Have sticker stock at the store? These simple shopping tricks will save money on groceries without requiring you to sacrifice anything.
food shopping
Avoid Shopping a Bit Longer During Covid

Food shopping during Covid is stressful. These ideas will help you avoid the store for a bit longer between shopping trips.
Why and How to Shop by Bike

I enjoy shopping for most of my food on my bike. A few people over the years have asked me to write a blog post about this. Here it is… The benefits 1. You save money I can fit only so much food on my bike when I shop so I buy only what I […]
The Dystopian Grocery Store of the Future Is Here

Update 09/21/18: Amazon considering opening 3000 of these stores by 2021. No lines, no cashiers…and no jobs The big selling point of Amazon Go? No waiting at the checkout. The stores will have no cashiers. You just download the Amazon Go app onto your phone, check in to the store through a subway station-esque turn […]
12 Months of Seasonal Eating

Find your local farmer’s market in the US through Local Harvest. I first took pics of my farmer’s market hauls back when I started my blog in March 2014, with the idea that I would one day create a post featuring 12 months of seasonal produce in pictures. Then I forgot… We spoiled Northern Californians can shop […]
Live Stream: Zero-Waste Cooking 101

You’re invited! What: Zero-waste cooking 101 live stream When: Wednesday, March 30th, 7pm Pacific. (You can also later watch a recording on my sparsely populated YouTube channel.) Where: Live stream on YouTube This Wednesday evening, I’ll discuss my zero-waste kitchen in a webinar for the University of Southern California’s chapter of the Food Recovery Network and you can watch […]
6 Self-Centered Reasons to Reduce Your Waste
A zero-waste lifestyle may conjure up images like the Albrecht Dürer woodcut below, The Penitent, with plenty of self-flagellation, a diet consisting of mere bread and water (when not fasting), hair shirts, medieval dregs—basically a wretched life of perpetual self-denial. When I decided to go plastic-free, I merely wanted to avoid contributing to the colossal plastic pollution problem in our oceans. I […]
5 Tips for a Zero-Waste Romantic Valentine’s Day Dinner

Holidays generate so much trash! Don’t let love blind you to an overflowing garbage bin this Valentine’s Day. 1. Plan your menu in advance Planning makes zero-waste success possible—and not just on Valentine’s Day. For example, let’s say I need sour cream for a dish. I merely have to stir a spoonful of cultured buttermilk into […]
How to Shop and a Zero-Waste Kit Giveaway

I have not been compensated for this post. I simply like this product a lot. I live a short bike ride away from the Googleplex, in the heart of Silicon Valley. I ride past the silly looking self-driving cars nearly every day. I know more engineers than is healthy. In short, technology engulfs me. Yet, I […]
5 Essentials for a Zero-Waste Shopping Kit

In order to run my zero-waste kitchen, I need to plan my shopping trips a bit. Before heading to the farmer’s market or grocery store, I take a look at the running shopping list on my phone and add a few things we might need. List in hand, I gather my zero-waste equipment. The list helps […]
7 Big Food Marketing Gimmicks

I’m surprised no store employee or manager escorted me from the supermarket premises today. Looking for food to snap pictures of for this post, I kind of went a bit crazy once I started. I found so much material! If aspects such as added sugar, overpackaging and dead food lacking nutrients don’t turn you off of processed food, […]
Key Ingredients for a Zero-Waste Kitchen

To reduce kitchen waste—and to save time and money—I improvise when I cook rather than strictly follow recipes. If you follow recipes for a different dish every night, in no time, ingredients you bought specifically for those dishes but didn’t use entirely—plus leftovers—will overrun your kitchen. You and your family can eat only so much! […]
Aioli

Click here to go straight to the recipe I took my older daughter MK back to university in Canada last week, where we saw my mum and sister. Michelle had made aioli and gave us a jar. We loved it! An emulsion of olive oil and egg yolks, aioli has the consistency of homemade mayonnaise, but […]
Bulk Shopping Haul 06.22.14

Today I went zero-waste shopping at bulk heaven—Rainbow Grocery in San Francisco. If you’ve never tried it, zero-waste shopping may sound like an intimidating prospect. But if you live near a store with a good bulk section, really, you need only get organized and bring along some zero-waste shopping gear.
You’ll Need Some Jars

If you’re contemplating going plastic-free or zero-waste in the kitchen, start hoarding jars of all sizes now. Keep them out of the recycling, search the backs of cupboards and your attic and hound your friends and coworkers for theirs. Before you know it, you will have amassed a pile of them. I rely on the […]