The word mindfulness is used a lot these days to remind us to think before we act, to pay attention to (and appreciate) the world around us and to slow down just a little.
It's also emerged in a movement that promotes mindful eating over restrictive diets, paying closer attention to what our bodies tell us. And some have expanded the idea of mindful eating to include food we've historically ignored, like so-called ugly food or foods that are being upcycled.
Upcycling is when someone takes a food that would otherwise wind up in the trash and turns it into something useful. Think banana peels-turned-vegan-bacon, for example. Putting food scraps into the food processor to make a pesto, or turning leftover pumpkin seeds into a spread.
Ugly foods are simply those that have traditionally been left off the grocery store shelves and bins for marketing reasons rather than nutritional ones. The funky-looking sweet potato or the carrot with an extra appendage. The company Misfits Market has based its entire business model around the clever promotion and fun photos of "ugly" foods. The company says nearly a third of the food grown in the U.S. is never harvested because of its appearance.
Food Network Magazine and Whole Foods named upcycled food as a top trend for 2021. There's even an Upcycled Food Association.
Of course, some folks will recognize upcycling for what it is: The time-tested way our grandparents and great-grandparents would use every part of an animal or vegetable available to them, stretching a dollar and getting creative with menu planning. Maybe Grandma was practicing mindfulness before mindfulness was popular.