We could all do with addressing food waste Food writer and avid cheerleader for sustainability, Melissa Hemsley talks to ELLA WALKER about her new vegetable-led cookbook
WHEREVER you stand on the plastic straws debate, food writer Melissa Hemsley is right: “You don’t get two in your mojito on a Friday night now!”
Things are undoubtedly changing. Call it the Blue Planet II effect, or simply an inevitable waking up to the demands we put on the planet, but the choices we make daily now factor in a constant question: is this environmentally justifiable?
It’s an idea that threads its way through Melissa’s new cookbook, Eat Green. Veg-heavy (but not fully vegetarian), it focuses on all the ways we can cut waste and get dinner on the table without feeling guilty.
The London-based 34-year-old, of sister double act Hemsley+Hemsley – best known for popularising the spiralizer, bone broth and cauliflower rice – calls it a guide on how to “get the most out of food, be frugal, be thrifty – but in a positive way”.
“[For] my Roman Catholic Filipino mum, throwing food away was a sin,” says Melissa.
“I’ve realised that for those of us who care about the planet, [the stats around food waste are] something we could all probably do with addressing.”
A third of all food produced is wasted somewhere along the line, and according to charity WRAP, 85% of that waste happens at home. They’re shocking numbers, but Melissa suggests changing things by starting small.
Sometimes it can be so incredibly overwhelming that you don’t know where to start. You might freeze, you might give up, or you just think, ‘Ugh, I’ll deal with it another day’, and I understand that.”
However, she adds: “I really feel lots of us can get behind [tackling] food waste. It can tick so many boxes – saving money, doing your part for the planet... We mustn’t, mustn’t listen to this idea that what we do won’t have an effect.
“Life happens,” she continues, “things do end up in the bin, but what can we do to stop that happening as much as possible?”
Eat Green presents some of those possibilities. Packed with tips for using up some of the most binned fruit and veg items (looking at you,
carrot tops and cauliflower leaves), it’s crammed with ways to stretch your food, fill your belly with good stuff and make mealtimes a little easier.
Self-taught chef Melissa encourages batchcooking, cooking from scratch, avoiding plastic (wherever possible), eating seasonally, making a judgement on eating certain items past their sell-by-date, and being flexible (“My mum basically taught me to use what you’ve got”).
And that’s not even mentioning her favourite thing; filling up the freezer, so all you have to do is defrost dinner in culinary Blue Peter style – here’s one I made earlier. Ta-dah!
“I only feel good when I’ve got food in the freezer,” she says with a laugh, describing how she recently had a nasty fall down the stairs and “genuinely had the thought in my head, ‘At least the freezer is full’. Of all the things to cross my mind!”
“Why waste your energy trekking out in the rain to the shops, to just go and spend more money?
“What I do know is that every single one of us can play a part,” she says.
[For] my Roman Catholic Filipino mum, throwing food away was a sin.
Melissa Hemsley on food waste