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The first step to having a zero waste kitchen is to shop and cook with natural fresh foods. That means focusing more on the produce isles of your local grocery store where you can bring reusbale produce bags to keep plastic packaging to a minimum. Or, visit your local farmers market to support the organic farms in your area. When you take your produce home reuse kitchen scraps by adding them to your compost as a renewable food-source for your houseplants.
These are a few zero waste kitchen tips found in these cookbooks. Written by chefs and environmental advocates each book offers a unique take on how to indulge our taste buds in ways that are good for both our bodies and the environment. Coupled with useful everyday tips like how to shop for sustainable seafood or how to eat seasonally, there’s a book on this list that will be appetizing for all the eco-friendly nature lovers in your life… or for you too of course!
The Southern Vegetable Book: A Root-To-Stalk Guide to the South’s Favorite Produce (Southern Living) byRebecca Lang
This cookbook is the holy grail of plant-based recipes that are nourishing to our bodies and have the power to reduce our environmental impact. Each original recipe has been crafted by Rebecca Lang, a nationally recognized chef, contributing editor to Southern Living and cooking instructor. And, as Georgia’s ambassador for some of its finest produce, Rebecca gives an insight about how shopping for local, plant-based and organic foods can make a difference while offering delicious recipes that feel practical and easy to add to your everyday life.
Root to Leaf: A Southern Chef Cooks Through the Seasons by Steven Satterfield
The beauty of fresh produce are blended with a simple and elegant cooking style for mouthwatering recipes that omnivores and vegans alike will enjoy. Recipes are excellently described in this chef’s cookbook that celebrates plants and explains how to make the most of each one. With good preparation and the right spices, this cookbook even shows how to enjoy parts of plants that you might not have know how to enjoyOur before.
Good Fish: Sustainable Seafood Recipes from the Pacific Coast By Becky Selengut
For all the fish lovers and chefs out there, this cookbook will advance your knowledge of seafood, especially when it comes to knowing what is good for both the body and the environment. Written by chef and environmental advocate, Becky Selengut, this book is more than just a recipe book, it also how to properly shop for, cook and care for seafood. So, you might even buy it as an excellent gift for newbie chefs.
The Insect Cookbook: Food for a Sustainable Planet by Arnold van Huis, Henk van Gurp, and Marcel Dicke
Just as the title suggests The Insect Cookbook is making the case for insects as a nutritious, eco-friendly protein. Written by two entomologists and a chef, it contains an abundance of recipes, interviews with top chefs, insect farmers, political figures, and nutrition experts who explain the ecological benefits of eating insects.
The Homemade Vegan Pantry by Miyoko Schinner
From ice cream to breakfast sausage, chefs of all background who enjoy the simple pleasures of preparing food will value the simple techniques and recipes presented in this book. With a heavy emphasis on using only organic and natural ingredients and processes, this cookbook shows how to make your favorite foods and condiments by hand.
Afro-Vegan: Farm-Fresh African, Caribbean, & Southern Flavors Remixed by Bryant Terry
African food culture are remixed into 100 new recipes in this book that blends the exquisite flavors from the deep South with Caribbean spices and African culture. Expects berry salads inspired by a classic Moroccan tagine and insights about history, culture, community and improving your health through food.
The New Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone by Deborah Madison
This cookbook is a great start-up package for those trying out the vegetarian or vegan arena. Inside you’ll find 1,600 recipes from critically acclaimed chef and award winning vegetarian chef and advocate Deborah Madison. “What Julia Child is to French cooking, Deborah Madison is to vegetarian cooking—a demystifier and definitive guide to the subject.”
The Sustainable Mediterranean Diet Cookbook: More Than 100 Easy, Healthy Recipes to Reduce Food Waste, Eat in Season, and Help the Earth by Serena Ball and Deanna Segrave-Daly
Each author has over 20 years of culinary nutrition experience. This cookbook has a strong emphasis on how the Mediterranean diet is one of the healthiest and most sustainable diets known in the world. Along with tips to reduce energy and food waste, this book offers helpful guidance on how small changes can add up to make a positive impact. And, if you love this book, be sure to view the authors’ other cookbooks all featuring recipes from the Mediterranean.
Use It All: The Cornersmith Guide to a More Sustainable Kitchen by Alex Elliott and Jaimee Edwards
As the name implies this cookbook is all about using it all. Inside you’ll find tips on what to do with the lemon rind and the fruit inside or how even what to do with those carrot tops. Next to 160 recipes are tips about how to buy less, eat seasonally and make more of what you have to reduce waste. The Australia-based authors are known for their for their skills in reducing waste and each have offered workshops on preserving foods to encourage others to eat locally and reduce food waste.