Mushrooms Conquer Food Waste, Rosemary Garlic Mashed Potatoes & Vagabonding
New composting + mycelium momentum to fight food waste in NYC, elevating a nostalgic classic, and fresh food perspectives from travels (#53).
Welcome back to BRB w/ Nathan P, your 5-min weekly dose of information to inspire climate action.
Each Wednesday, you can expect💥1 Breakthrough, 🥘1 Recipe, and 📚1 Book on food & climate in your inbox.
💥 Mushrooms Conquer Food Waste
I wrote this guest post below for this week’s NY Climate Tech newsletter. Its authors Alec, Sonam, and Kathy are wonderful and resourceful – if you live in NYC and want to stay up-to-date on the latest climate events, subscribe here:
TLDR; I believe mushrooms deserve as much attention as composting to tackle food waste. Here are more thoughts below:
NYC Composting & Mushroom Magic
Mandatory city-wide composting is coming to New York later this year. So is the ‘shroom boom.
New York is following in the sustainable footsteps of cities like San Francisco and Seattle in implementing a mandatory food waste collection system. And for good reason: food scraps make up about 20% of New York’s residential waste but account for a 58% of landfill methane emissions.
The repercussions of this waste beyond the city level are significant. If global food waste were a country, it would be the 3rd largest emitter behind China and the US.
In June 2023, lawmakers committed to bring the program’s coverage to 100% of the city. The policy is active in Brooklyn and Queens and will reach all 5 boroughs in October 2024.
The city is already making strides to achieve these goals. New York’s Department of Sanitation (DSNY) led a curbside composting pilot in Queens last year that diverted 12.7 million pounds of food and yard waste from landfills in 3 months. Earlier this January, Mayor Adams and DSNY Commissioner Jessica Tisch celebrated the expansion of Staten Island’s composting facility by 2,000%.
Food waste will be collected curbside by New York City’s Department of Sanitation (DSNY). Property owners will be responsible to order a small designated brown bin or order a composting decal for any 55-gallon bin with a secured lid, free of charge. The city will require every citizen to separate the following:
🥩 Meat
🥛 Dairy
🦴 Bones
🍋 Citrus peels
🍕 Pizza boxes
🥘 Food scraps
🍲 Prepared foods
📦 Food-soiled paper
🍂 Leaf & yard waste
These streams are then combined and industrially composted to become fertilizer, mostly in Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island. The question is: will New Yorkers participate?
This is not New York’s first go at curbside composting. Parts of the city started such collection systems in 2015, which gathered a meager 5% of household food waste by 2017. The project was slashed in May 2020 due to budget cuts during COVID.
For reference, participation in the city’s recycling programs – by separating glass, plastic, cardboard, and metals – has barely increased over the past decade despite best efforts. New York’s recycling rate sits at 22%, paling in comparison to western counterparts like Seattle at 62.7%.
Nevertheless, NYC is making substantial investments to support the composting initiative. $100 million has already been pledged to acquire 244 dual-bin trucks to collect both trash and food waste in one go.
The city will allow residents a few months to adapt their disposal behaviors before imposing fines in April 2025, starting at $25. How the city will determine who is not complying, especially in multi-family townhouses or high-rises, remains in question.
Many – myself included – are thrilled about NYC’s renewed city-wide composting efforts. For others, it may be more of a nuisance than a priority.
This city-wide initiative has the potential to collect and transform millions of pounds of food waste. At the same time, local food production and urban agriculture is booming. There’s a potentially faster and localized means of upcycling food scraps into fresh nutrients: mushrooms.
Mushrooms are the recyclers of the planet. They can bypass composting and readily grow on food waste streams like spent grains, coffee grounds, and stale bread. And many NYC-based start-ups are growing them closer to our plates right here in the five boroughs.
🍄 Smallhold also grows mushrooms in Brooklyn on side streams like sawdust, seed hulls, and grains for distribution in stores and restaurants.
🍄 Afterlife converts food waste into standardized substrates to grow specialty mushrooms like shiitake, maitake, and lion’s mane in Queens.
🍄 Mush Foods, an Israeli start-up that recently relocated to the New York area, grows mycelium on such food waste to make 50-50 meat-mushroom blends for food service.
After mushrooms grown on food waste are harvested, their growth blocks can also be industrially composted.
Appetite for gourmet and medicinal mushrooms is growing. Yet the majority of such mushrooms – and up to 80% for shiitake – are imported from countries like China and Japan. Even if we doubled local production today, supply would not meet demand.
Mushrooms might be NYC’s emerging food waste heroes. They can become a bigger part of NYC’s nutritious circular economy with the right systems and incentives.
What if residents who compost receive mushroom blocks from their own food waste? Mushrooms can be delicious solutions towards better education and compliance. They deserve the same attention and consideration as composting in the city’s food waste reduction efforts.
For those who want to grow gourmet mushrooms at home, here is my go-to grow kit and DIY instruction manual.
🥘 Recipe: Rosemary Garlic Mashed Potatoes
Mashed potatoes are reminiscent of cozy winter meals for me. Here’s an elevated spin on the nostalgic classic to help you brave the second half of winter.
This dish typically pairs well with sauce- and gravy-rich dishes, though can also be enjoyed on its own with the infused rosemary and garlic.
The right potatoes, technique, and aromatics can take humble mashed potatoes to the next level. Scroll down for the recipe on how I like to make mine.
PS: if you make it, please send pictures!
A quote I’m pondering this week:
“The magic you are looking for is in the work you are avoiding.”
📚 Book: Vagabonding
This week’s book recommendation is a bit different.
Part of my current trip to Asia is to gain fresh perspectives on food & climate, so I first wanted to revisit my mindset around travel. I read Vagabonding by Rolf Potts on the plane to Taiwan where I started my trip and got a lot from it.
Vagabonding is about approaching new places with curiosity and revisiting our relationship with time. This philosophy has informed how I enjoy meals, interact with strangers, and embrace each day.
Food & climate has been very top of mind as I’m now exploring Thailand. Here are a few reflections:
🌱 Sustainability is not a priority for much of the world. In fact, it’s a privilege to have the bandwidth, means, and energy to fight for it.
🥘 Traveling opens us to new cuisines and traditions. Almost everywhere, food is deeply cultural, nostalgic, and emotional.
🥦 Vegetarian options are strong, and there is a long history of plant-based proteins like tofu, jackfruit, and beans.
🍗 Alternative proteins are growing and gaining adoption. Openess to milk and meat analogues is going global.
🥩 At the same time, the demand for meat and premium cuts seems to be increasing amongst meat-eaters.
Regardless of your specific travel goals, if you are soon embarking on a trip or pondering long-term travel, you’ll enjoy the perspectives in this book.
My favorite quotes as food for thought:
“Vagabonding is an attitude—a friendly interest in people, places, and things that makes a person an explorer in the truest, most vivid sense of the word. Vagabonding is not a lifestyle, nor is it a trend… [It’s] about time—our only real commodity—and how we choose to use it.”
“People travel to faraway places to watch, in fascination, the kind of people they ignore at home.”
“Slow down… Vagabonding is not merely about reallotting a portion of your life for travel but rediscovering the entire concept of time.”
Thank you for reading – BRB next week ✌️
🥘 Recipe: Rosemary Garlic Mashed Potatoes
Adapted from Joshua Weissman.
Ingredients (Serves 4-6):
3 pounds Yukon Gold Potatoes
1/2 cup plus 2 Tbsp (130g) Unsalted butter
1/3 cup (78mL) heavy cream
1 cup (300mL) whole milk
4 cloves garlic, crushed lightly left in pods
3 sprigs of rosemary
Instructions (30-40 minutes):
Peel the Yukon gold potatoes and cut them into 1x1 inch piece. Place them into a cold pot of water. Season the water heavily with salt and bring to a rapid boil over high heat. Boil the potatoes for 15-20 minutes or until fork tender.
Once the potatoes are done cooking, strain through a colander and allow them to drain of their water. Using a potato ricer, and while your potatoes are still hot; press all of them through on the finest setting into a separate bowl. Place to the side and keep warm.
To make the flavor liquid, melt unsalted butter in a pot set to medium-low heat. Once the butter is half-way melted, add in the 4 cloves of lightly crushed skin-on garlic and the 3 sprigs of rosemary. From there, add in whole milk and heavy cream. Season with salt and whisk together.
Bring up to a steamy heat and let steep for 10 minutes.
Strain out any aromatics you added, then pour the liquid mixture into the pressed potatoes. Stir until everything is evenly incorporated. Season with salt and pepper tans enjoy with your besties :)
About Me
Hi there! My name is Nathan Paumier – I’m a climate optimist, food enthusiast, and avid reader.
My mission is to make it fun, easy, and delicious to make more sustainable decisions.
I started this newsletter after frequent questions on food tech, reading recommendations, and my secret recipes.
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