{"id":364194,"date":"2017-03-21T02:30:44","date_gmt":"2017-03-21T06:30:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/grist.org\/?post_type=grist-50-profiles&amp;p=364194"},"modified":"2017-03-21T02:30:44","modified_gmt":"2017-03-21T06:30:44","slug":"hari-pulapaka","status":"publish","type":"grist-50-profiles","link":"https:\/\/grist.org\/grist-50\/profile\/hari-pulapaka\/","title":{"rendered":"Restaurants toss a lot of food. Hari Pulapaka takes a kitchen sink approach to food waste."},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"g50-profile__stats-block profile__stats-block--profile-364194 \">Chef &amp; Mathematician<br \/>\nDeLand, Florida<br \/>\nAge: 51<\/aside>\n<p>It&#8217;s not often you meet someone who doubles as a mathematician and a professional chef. But Hari Pulapaka, a tenured professor and four-time James Beard Award semifinalist, says his careers are a natural pair; they both demand problem-solving and a lot of creativity. Now, he\u2019s tapping those skills to tackle a big issue in the food industry: waste.<\/p>\n<p>Pulapaka was raised in a family of five kids, in working class Bombay, India. They ate modestly and didn\u2019t throw much away &#8212; just banana peels and the occasional potato skin. But in American culinary school, almost half the food was tossed out, he says. \u201cIt blew my mind.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>[pullquote share=&#8221;true&#8221; tweet=&#8221;We make sure all of our food scraps are completely recycled.&#8221; hashtag=&#8221;Grist50&#8243;]\u201cWe make sure all of our food scraps are completely recycled back to the ground &#8212; or an animal\u2019s belly.\u201d [\/pullquote]<\/p>\n<p>Now at the helm of Cress restaurant in DeLand, Florida, Pulapaka is setting a better example. In the last four years, he and his wife have cut down a huge amount of food waste: about 16,000 pounds, he says. They\u2019ve done it by engaging their community. Every week, a local farmer swings by to pick up Cress\u2019s food scraps for pig and chicken feed, as well as compost. That same farmer then sells vegetables at the local farmer\u2019s market, grown in &#8212; yup, you guessed it &#8212; Pulapaka\u2019s compost. Pulapaka also recycles his cooking oil and uses every part of his vegetables and fish. Stuff that other restaurants throw out, like veggie tops, pop up in Cress\u2019s pestos, chutneys, salsa verdes, sauces, and soups, he says.<\/p>\n<p>Pulapaka sets an inspiring (and exhausting) example. \u201cI can&#8217;t work at this pace forever,\u201d he says. So what\u2019s next? Maybe opening his own cooking school. You can bet his students won\u2019t be throwing much away.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This chef takes a kitchen sink approach to food waste.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":57007830,"featured_media":490275,"menu_order":17,"template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"coauthors":[10],"class_list":["post-364194","grist-50-profiles","type-grist-50-profiles","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","grist-50-economy","grist-50-food","grist-50-13"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v27.2 (Yoast SEO v27.2) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Restaurants toss a lot of food. Hari Pulapaka takes a kitchen sink approach to food waste. - Grist 50<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Restaurants toss a lot of food. 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