Habit 5: Dedicate Your Day

Cooking with food that is going to waste not only saves you money but can result in fabulous meals.

Dedicating one day a week to use up food is brilliant fun.

The final habit in the project is not about food waste, but about better food. It is called dedicating a day and it is about taking one day in the week where there is some time. This should not be done on a Monday night when it is busy, but taking one day a week where all of the food that looks like it will go out of date or needs to be eaten is used to make a meal.

Consider a house with lots of leftover vegetables because the occupants have been growing stuff in the greenhouse and they got to the end of the season. So they have a massive courgette or marrow, five big tomatoes that are starting to go bad, beans, a bunch of aubergine, five overgrown green beans because they are not really good at cooking with them and then some bad celery that is going to stay in the fridge until it rots. They are not the most creative cook so once they have gotten all the recipes together they normally just jump on the web and try and find a recipe. They can use google but about a month ago they found this website called food52 based in New York and it is just wicked. So they use it all the time now.

The best thing about this meal is that it is new and different. The eggplant, tomatoes, and spices come together to create a delicious and unique dish. If you have the time, this meal is definitely worth making.

Lindsay Wilson
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I founded Shrink That Footprint in November 2012, after a long period of research. For many years I have calculated, studied and worked with carbon footprints, and Shrink That Footprint is that interest come to life.

I have an Economics degree from UCL, have previously worked as an energy efficiency analyst at BNEF and continue to work as a strategy consultant at Maneas.  I have consulted to numerous clients in energy and finance, as well as the World Economic Forum.

When I’m not crunching carbon footprints you’ll often find me helping my two year old son tend to the tomatoes, salad and peppers growing in our upcycled greenhouse.