THE FUTURE OF ECOFRIENDLY EATING by Abigail Anton Sustainable cooking and eating are great places to start if you want to incorporate a minimal-waste lifestyle into your daily routine. Sustainable cooking is defined as reducing the use of nonrenewable resources, like gas, to cook or make food. Additionally, sustainable food focuses on choosing nutritious, affordable foods, using healthy cooking methods, minimizing food waste, and conserving energy. Becoming more ecofriendly is essential for the environment and a better way to preserve it. Many restaurants are now introducing more and more steps toward minimizing food waste and creating a more ecologically-friendly environment. McDonald’s and Starbucks have both taken measures over the years to reduce single-serve plastics and packaging like how you need to now ask for straws. Restaurants worldwide are beginning to hop on the wastereduction train, from decor, to utensils, to the food itself. Silo London, a restaurant in England, claims to be “The world’s first zero waste restaurant,” where among other things, recycled plates are made from packaging waste, decor is made from crushed wine bottles, dried seaweed, and mycelium, and all of their trash is composted. They even initiated nose to tail menu planning, milling their own flour, churn their own butter, have their food delivered in re-usable containers, alongside a robust composting program.
FREA, another “zero-waste” restaurant in Berlin, features an enormous piece of wall art made from melted plastic collected during the restaurant’s construction. At Nolla, located in Finland, gift cards are made with biodegradable poppyseed paper. Recipients can plan them in their gardens after use. Smithsonian Magazine reports that Nolla also hosts occasional “blackout dinners,” where guests dine by candlelight and food is cooked without electricity over a live fire. When it comes to gardening, hydroponics is a method of growing plants using a water-based solution instead of soil. Gardens can be small or large, even something as simple as growing your own herbs. Another way to reduce your waste could be to eat vegan, as the meat and dairy industries are responsible for 14.5% of greenhouse gas emissions, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Great vegan alternatives are available at most supermarkets, and some highly rated vegan restaurants in New York City include Beatnic, Ras Plant-Based in Brooklyn, and Anixi in Chelsea. According to the Marine Stewardship Council, there are also simple ways to be sustainable at home, like cutting the usage of plastic water bottles, cooking at home to reduce food waste, using reusable shopping bags, and switching to ecofriendly household products. Sustainability can be accessible.
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