Home chef shares money-saving idea for making the most of common produce item: 'This is brilliant'

TikToker Brennan Kai (@brennan.kai) has a great tip for making good use of a common household vegetable. 

The scoop

"You have half an onion sitting in the back of your fridge. I know you do," she says at the beginning of her video. 

@brennan.kai let's pickle that onion 🧅 #zerowaste #lowwaste #plantbased #sustainability #recipe #sustainable #foodwaste #plasticfree #compost #foodwastetip #foodwasterecipe #foodwastesolution #pickling #pickledonion #fermentation ♬ Wii - Mii Channel - Super Guitar Bros

Kai shows how she simply cuts up the rest of her onion, pops it into a jar, and pours spare pickle juice in with it. This should keep the onion good for longer and add some extra flavor to it. 

Pickling is a well-established way of helping food stay fresh and can open up surprising opportunities. This includes pickling watermelon rinds, making dip, and making frozen treats.  

How it's helping

Ensuring your food lasts as long as possible is good news for your grocery budget, but the benefits just start there. Using the food we have also lessens demand on food production, which has a whole slew of economic and ecological costs. 

Food waste is a big contributor to global pollution. When bad food goes to the landfill, it produces methane. That goes up into the atmosphere, where it traps heat and induces more extreme weather patterns. That heat also goes into oceans, melts glaciers, and ultimately raises sea levels.

Alongside carbon dioxide, methane also contributes to the acidification of oceans, which is a major disruptor to marine ecosystems. 

Composting food waste can help sequester some of that pollution and contribute to improved soil health, but preventing the waste in the first place is ideal.

Some companies have been able to build entire business models around rescuing food before it ends up in waste streams. Too Good To Go, Flashfood, and Misfits Market are just some of the options out there. 

What everyone's saying

TikTok commenters were keen to start pickling their spare onions like Kai. 

What's the most common reason you end up throwing away food? Bought more than I could eat 🛒 Went bad sooner than I expected 👎 Forgot it was in the fridge 😞 Didn't want leftovers 🥡 Click your choice to see results and speak your mind.

"Omg this is brilliant!!!" said one viewer. 

"Thanks for this!" said another community member.

Join our free newsletter for easy tips to save more and waste less, and don't miss this cool list of easy ways to help yourself while helping the planet.