Missed WastED at Blue Hill this Spring? Didn’t make it out for the glorious one-day-only juice pulp burger extravaganza at Shake Shack? There’s still time to nosh on kale ribs and roasted cabbage cores nestled in broccoli leaves as the food waste Cinderella season extends to mainstream fast casual restaurants. Starting Tuesday, you’ll be able to order a wastED salad at Sweetgreen New York locations.
The salad, which costs $8.60 and includes roasted bread butts, carrot peels and broccoli stalks, will stay on Sweetgreen menus through late September. “The wastED salad is very much in the spirit of the original pop-up,” says chef Dan Barber. “More often than not, the foods we consider ‘waste’ — be it a broccoli leaf or a cabbage core — all have delicious applications.” Sweetgreen also considered using beet peels and cucumber seeds in the salads, but ended up including other vegetable parts. While the salad itself is specific to this season’s menu, the individual ingredients may show up in other dishes.
Though food waste has received more media attention in recent years, it’s still estimated that Americans waste between a third and a half of all the food produced in the United States. Here’s a neat infographic to help you visualize what that means in terms of water use and landfill volume.
