Summer is a time for long nights, campfires, and delicious icy drinks. One home cook showed folks on Instagram how to turn kitchen scraps into a tasty beverage to help reduce food waste.
The scoop
Carleigh Bodrug (@plantyou) is a plant-based cook who focuses on low-waste recipes. She has published multiple cookbooks to help you cook more, waste less, and save money. In one clip, she shows followers how to use pineapple scraps to make a traditional Mexican drink called tepache.
Tepache originated in Mexico before the 1500s. Imbibe Magazine recently wrote about the drink and its increasing popularity in the culinary world: "The root word is from Nahuatl (Mexico's Aztec language), meaning 'drink made from corn,' since that was what tepache was originally fermented from, mostly for ritualistic practices. Pineapple is native to the Americas. The earliest archeological records for the fruit in Mexico go back to 200 BCE–700 AD. It's believed that tepache transitioned from corn to pineapple (and other tropical fruits like guavas and tamarind) in the latter half of that period."
In Carleigh's video, she shows how simple it is to make this fermented drink. You will need a large bowl or jar, and then put your leftover pineapple skin and core into your container with water, cinnamon, cloves, and sugar. Stir your mixture and let it sit covered for a few days, stirring occasionally to make sure it doesn't spoil. When it gets nice and bubbly, your tepache is ready to bottle. Put it in containers leaving plenty of space for the bubbles and gas, and you have a lovely summer drink.
How it's working
Tips like this are a fun way to reduce food waste and try something new in the kitchen. Reducing your food waste by just 10% could save you close to $100 a year. However, it is important to keep your produce clean when using the skin and other scraps. Food experts recommend a wash with water and baking soda.
In addition to saving you money, reducing food waste can reduce your carbon footprint. The World Wildlife Fund wrote, "Today, an estimated one-third of all the food produced in the world goes to waste. About 6%-8% of all human-caused greenhouse gas emissions could be reduced if we stop wasting food. In the U.S. alone, the production of lost or wasted food generates the equivalent of 32.6 million cars' worth of greenhouse gas emissions."
What people are saying
Commenters were excited to try this fun summer drink. One person said, "I made this from your recipe and it was SO good!"
Another Instagrammer wrote, "Oh I absolutely love this idea!!!!"
Someone else gave the reminder, " … you have to properly cleanse the skins because you risk drinking pesticides."
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