Gunders - Waste free kitchen handbook : a guide to eating well and saving money by wasting less food

For my dad, who can suck meat off a chicken bone like no one else.
For my mom, who has been reusing tea bags for as long as I can remember.
For my sister Debi, who reigns as the queen of kitchen concoctions.
For my husband Jose, who completes me, and my plate.
For the growing army of passionate food-waste warriors who love food as much as I do.

Copyright 2015 by Dana Gunders.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available.

ISBN 978-1-4521-3354-6 (pb)

ISBN 978-1-4521-4943-1 (epub, mobi)

Designed by Walter C. Baumann

Chronicle Books LLC
680 Second Street
San Francisco, California 94107
www.chroniclebooks.com

It takes a village to shepherd a book from concept to bookstore. Im enormously grateful to the people of that village, only some of whom Im able to mention here.

First, to the Natural Resources Defense Council for helping in so many ways to make this book a reality. Special thanks to Jonathan Kaplan for his guidance and encouragement; Peter Lehner and Doug Barasch for their early support for the project; Michele Egan for her design eye; Irina Petrova for her endurance; Jenny Powers, Jackie Wei, Lisa Goffredi, Lisa Benenson, and Alex Kennaugh for their strategic advice and outreach; Erik Olson for helping make it a success; and the many staff for bravely testing recipes!

Next, to all the hands that helped research and write this book: Kristina Johnson for her creative take on recipes, Keri Keifer for her extensive research, Andrea Spacht for always pitching in, Jason Fitzroy Jeffers for getting the ball rolling on food scraps, Kate Slate for her delightful nature and wise recipe advice, Helen Rogan for keen editing, and Mike Ryan for his veterinary advice. Special thanks to Don Schaffner at Rutgers University for ensuring all the recommendations in the book are safe ones.

Sarah Malarkey, Lorena Jones, Sarah Billingsley, Dawn Yanagihara, Peter Perez, David Hawk, and my agent Kari Stuartthank you for all your work to make this book a reality.

Finally, huge appreciation for Anita and Josh Bekenstein, Jesse and Betsy Fink, and Eliza Brown and family for believing in NRDCs ability to make a dent in food waste and actively supporting our work.

My journey to becoming a food-waste warrior started at work, where I was researching how to improve farming. My aim was to help farmers use less water, fertilizers, and pesticides. But what I found startled me. After all the effort and resources that were being invested to get food to our plates, a huge amount of it was going uneaten! It occurred to me that no matter how organically or sustainably we grow our food, if it doesnt get eaten, it doesnt do anyone any good.

About 40 percent of all food in the United States does not get eaten. Thats crazy! Its like buying five bags of groceries and then dropping two of the bags in the grocery store parking lot and not bothering to pick them up.

Collectively, consumers are responsible for more wasted food than farmers, grocery stores, or any other part of the food supply chain. The lettuce that went bad, the leftovers you never got around to eating, and that scary science experiment in the back of the refrigerator youre hoping will disappearit all adds up. Think about it. If you dont eat half of that fish you paid $10 for, thats $5 youre throwing away. In fact, Americans are throwing away an average of $120 each month per household of four in the form of uneaten food. Thats real money going straight into the garbage instead of paying off your credit card bills or adding to your savings account.

A woman from Hong Kong once told me that when she was a child, her aunts and uncles would inspect her bowl and tell her that each morsel of rice she had left would turn into a mole on the face of her future husband! Can you imagine if we thought that way about food in our own lives?