Alternate Root aims to shrink food waste in the home

On a Tuesday night in late August, a group of 10 men and women, many of whom had never met, gathered in the tiny kitchen of the CommunityWise Resource Centre, with a small island and three-burner electric stove, to learn how to pickle green beans.

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The gathering was the first of the second season of Alternate Root, a grassroots initiative founded by Katie Klein and Carla Bitz to address food waste at a domestic level.

Concern over the issue has spread in recent years, after it was revealed that Canadians (and Americans) throw away 50 per cent of the food we buy.

"I was losing sleep over food waste, and the thought of food going bad in my fridge," Bitz said as she welcomed the group.

"And while grocery stores and restaurants toss and compost their share, half of wasted food is at the consumer level. Which is great, in my mind. I see it as an opportunity — it means we actually have the power to change that." 

Bitz and Klein began talking about food waste years ago, imagining what could be done.

"We thought, 'What's a way we can address this in a way that's fun?' We didn't think people would come to just a 'waste workshop.' Teaching food skills where people can actually connect over food — that was the draw."

'Lost art'

They brought together a few like-minded friends and launched Alternate Root last year with an aim to minimize food waste in our city and help our neighbours by teaching them what to do with produce.

That includes (but is not limited to) sharing ideas, teaching basic cooking and preserving skills (things like freezing, canning, pickling and jam-making) and encouraging people to learn what to do with what they have, rather than find a recipe and source the ingredients as the route to dinner.

"As soon as I started cooking like that, it became so much more fun, and more interesting," Bitz said. 

"Our strategy is to show people one way to preserve, and one way to use something up right now — usually we do one of each in a workshop," she said.

"Preservation is a lost art. We're trying to bring it back and show that it's a real way to reduce food waste."

Bitz also sees this as a way to address food security. "We didn't always have access to fruit year round, so we're showing that if you preserve it, that's a different way of doing it, in a more sustainable way." 

Workshops by donation

This season they're offering six workshops, running from late August to early October to take advantage of the harvest.

Produce is donated by local farmers, including Bitz's aunt and uncle's farm, Michelle's Market, which contributed the green beans they would pickle and freeze this first night.

Workshops are by donation, but they ask attendees to sign up via Eventbrite to get a handle on numbers. And if you can't afford it, that's OK too.

"As we welcome all donations please note that if it's not in your budget, we understand and are simply thankful that you are choosing to spend an evening with us," their Eventbrite page says.

Everyone involved volunteers their time. Donations go to the kitchen, supplies for workshops such as salt, vinegar and mason jars.

Keeping it simple

Chris, the instructor this first night, explained that he was not a professional canner, but had been doing it himself at home for seven or eight years, and was there to share what he knew.

He encouraged everyone to do the same by sharing their tips and tricks once they got going in the kitchen. They did.

They filed into the kitchen, washed their hands and began trimming beans and peeling garlic, elbow to elbow in the small space.

"I like to use this kitchen to demonstrate that you don't need a fancy kitchen and lots of gadgets to do preserving," Bitz said.

Unexpected personal connections

The group soon fell into comfortable conversation about what they've made, pickled and preserved and what their families do. Some even found that they had mutual friends or had traveled to others' overseas hometowns.

"Personal connections were a really cool outcome that we didn't really expect," Bitz said. 

Because of their small space, and so that everyone can participate and get to know each other, they cap each event at 10, but are hoping to expand, either to a larger space, or to add more events at different locations.

Recipes and formulas aren't printed out, but emailed to everyone after the event in order to maintain their dedication to sustainability.

Everyone will also go home with a jar of beans and a suggestion to try it at home within a couple weeks, while the memory of what they all learned is still fresh.

There's a Facebook page for sharing information and asking questions, and connecting with other attendees you may have made a connection with.

"There is an appetite for this sort of thing," Bitz says. "People are interested in connecting over food systems and sustainability, and just generally, the idea of building community around food was really appealing to me."