Zerowastechef

Zero Waste Chef is the online identity of Anne-Marie Bonneau, a Canadian-American food writer, cookbook author, and sustainability advocate. She built the Zero Waste Chef brand around her personal journey of eliminating kitchen waste without giving up good food or traditional cooking methods.

Yes — Anne-Marie Bonneau published a cookbook called The Zero-Waste Chef, which provides recipes and practical strategies for cooking without packaged or single-use ingredients. The book earned award recognition and significantly expanded her audience beyond social media.

Cooking like Grandma is Zero Waste Chef's shorthand for cooking from scratch with whole, unpackaged ingredients and wasting nothing — the way home cooks operated long before convenience foods and single-use plastic became the norm. She uses the phrase to frame zero-waste living not as a modern sacrifice but as a return to common-sense kitchen tradition.

Sourdough is one of Zero Waste Chef's signature topics — she maintains a sourdough starter and regularly shares beginner guides, troubleshooting tips, and waste-free baking techniques. Her sourdough content sits at the center of her philosophy because it requires no packaging, uses simple ingredients, and connects modern cooks to fermentation traditions that predate commercial yeast.

Fermentation is a core pillar of Zero Waste Chef's content, covering sourdough, lacto-fermented vegetables, scrap vinegars, and other traditional preservation methods. It fits her zero-waste framework perfectly — fermentation extends the life of food, requires no plastic packaging, and reduces reliance on refrigeration and processed alternatives.

Anne-Marie Bonneau has dual Canadian-American identity, which she signals in her bio with both country flags. She is based in the United States, where the majority of her audience lives, but her Canadian background shapes the resourceful, frugal approach to home cooking that defines her content.

Make Do and Mend is a wartime slogan — originally a British campaign — encouraging people to repair and reuse rather than discard and buy new. Zero Waste Chef uses the hashtag to connect kitchen waste reduction to a broader anti-consumerism mindset, arguing that the same logic that stops you from throwing out vegetable scraps should stop you from throwing out repairable clothes or household goods.

Homegrown National Park is a grassroots conservation movement championed by ecologist Doug Tallamy that encourages homeowners to replace lawn space with native plants to support local biodiversity. Zero Waste Chef uses the hashtag because her sustainability philosophy extends beyond the kitchen to ecological stewardship, local food systems, and reducing the broader environmental footprint of how people live at home.

Yes — alongside her content creation and writing, Anne-Marie Bonneau works as a speaker on zero-waste living, food systems, and climate action, and she lists it as a primary part of her professional identity. Her cookbook credibility and years of practical zero-waste advocacy have made her a recognizable voice at sustainability-focused events and media appearances.

Zero Waste Chef runs a direct newsletter that she uses to share recipes, zero-waste tips, and updates on media appearances — content that goes deeper than what fits in an Instagram caption. She treats it as her most direct channel to her audience, independent of platform algorithms, and promotes it prominently in her bio.