A nine-week pilot at King’s College London found that diners were willing to order dishes made with parts of fruit and vegetables usually thrown away in the kitchen, according to a study in the International Journal of Gastronomy and Food Science. Chefs designed 32 “root-to-tip” dishes, using items such as watermelon rind and unpeeled butternut squash with its seeds, for five campus outlets, where they made up 36.6% of hot-menu sales.
The researchers estimated that preparing dishes this way cut food waste by about 6.5% per serving and raised fibre by about 5.1%. Survey respondents rated the dishes higher for healthiness and similar for taste. The authors caution that this was a pilot using convenience sampling and self-reported plate waste, and that few diners noticed the labelling, so larger studies are needed.