Scraps, Peels, and Stems: Recipes and Tips for Rethinking Food Waste at Home

"Local food writer Jill Lightner knows all the tips … her brand-new book “Scraps, Peels, and Stems: Recipes and Tips for Rethinking Food Waste at Home” is stuffed full of them. If you’ve got the will to reduce how much you waste, she’s got all the ways." ―Seattle Times

"[Scraps, Peels, and Stems] is loaded with tips on gardening, composting, shopping and storing. There's advice on meal planning, recipes, what to do with leftovers, both from restaurants and home cooked. All to help us minimize the amount of food we waste – an average of 18 pounds per month." ―KNKX Food For Thought

2018 Gold Nautilus Book Award Winner in Green Living & Sustainability

All across the country, food processors, grocers, restaurants, and regular folks throw away perfectly edible food. In fact, every month nearly twenty pounds of food per person is thrown out in the United States, and we consumers are the worst offenders. However, the good news is that it’s easy to reduce waste―while saving money and eating healthier too!

Scraps, Peels, and Stems is a comprehensive and accessible guide to how you can reduce food waste in your daily life. Food journalist Jill Lightner shows how to manage your kitchen for less waste through practical strategies, tips, and advice on food purchasing, prep, composting, and storage. From beef bones, Parmesan rinds, and broccoli stems to bruised apples and party leftovers, Jill explains what to do with unused food, and how to avoid the extras in the first place. With attitude, a sense of humor, and the acceptance that none of us are perfect, Jill helps all of us understand some of the larger social, economic, environmental, and agricultural issues around food and its exorbitant waste. Topics and features include:

• 70+ recipes for breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks, and drinks as well as items for your pantry
• Money-saving tips throughout
• Three levels of action for every topic, to help you figure out what’s doable
• Composting and recycling tips
• Portioning to avoid leftovers on the plate
• Meal planning vs. freestyle cooking
• Grocery shopping and dining-out tactics
• Storage strategies for small, urban kitchens―and how to read expiration dates
• Insight into “nose to tail” and “root to stem” cooking trends

Through clear advice, quick tips, useful techniques, and easy recipes, Scraps, Peels, and Stems shows how, by looking at the food waste we encounter in our daily lives, we can save money and make a difference.

Writer and editor Jill Lightner has long explored the economics, environmental concerns, and flavors of the food system. Most recently she was the co-editor of Taste magazine, published by the largest member-owned food co-op in the United States, PCC Community Markets. She has also been restaurant critic for the Seattle Weekly and edited the award-winning Edible Seattle magazine, as well as two Edible Communities cookbooks. Jill lives in Seattle.

Photographer Shannon Douglas's rich and expressive self-styled images have been featured in books, periodicals, and campaigns internationally, including more than thirty cookbooks. Shannon lives in North Bend, Washington.