5 Questions with Bal Arneson - Chef & Author

1. What’s your take on all the attention food waste is getting lately?

I think it is very important for people to be educated on food waste, so we can make better daily choices to help our planet – so I think its amazing all the attention this topic is receiving. With all this attention, it makes us more conscious on how we purchase, prepare, and store our food.

2. What are your best tips to make it easy to reduce food waste in the professional kitchen?

In professional kitchens, there is such a high volume of food that it can be easy to waste. Participating in composting, donating left over food, and recycling menu items is a quick way to reduce food waste in a professional kitchen. Planning out your menu so you can use leftover products is an efficient way to make sure everything is getting used.

3. How about in the home kitchen?

At home, an easy way I reduce food waste is I always take my vegetable peels and use it later to make a vegetable broth. I teach my family that to prevent food waste, we need to be conscious about this from planning our menu, to shopping at the grocery store, and how we store our food at home. If we notice that we have leftovers and ingredients that need to be used, we will have a day once a week where we create new recipes with what we have in the fridge.