Sustainability advocates use food to raise awareness - in pictures

By rescuing left-over food at restaurants, a UAE-based chef is hoping to inspire others to work and live more sustainably

In Dubai, executive chef at Teible restaurant, Carlos Frunze De Garza, saves left-over fruit and vegetables and incorporates the items into new recipes. All photos: Reuters

From making sauces to vinegars, oils and kombucha tea, the chef describes sustainability as a “lifestyle in the kitchen”.

'Look at one ingredient or one vegetable, look at how you can use it, from the seeds to the core, and make everything out of it, you can make peels, you can make salad,' De Garza says.

'The seeds you can give back to the farmers, who can regrow the seeds, then the cores or the peels, we can make something out of it, we can make oils, we can make vinegars, we can make sauces,' the chef says.

Large jars of fermented fruits and vegetables are lined up in the kitchen, where the chef uses his creations to add a twist to his dishes.

'We ferment and make our kombucha [pictured]. The liquid we use to make granita [semi-frozen dessert], the core we make into a powder, which we use for dessert. Basically everything, the zaatar and the blueberry, are used 100 per cent with the powder and granita," De Garza says.

Not only does he cook sustainably, De Garza works closely with farmers as an advocate for sourcing ingredients locally and to make use crops that would otherwise go to waste.

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