For our first week of change, we make a zero waste breakfast from bulk products and produce that is no longer living its best life.

About one-third of the food produced worldwide is thrown away without being consumed. An appalling amount of energy and resources are dedicated to producing and transporting this waste.

This food waste is even more disheartening when you consider that there are people on this globe who do not have the adequate nutritious food we are tossing. Although my household is below average in wasted food, I felt this was a sensible place to start our journey to a zero waste household.

I have always been a huge fan of meal prepping, but I usually buy food for this purpose. What if I could use potential food waste, the stuff left behind at the end of the week, to make breakfast for the family?

Why meal prep?

Planning for breakfast is essential in our family because everyone leaves at different times. My children have varying tastes and, more importantly, varying needs. They go to four different schools with four different start times. I often leave the house well before 6 AM, so I bring breakfast with me to be heated and eaten at a less ungodly hour. The kids leave the home in several waves between 6:45 and 8:15 in the morning. In addition, we have a permanently ravenous college student who eats like a keto hobbit, having one protein-rich meal before leaving and bringing extra for morning snacks. My partner eats whatever she can cobble together between sending children off to school and settling down for her own daily grind.

To further complicate matters, we love breakfast foods. While many households with similar scheduling conflicts can simply reach for a box of cold cereal, my family and I prefer things like Belgian waffles, omelettes, and fancy toasts. It is sadly rare that we have time to make this kind of meal in the morning and absolutely no one wants to settle for cold cereal.

The moral of this story? Breakfast in my house needs to be varied, prepared in advance, and waiting for us to grab on our way out into the long gray days of Seattle winter.

Planning on the fly

When I prepare breakfasts, I usually make some sort of pancake or waffle and a savory protein option. I also make a big jar of hot cereal mix because two of my children prefer this in cold weather.

This particular week, I had some leftover squash, a few apples that had seen better days, and some spring greens that weren’t crisp enough for a satisfying salad. I searched the cupboards and found the usual bulk supplies as well as two different boxes of pancake mix from before we started buying mixes in bulk. I also decided to try making oatmilk because I had the time and the oats.

Here’s what I made:

Cinnamon apple bread

Pumpkin pancakes

Egg muffins with greens

Cinnamon brown sugar oatmeal mix

Oatmilk

The zero waste breakfast plan

Usually when I meal-prep, I follow a certain order. I find recipes, make a grocery list, buy supplies, and finally make the food.

This morning was a bit different because I instead looked at what we needed to use and then found the recipes.

The cinnamon apple quick bread recipe was the first one to pop up on Pinterest when my bleary-eyed 3:30 AM self searched for apple bread. I replaced half of the flour with whole wheat flour and threw in some flaxseed meal for good measure. I also halved the sugar in the recipe and did not make the streusel topping. There are a lot of tips about bringing eggs to room temperature and whatnot, but I was too tired for that kind of thing.

For the pancakes, I used half buttermilk pancake mix and half Trader Joe’s pumpkin pancake mix because we had about half a batch of each in the cupboard needing to be used. I stirred in that rogue serving of leftover squash and sprinkled pumpkin pie seasoning over the mess.

I chopped some spring greens that were seriously on their last legs and mixed them with plain beaten eggs, shredded cheddar, and garlic salt. This was baked for about a half hour at 375 degrees to make simple, tasty egg muffins for household members who prefer protein in the morning.

One of my sons loves instant oatmeal packets so I made sure he had a packet-free supply for the week. I use this recipe as a template.

Oatmilk has become one of my favorite dairy alternatives so why not whip up a batch of that? I use one cup of oats and three cups of water to make four cups.

How this works on a weekly basis

This entire endeavor took two hours, although I was not working the entire time. I started the apple bread, then made pancakes while it baked between doing yoga and answering emails. Somewhere in there, I mixed up some oatmeal mix for the singular oatmeal lover in my home. I then threw in the egg muffins to bake while I showered and got dressed/ready for the day. Altogether, I put about an hour of work into a week’s worth of breakfasts. I do not usually wake up at 3 AM, but I was transitioning from a night shift to a day shift so my circadian rhythm was seriously messed up.

The results were impressive for the amount of time invested.

The next week, I started with a few browning bananas, some limp carrots, and the same range of baking supplies. I made banana pancakes and carrot muffins. I also soft boiled a dozen eggs for the protein lovers among us. I threw together more oatmeal mix, this time with dried cranberries and almonds. This happened on Sunday evening because my circadian rhythm finally caught up to my schedule and I was sleeping until a respectable 4:30 AM.

I just finished my third weekend of breakfast meal prepping from whatever is laying around. Although some creativity is required, this breakfast strategy reduces food waste while supporting a busy lifestyle. In addition, I find we are worrying less about waste when purchasing fruits and vegetables for meals and snacks. Whatever is left in one week will simply become breakfast.

When it becomes warmer, we can transition to prepping our favorite summer foods like smoothies, yogurt, and granola. This will require a different kind of plan, but I’m here for that challenge. I love breakfast!

Is this a sustainable change?

For most of us, a sustainable change is not just one that is good for the environment but also sustainable in terms of time, money, and other resources. This zero waste habit would be much more difficult (and produce a lot more waste) if we did not already buy a lot of our groceries from bulk stores and keep a huge amount of dried goods tetrised into our tiny kitchen. Many families will have a different starting point, which will complicate the matter.

Time investment: Altogether this took about 2 hours for five days worth of meals as well as some oatmilk. This evens out to 24 minutes per day, which is less than what we would spend making almost any kind of homemade breakfast for our family.

Money investment: I’m too lazy to do the math but we came out way ahead, especially considering that we used produce on its last legs and really cheap bulk ingredients. Even counting the cost of the produce, this cooking spree probably came to around $15, or under 50 cents a serving.

Emotional energy investment: I personally enjoy “cooking challenges” and trying new recipes so this has been a fun challenge. YMMV.

This zero waste lifestyle change will become a permanent part of our home life. We already tried to prepare breakfast on a weekly basis, so this is mostly a change in how we approach the task. It does take some time upfront, but it overall saves time and makes our busy mornings less complicated.