We Don’t Really Throw Food Away Here
Leftovers in France, habits, and ways to keep food in circulation
It took a while to notice, but I was throwing less away. Not on purpose. Just because things kept getting used again.
I’m really not sure if this is a French thing, or a smaller kitchen thing, but it’s a thing.
A smaller kitchen really has changed the way we treat our meals, and our leftovers.
TL;DR
I like leftovers. Some people won’t touch them.
In France, it almost doesn’t matter—food keeps getting used again, whether we planned it or not. Includes links for some discount food sites I like and a song that I don’t love.
Food waste
France has long turned scraps into menu staples — bouillabaisse, cassoulet, pot-au-feu — and since 2016 supermarkets are banned from wasting food, to mixed effect. anti-gaspi apps like Too Good To Go, Nous anti-gaspi shops, and socialist events like Disco Soupe. La Chanson des Restos — France’s cheesy 80s We Are the World moment — still funds millions of meals. Want in? Download the apps, check the ding-and-dent shelf at the supermarket, or start with the simple pot-au-feu recipe below.
[ed note: Unless you’re here for a philosophical moment and a reflection on food waste, just skip to the recipe and the video.]
Philosophical moment:
Food waste isn’t just about saving money or feeling virtuous — it’s about respect for the process of production. Every carrot, bit of bread, every scrap in the pot means there is time, labor, and land behind it. To waste food is to ignore that. Stretching a meal, sharing leftovers, or rescuing a bag of bakery bread isn’t just thrift, it’s respect for the process.
Of course, it also saves money, but anyones who’s grown a vegetable could tell you how much goes into it.
anti-gaspi (French, adj./noun)
(adj.) Short for anti-gaspillage (“anti-waste”); used to describe practices, products, or laws to reduce food waste.
Ex. Un rayon anti-gaspi – a supermarket section offering discounted items close to expiry or imperfect in appearance.
Thrift
From pot-au-feu simmered for days (and just left out all week before refrigeration) to the 2016 Loi Garot, which bans supermarkets from throwing away edible food, the French have a long habit of economizing food.
French cooking classics stretch the humble & imperfect into quality. Fishermen’s scraps became bouillabaisse in Marseille. Sunday roasts return as hachis Parmentier, a potato-and-meat bake named for France’s most famous potato evangelist.
In the southwest, beans, bones, and sausage scraps became cassoulet. Provençal ratatouille started life as a way to save overripe garden vegetables from the compost pile.
A dish by many other names
Pot-au-feu has cousins around the world: in Korea, seolleongtang is a pale beef bone soup, served mild and seasoned at the table, while sancocho stretches meat and root vegetables into a communal broth. Different flavors, same spirit — nothing wasted, everything shared. People have been surviving like that for centuries.
Kitchen habits to national law
The 2016 Loi Garot banned supermarkets from throwing away edible food, forcing them to donate instead. The rules expanded to more of the food industry, with the aim of cutting waste in half by 2025.
They didn’t make the deadline.
The law has teeth on paper, but progress is slow. Getting to 50% will take more than supermarkets — it needs more enforcement and real shifts in households, producers, and processors too.
[ed note: “teeth on paper” is a really weird phrase. I’m keeping it.]
In the U.S., about 30–40% of the food supply is wasted every year — roughly 60 million tons, a number that hasn’t changed since 2010.
In France, food waste hit 10 million tons in 2016, costing €16 billion just to throw it out. There’s a reason composting bins are popping up all over. After the Loi Garot banned supermarkets from tossing edible food, waste dropped 10% by 2020 — progress.
Food waste is a bad deal on every front: it hurts people who go hungry, it wastes money, and it damages the planet. The future we want won’t arrive in one sweeping reform, but from small, stubborn gains like this.
retail
Most supermarkets will have a selections and anti-gaspi shelves for “imperfect” produce and short-dated yogurt. Veggie boxes are a good idea because you can see what you’re getting into.
Apps
Too Good to Go
We use Too Good To Go (TGTG) every few weeks — a sack from the bakery in town, a variety we don’t choose but they’re great. It’s more bread than we can handle, but you freeze it, repurpose it, share it with neighbors. There’s also a delivery option on the France app.
Sometimes, it’s a way of discovering a place you weren’t aware of.
Sometimes, I’ve used it just as an excuse to go out and explore a new area near me. The errand gives me a reason.
Phenix - another app-based listing of stores that give off some of their unused material at the end of the day.
Offerings seem a bit more tightly organized than TGTG, but still most Paris-centered. Still, if you find one thing you like to use, it’s helpful.
Nous Anti Gaspi
We used to live near one of their stores. Very good for some meats, as they’re basically just imperfect looking. They also have an online store as well and they’ve been expanding.
Events and organizations like Disco Soupe turns ugly vegetables into free communal meals, and groups like Les Gars-pilleurs salvage discarded supermarket food.
It’s uneven & some have a very socialist vibe, but food doesn’t get wasted and more people eat.
Recipe: A Pot-au-Feu for Warm Days
Pot-au-feu, “pot on the fire,” is called the grandmother of French stews.
At heart it’s meat, vegetables, and water left to work out their own flavors — a kind of French fridge clean-out.
Carrots and leeks are classic, but turnips bring an earthy sweetness, and turnip greens (or collards) area. great addition. I use a slow cooker on low — it’s easy to keep broth clear.
A Light Pot-au-Feu (late Summer Style)
Meat: ~2 lbs (1 kg) chuck roast, short ribs, or chicken thighs — cheap cuts work best.
Pot: Cover with ~10 cups (2.5 L) cold water; add salt, 1 bay leaf, 2–3 sprigs thyme. Bring to boil, skim foam, then simmer 30 min.
Veg: Add 3 carrots, 2 leeks, 2 turnips, 2 potatoes, handful of greens (large chunks). Or you can chuck in similar amounts of stray vegetables.
Cook: Simmer 60–90 min more, until meat tender and veg sweet.
Serve: Clear broth in bowls or mugs; meat and veg plated. Serve mustard, pickles, or coarse salt at the table.
Next day: Reheat — richer and better
Slow-Cooker Version
Place meat, water, salt, bay leaf, thyme in - low for 6–8 hours (or high 3–4)
Add vegetables halfway through
Serve broth light, season at the table, save leftovers
Les chanson des Restos Enfoirés (1986)
La Chanson des Restos was like France’s own We Are the World, bringing together stars for a cause — Yves Montand, Catherine Deneuve, Nathalie Baye, Michel Platini, Michel Drucker, Michel Sardou, Véronique Sanson, Eddy Mitchell, Julien Clerc, Renaud, Françoise Hardy, France Gall, Daniel Balavoine, Johnny Hallyday, Josiane Balasko, and many others.
It was huge, all volunteered for the cause & a video with a budget of €20.
The video splices together singers in the studio with montage shots of food processing: fish being filleted, chickens on rotisseries, cafeteria trays sliding past. It looks really cheap, but weirdly unforgettable.
The lyrics are basically “don’t waste food”, 80s pop with big hair, over-earnest delivery, canned riffs, and a chorus that sticks.
Still, Les chansons des restos grew into an annual televised concert & still funds millions of meals each year..
Anyone else grab anti-gaspi deals, or rescue leftovers? Drop a comment with your best trick (or your biggest food waste frustration).
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Keith Christiansen
Keith Christiansen
Keith Christiansen
