out of 5]

En nem måde at få input til mindre madspil og fif til genbrug. Bogen er overskuelig og let at læse og så er den bare lækker med det kraftige papir og de mange farver. for dig der allerede er en meget bevidst forbruger vil der sandsynligvis ikke være så meget nyt, men er du en gangske almindelig forbruger som gerne vil bliver lidt mere bevidst og undgå madspild vil denne bog kunne give mange aha oplevelser :)

[Lauryn · Rating 2 out of 5]

My best friend Katelyn sent this to me because it made her think of me, which makes me happy. We both agree it focuses way too much on meat and dairy, so I’m not like in love with it. Some of the stuff seems obvious too, but what this book is a great reminder that reducing your waste is all about your mindset, and this book helps you start turning around your train of thought

[Ava Falzerano · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was a very quick easy read. I got it at five and below for like $4. The tips really will help to reduce waste in the kitchen. All the recipes actually sound good, and are not just a hodgepodge of ingredients put together in order to save food from going to waste. The recipes are well thought out and have simple add ins in order to reduce waste.

[Elin · Rating 3 out of 5]

MISSION STATUS: SICK! You can make chips from vegetable skins??? Or crumble up toast to make soups thicker?? Make a cake from organic banana peels??? YOU CAN FREEZE AN EGG!!!
I'm gonna need a while to process all of this mind-blowing information.

[Rai · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's got some good ideas and recipes in it. I wish it gave a bit more explanation of certain things (when advising someone to eat an apple core it would be good to reassure readers that it won't poison them, haha). I wish the font had been bigger.

[Marissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good tips

Good layout for browsing when you have a few minutes here and there. I feel as though I have heard a lot of the tips from other sources throughout the years. However, it’s a good refresh on them and nice to have it all in one place.

[Zibbernaut · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm not yet ready to start using banana peels in my smoothies or grinding up egg shells to add the powder to other food... this is above where I'm at and I'm unsure if I will ever go this intense with zero waste. However, it was a fine read I suppose. Nothing outlandish, just not for me.

[Shanitha Whitfield · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty helpful

Gave a few more useful tips than I already had under my belt, but was more illustrated than I expected it to be. Reminds me more of a book for a teen interested in sustainability.

[Jennie Andrews · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great fun little book to keep reminding me of low-waste ideas in my kitchen. Apart from eating banana peels, most of these ideas I have tried at some time, some, like waste-not frittata and muffins are my go-to recipes with leftover ingredients. Almost nothing goes to waste in my kitchen!

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good introduction on how to use nearly-spoiled food for people who feel overwhelmed by both cooking and inadvertently contributing to the world's problems (AKA me). The fun colors and illustrations helped, too.

[Betsy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book for beginners. Easy read. There were lots of things I already knew, but there were a few I didn't. A couple of things are questionable, like eating apple seeds, but quick google searches gave more insight. I cant wait to try some of the tips!

[Gladimore · Rating 5 out of 5]

MUST BUY NOW! I LOVED THIS!