DON'T SCRAP THAT PEEL, MAKE A DISH

Arina Suchde's 'NoWaste Kitchen Cookbook' offers practical suggestions and tips for a zerowaste food journey

- Raul Dias

Did you know that an average Indian home throws away 50 kilograms of food per person every year? These were the startling findings of a report from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in October 2021. This year, a Food Trends Report by Godrej highlights how mindful consumption can help build ecofriendly kitchens, especially post-pandemic, in India.

A new book, The No-Waste Kitchen Cookbook: 75 Recipes To Begin Your ZeroWaste Journey by Arina Suchde, shows the way to zero-waste recipes and is among the rare few by an Indian author suitable for a modern urban set-up.

Suchde, a Mumbai-based chef, mixologist and now author, is a self-admittedly recent inductee into the realm of "sustainability in a commercial setting", though she has been dabbling in it as a lifestyle choice since childhood and has conducted "trash cooking" workshops for home cooks in a few Indian cities. The book offers 75 vegetarian recipes across seven sections that deal not just with food but also cocktails, and shines the spotlight again on composting.

Internationally, there has been a gradual rise in the number of such books, including The Zero Waste Cookbook: 100 Recipes For Cooking Without Waste (2019) by Amelia Wasiliev and Giovanna Torrico, and The Zero-Waste Chef: Plant-Forward Recipes And Tips For A Sustainable Kitchen And Planet (2021) by Anne Marie Bonneau.