Latest / REAP/SOW / A conversation about fighting food waste with Katelan Cunningham
Transcript
- This transcript was exported on 02/12/2026 - view latest version here Teresa Cotsirilos: You're listening to REAP/SOW, dispatches from the front lines of food, farming, and the environment. I'm your host, Teresa Cotsirilos. So we're doing something a little different this week. In a recent episode of REAP/SOW, you heard from our friends at the Second Nature podcast about how to buy less, eat more, and reduce food waste. And we wanted to go deeper with them. So for this REAP/SOW Extra, we sat down with Second Nature's host and producer, Katelan Cunningham, to learn more about food waste's environmental impacts and what we can do about it. I'll let FERN's editor-in-chief, Theodore Ross, take it from here. Theodore Ross: Katelan, welcome to REAP/SOW Extra. How are you? Katelan Cunningham: I am so good. Thanks for having me. Theodore: Great. I'm glad you're here. Look, before we jump into it in depth, I just want to say, buy less, eat more, sounds very good to me. If that's the simplest way to fix food waste, I'm all on board. It doesn't sound like it's going to do much for me. If we could actually even change that to spend less, eat more, these are playing to my interests. Katelan: I would love that as well. Theodore: Why don't we just start? Tell our audience, some of them will have listened to it already, hopefully, more are going to listen to it soon. Tell us what the episode is about in broader terms. Katelan: Our show is a very community-focused show. We always gravitate toward topics that people call in about and are really jazzed about. One that kept coming up was food waste. In this episode, we start off by acknowledging the problem of how much food waste there is and the environmental impact of that. We also, in the episode, get into the financial impact of it. Really, my favorite parts of all the episodes are where we have the community call in. We had people sharing things that they have the most trouble dealing with from a food waste perspective, maybe some just mental hurdles that they have, and then people starting to share tips. We also had on fabulous chef, Anne-Marie Bonneau, who's the author of Zero-Waste Chef. You might follow her on Instagram. She's great. Share specific recipes for the things that people have trouble with food waste around herbs and things like that. Theodore: She has a great British accent. I liked hearing her say Buddha bowl, which was fun for me. This leads to our first basic question that we always talk about. I understand that you got this from audience inquiries, but why this story? Why do you think this is the right time for us to be thinking about food waste and what makes it important right now? Katelan: I think all the time is a good time to think about food waste. When we originally were working on this episode, it was around Thanksgiving time. The holidays is especially a time where we have more food waste. Basically, any big celebratory food moment are these moments where we tend to have a lot more food waste. I think it's something that people want to save money, as you previously mentioned. Groceries are becoming increasingly more expensive. People are looking for opportunities to save money. I think what's exciting is that the solution is you probably have the food already. [chuckles] You know what I mean? You already bought the food. I am very guilty of this. Of all the episodes that we've done, I'm like, "This is the one I struggle with the most personally." This is a constant struggle for me to look in my fridge and not just grab the first thing. If I can't see something easily, I'm just like, "We're going out for groceries. We're getting takeout." That's the other thing I think is that the world is rough right now. I think takeout or going out to eat is one of the first things that we default to whenever things get rough, a lot of people, including myself. I think doing this episode was an opportunity to reframe the stuff that's already in your fridge, not as only a privilege, but an opportunity, and to look in there and go like, "Okay, wait, what can I do with the stuff I already have?" You mentioned someone mentioning the Buddha bowl or an omelet. Honestly, when you do these things, when you find these go-to food scraps recipes, it is very rewarding, I think, to say, "Oh, man, those carrots were going to go to waste, but I made a pesto out of the carrot tops, and it feels so awesome to have done that." This moment to appreciate the food that we have, to appreciate all the work that came to this point to get it to us, and to fulfill its journey in our bellies, I think, is really, literally fulfilling. Theodore: Normally, what we do now is we'll talk a little bit about the reporting obstacles to this episode. I do want to hear about that, but I want to tweak it a little bit. You used what I think is a pretty operative word at the beginning of your last answer, which was guilt. One of the things I think is an obstacle to thinking about the solutions to food waste is that, really, it just makes you feel guilty. You feel, "Oh, I bought this beautiful lettuce, I didn't cook it, I'm so bad. I ended up getting hot wings. I'm the worst." How do you think about that? How do we overcome that burden, which is to feel guilty, not really be able to succeed, and then maybe we end up even wasting more food because we try to double down? What do you think about the obstacle of guilt as it plays into this? Katelan: It's very tricky, and it actually answers what was your original question, which is the obstacle to the reporting, because we talk a lot on the show about systemic solutions that we can all take part in. We know that we have to push on our cities, and our governments, and companies to do these big things. What's interesting about food waste is that so much of it actually does come from our homes. We wanted to be very gentle about how we approach that idea because it is a unique climate solution in the sense that it's one of those things that if we really did all start doing this thing from our home, this would be a ginormous impact in the overall food waste of it all. As far as the guilt goes, that's why I like the framing that we ended up with, which is buy less, eat more. That's a great way to start alleviating that guilt is to just go to the grocery store and say, "I'm just going to buy half the amount of food that I need." I know that that comes with some time obligation, especially if you're a parent, you've got other things going on. You're like, "Look, I don't have time for another run to the grocery store." I think it just requires maybe a little bit of tweaking here and there. Then hopefully, you start to see that payoff when you're throwing less stuff away. I totally understand the guilt aspect of it. I think that part of it is ideally, you can compost. If you have a compost solution, that helps to alleviate the guilt. I still feel a little bit guilty when I throw stuff in my compost bin because the people who grew that lettuce didn't grow it for me to throw in my compost bin. They grew it for me to eat it. The farmers at the farmers market, they're really excited that they're handing it to you, being like, "I hope you enjoy this," not "I hope your worms enjoy it." If you can compost, that is a really good way to ease your guilt a little bit. Then we bring up a couple other solutions there, which is, let's say you ordered a whole crate of these sodas, you don't like them, they're just going to sit there and gather dust. Put them in their community fridge, offer them up in your buy nothing group. Starting to just get a better relationship with your food and saying, "This is on its way out, and there's no way I'm going to eat this thing." Finding other ways to use it before it goes bad can also really help alleviate that guilt as well. Theodore: You talked about this a little bit in the podcast, but I wonder how you think that the idea of mitigating food waste intersects with another competing priority, or maybe not competing, but the priority to cook. When we are cooking, there's a pretty good chance we're going to use up the food that we buy just because it's the nature of how cooking works. A lot of people feel like they don't have time to cook. They are intimidated by cooking. I do all the cooking in my house. My wife does some of the cooking. I'm also like the lord of the leftovers. I do a fairly good job of using everything up. There are a lot of times and places for people where cooking is just rough. How does the desire and the need to cook, does it compete with food waste mitigation? Is it complementary? What do you think about that? Katelan: That's a really good question. I think for me, with a lot of sustainability efforts, I guess anything that's a behavior change is to take tiny baby steps. If you don't really cook much, try to avoid going to the grocery store and buying seven meals that all require extensive cooking. Be real with yourself and say, "I'm going to cook one time this week, and the rest of the stuff, I'm going to do a super easy microwave meal. I'm going to do some pre-made salad in a bag with dressing, kind of thing." I think so many sustainability things. This is a weird comparison, but I follow a lot of dermatologists on Instagram, and they say, "The best sunscreen is the one that you wear." The best sustainability habit is the one that you can keep up. It's literally sustainable. It's the thing that you can keep doing over and over again. Start with the thing that feels accomplishable to you to get that exciting meal at the farmer's market. Get all the ingredients for your Buddha bowl and make it so you run out of them. Then say, "Okay, I did that this week. Good for me. I'm going to try two meals next week. I'm going to try three meals the next week." That's what I would suggest. I think it starts with being realistic with yourself and what's doable for yourself because the you that's at the farmer's market on an idyllic Sunday isn't the you that's going to be in the middle of their work week, ending work at eight o'clock, getting home and tired. [chuckles] Just being super realistic with yourself. Then I also like having a backup plan. You're not getting this Romanesco that you're only going to do this special roast with that you saw on a New York Times recipe being like, "Okay, but if I don't do that, at least what I'm going to do is just chop these up real quick, toss them in olive oil, and throw them in the oven and just eat them like that." Katelan: Have a backup plan for all the things that you're grabbing, so that way they don't go to waste if you don't get to the big idea that you had planned. Theodore: I think that's partially one of the more difficult things for people who don't cook regularly, is they get locked in on a recipe and they're like, "Okay, I've got this Romanesco, I'm feeling pretty bougie, what am I going to do with it?" Sometimes you need to pivot and do something else with it. I also want to point out, I don't follow a lot of dermatology influencers. However, one of my good tennis buddies is a dermatologist. In the summer, when we play, he literally says that about the best sunscreen is the one you'll wear every single time. Shout out to Horatio Wildman. I didn't know how plugged in you were. I want to go to our last question. What do you think the takeaway should be here? I know again, there's a couple of messages here. There's the financial value of limiting your food waste, there's the climate value of it. I think there's a sense of satisfaction that comes from using food efficiently. What do you think is the message? What do you think matters here? It could be everything, but what do you think is the most important? Katelan: I think for me, the most important thing is that this is-- I know it can get gross and slimy if you think about the lettuce in the back of your fridge, but this is one of the most exciting, most fulfilling, just literally delicious collective actions that you can do. I think it also connects to our finances in a way that's really exciting for this moment in time to be realistic with yourself, but also find opportunities to use up the stuff that you were probably already throwing away. It just feels really important, and to me, a nice through line that connects our money, our collective action, and something that most of us have the privilege to do multiple times a day, which is to eat. I always really value those opportunities to rethink the thing that you do all the time, to rethink your normal batch of groceries that you get from the grocery store every week, and go like, "Wait, I always actually end up throwing out half my carrots, so what should I do differently? Should I pickle them? What should I be doing with them?" I think this is one of those collective actions that not only actually matters from a home-to-home perspective, but also affects your budget and affects your daily life in a way that I think can be really exciting. Theodore: Fantastic. If all of you folks out there in REAP/SOW Extra land want to listen to the full story of this episode, and of course, you do want to listen to the full story of this episode, you can check it out at REAP/SOW, on Second Nature, on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. It's also available on YouTube at FERN News. That's it for today, Katelan. Thank you very much. To everyone else out there, if you want to learn more about FERN's dispatches from the frontlines of food, farming, and the environment, or if you want to donate to support our work, go to www.thefern.org. Thanks again. Katelan: Thank you. Teresa Cotsirilos: REAP/SOW is a production of the Food and Environment Reporting Network. Our executive producers are Theodore Ross, Tom Laskaway, and Brent Cunningham. Our sound engineer is Lauryn Newson. Our audio and video producer is Amanda Vacari. I'm your host, Teresa Cotsirilos. Katelan Cunningham hosted and produced for Second Nature, and Evan Goodchild edited and engineered it. FERNnews is our home on YouTube. Find out more about FERN and donate to support our independent nonprofit reporting at www.thefern.org. ReapSow Xtra 021126 KATELAN CUNNINGHAM.mp3 (Completed: 02/12/2026) Transcript by GoTranscript.com