Your Carrot Top Pesto Will Not Save the World

nor will pickling your watermelon rinds

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My cookbook AMRIKAN: 125 Recipes from the Indian American Diaspora, is available wherever you like to buy books. I promise the book is worth it for the Saag Paneer Lasagna recipe alone — though lots of people can’t stop making the malai broccoli, chili cheese toast, moong dal waffles, shrimp moilee, and much much more! If you have already bought a copy, would really appreciate a review on Amazon!

It was also recently named of one Esquire’s best books of the year, so far.

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I always forget to write about work that I have recently done, including two features for F&W:

One on the rise of high quality masa, and the other on a really fun and charming Sunday gathering that chef Fermin Nuñez throws in Austin called Dominguitos.

I recently got back from Seattle, Portland, and Austin and will have some updated guides. I still have a few stops and events left for book tour this year and will be in New Orleans (next week!) , NYC (next week!), Houston, and back to Austin this fall. If you’re in any of those cities, please come say hi! More info will be in my website soon!!

Photo by Mark Stosberg on Unsplash

It’s hard to not think about climate change all the time, when we are all witnessing it happen. I know ultimately, the best and most impactful solutions (and quite frankly, responsibility) lay at the governmental, policy, and industrial level, but I also refuse to buy into the idea that individual actions don’t make a difference — especially when we collectively take actions. 

Food waste is one of the largest contributors to greenhouse gas emissions and it is estimated that one-third of all the food produced in the world, goes to waste. As someone who spends a lot of time in her kitchen, and/or thinking about her kitchen, and lives in a city with negligent public transportation options, not wasting food feels like the one obvious thing I can do. 

But what does it exactly mean to not waste food? 

I operate with a simple definition: Try to use any food you buy or make before it must be thrown out. Simple as that. Just use the bag of spinach before it wilts into a gloopy wet mush, or finish that container of yogurt before it starts to mold, or freeze that serving of leftover chili if you’re not going to get to it in the next three days. 

I think we often pressure ourselves to take it to the extreme: that every inch of every thing must be used. That not only do we need to use the garlic bulb before it dries out, but the skins, too. That eating the watermelon isn’t enough, but the rinds must also be consumed.  That it’s somehow not okay to only  eat the carrots before they go bad, but we must also eat the peels, and the green carrot tops, too. This is how we get so many people thinking they need to be making carrot top pesto. I hate to break it to you, but no matter how much carrot top pesto you make, you will not be able to save the world. 

In fact, I’d argue that making carrot top pesto is actually worse for the environment. It is not good. It’s bitter. It’s earthy. No amount of cheese can save it. I have yet to meet anyone who actually enjoys it. In fact, I’d argue that carrot top pesto might create even more waste, given how many other great ingredients you have to use (good olive oil! Parmesan! Salt!) to make it taste decently edible. Let’s be honest: how many times have you made carrot top pesto, only to let it linger in the back of the fridge until it eventually rots?

At this point, given the rate that Americans in particular waste our groceries at, it’s much more pertinent to focus on finishing the part of the carrot that we like in the first place, leaving peels and tops for those who hav more time on their hands or a need to level up. 

I’ve seen so many recipes and videos out there of people trying to find ways to eat banana peels and watermelon rinds, But there is the thing, we don’t need to be spending our time trying to find ways to make the not-so-edible, tolerable, and instead should just be using the time to cook or consume that maximum of what is in our fridge and pantry. If every week, people only threw out only the skins and peels and pits of vegetables and fruit — imagine what a difference that could make collectively. This is not to say the other scraps are not important not to try to cook or transform into a broth, but perhaps they are better just composted if possibly, and if not, simply thrown out.  

Too often we buy what we think we should be eating, versus what we actually want to eat. The bags and clamshells of various greens — all purchased with good intentions, that we let to dissolve into a slimy mess, the avocados we don’t get to in time, the last banana that isn’t quite enough to make banana bread from but is way too brown to eat plain. We have great intentions when we purchase the yogurt and the cottage cheese (protein!) but forget that they can’t handle more than a week or two of lingering in the back of your fridge waiting for you to make those protein pancakes you SWORE you were going to make.  

What we need to practice is much more mindful consumerism and consumption. Perhaps, the biggest issue with this is how grocery shopping is set up in America, where households usually do a big shop once a week, guessing what we need to buy for the next 7-10 days, instead of countries in Asia and Europe and basically anywhere else, where they go shopping in local markets, for what they need, at least a few times a week. I know it’s not always conducive to all the other responsibilities everyone has in life, but we would be better served, buying less things, but going to the store or the market more often.

These days, as I try to be as mindful as I can, I like to: 

Have A Plan For Everything That I Buy

Not only do I have plan A, I tend to have a plan B and C for the ingredient just incase one of the previous, generally more ambitious plans tends to fall through. For example: I bought spinach thinking I would make a spanakopita situation that ended up not happening, and so the back up is to use the spinach in smoothies, and if I still have some left, I will blitz it and fold it into a frittata, or cook it down and put it in a quesadilla.                                                  

Try to Only Buy Things I Know I Will Use

It’s is better to go back to the store for a singular ingredient than to have bought it at the time and let it bloom clouds of mold spore in your fridge.

Use Your Freezer

There is a reason I include freezer notes for every recipe in my book! It’s the best way to store most foods, especially when they are about to go bad. You freezer is truly your best fried! Slice and freeze the banana! Freeze the kale for smoothies! Beans and rice also freeze incredibly well. 

Don’t Forget That Basically Anything Can Be Turned Into a Quesadilla, Frittata, or Nachos
A little cheese helps a lot of things.

Join Your Local Buy Nothing Group

Honestly this is the reason I keep my Facebook. You can post truly anything on there: half batch of uneaten Costco muffins, some green beans you just can’t bring yourself to cook. Post it, and mostly likely one of your neighbors will offer to take it off your hands.

What’s your favorite way to combat food waste?