Cooking is Mindful Behaviour
Tasty Waste is a social enterprise which aims to teach individuals, families, and community groups to cook using leftovers or food that would otherwise go to waste. In an age where access to nutritious, fair priced, eco-friendly food is no longer a simple matter, Tasty Waste’s message strikes at the heart of a perplexing 21st-century wellbeing issue.
The model not only benefits those working within tight budgets, or who have poor access to good ingredients but also allows people to change their relationship with food by learning basic cooking skills. We think the magic of Tasty Waste resides in the invitation to connect us to the process of growing, cooking and eating our own food. What can be more mindful than that?
Introducing the Neomaker
Julie Holden is the innovator behind Tasty Waste and is doing a great job delivering cooking classes in the communities of Birmingham (West Midlands, UK). Watch her in action here. Julie is working to extend her model by setting up a weekly lunch club for the elderly in order to share basic skills and then invite them to come together to eat the food they have prepared. In our eyes that makes Julie a special kind of innovator.
You see, it is very evident to us that Julie has been generating well-being for a long time as a natural product of her personal journey. Julie is, in fact, an example of what we call a “neomaker”. She exemplifies a phenomenon that we plan to blog more about in the coming months. For now, we’ll say there exists a community of individuals, groups, and organisations who have been quietly plugging away to create grassroots wellbeing. More often than not, neomakers are motivated only by their passion for sharing their skills and helping others improve their life chances.
Cooking Ahead
We’ve been really impressed with Julie’s vision and her open-mindedness in connecting with new ideas and opportunities. She recently pitched at Birmingham Soup at the Impact Hub and topped delegate poll.
She is exploring areas for the future such as al fresco cooking sessions with Roots to Fruit, a summer event in partnership with another social enterprise and linking with a local restaurant to use their food waste in her cooking lessons. She is committed to her idea of socialised learning to improve health and wellbeing.
