Change Is a Practice: Waste Less, Spend Less, Judge Yourself Less (with Sophia Lin Kanno)

Grocery prices are rising. Food waste is everywhere. And most of us approach habit change the same way we approach cooking: all in or not at all.

In this episode of Changeology, Meg talks with Sophia Lin Kanno (The Spicy Grasshopper), a home chef, food efficiency expert, zero-waste educator, and Food Network champion, about how sustainable change actually works.

You’ll learn practical strategies for cooking on a budget, reducing food waste, and building sustainable habits that stick. But this conversation goes deeper than meal planning or grocery savings. It explores how small, imperfect actions build momentum, strengthen self-trust, and break the cycle of all-or-nothing thinking.

If you’re trying to create lasting behavior change — in your kitchen or in your life — this episode offers a grounded, practical starting point.

Connect with Sophia:

• Website: The Spicy Grasshopper
• Instagram: @thespicygrasshopper
• Facebook: The Spicy Grasshopper (group)

Book a free 30-minute Clarity Call here to cut through the noise and bring next steps into focus: https://www.megtrucano.com/book-a-call

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Meg: Like many of us, I've been appalled at the increase in grocery prices we've seen lately in the United States at least, and it's made me stop and evaluate my own consumption patterns and food habits. And I know there are many of us out there who want to make more environmentally conscious decisions, and though we have the best intentions of meal prepping and getting back to basics when it comes to cooking delicious food on a budget.

Wasting less in the process. But as with many new habits, it's really hard. You do a great job one week and the following week is busy, and your new habit falls by the wayside, and that is the place that many of us get stuck with making change of any kind. It's in that all or nothing zone where everything must be done perfectly or not at all.

Well, my guest today is going to show you a different way of approaching, creating more sustainable food consumption habits. My guest today is Sophia Lynn Kano, AKA, the spicy grasshopper, and she is gonna change the way you look at the contents of your fridge and maybe even your life. Forever. Sophia's a home chef, food efficiency expert and zero waste evangelist who teaches people how to cook creatively, sustainably, and without fear.

She's also a food network champion. She won big bad budget battle with re Drummond, but her real genius isn't in fancy technique. It's in. Helping people start small to use what they already have, to experiment without judgment and to trust that tiny, consistent shifts really do add up to real transformation.

The daughter of Taiwanese immigrants, Sophia, grew up in a household where literally nothing went to waste, not food, not effort, not possibility. That philosophy became the backbone of her work. Showing people that change doesn't require a full overhaul. It just starts with awareness, with curiosity, and with making something out of what's already here.

In this episode, Sophia and I talk about how creativity can really be a catalyst for change. How learning to see potential in what's left over can retrain your brain to notice possibility instead of lack. We also talk about why good enough often beats perfect. This is that all or nothing thinking and how releasing the pressure to do everything right can open the door to experimentation and joy and confidence in the kitchen.

And we talk about how the smallest acts of resourcefulness using the entire vegetable, re-imagining a leftover meal, choosing one better habit, become a kind of quiet rebellion against waste, perfectionism, and all or nothing thinking. Because change, as Sophia reminds us, doesn't happen in one big leap. It happens one small intentional act at a time.

I hope you enjoy this conversation with Sophia.

Welcome to the Change Ology podcast. Sophia, how are you?

[00:03:22] Sophia: I'm doing great. Thanks so much, Meg, for having me today.

[00:03:26] Meg: Oh, absolutely. So Sophia Ano, you are the owner, founder of the Spicy Grasshopper, which we'll get into in a sec. and you're a home chef, but you're not only a home chef, you focus on waste reduction and cooking on a budget, which we can all use more, tips and tricks on how, how to do that in today's day and age.

Groceries have gotten insane, but you've also been on the Food Network, which we definitely, definitely wanna hear about. But more than that, you were an incredible person and such a dynamic personality. So I would love to hear the story of how you became the spicy grasshopper.

[00:04:09] Sophia: Oh, well thank you so much for that introduction. I hope I can, give you just a snapshot and live up to all those expectations. But, yeah, so just a little bit of background about me. so I grew up actually in Georgia, to a daughter of, immigrants. And because my parents actually came from Taiwan, they didn't have a lot when they , came to this country.

They kind of came with just what they had, trying to, I guess in a sense live the American dream. And so I grew up in a household that utilized every single bit of every single thing. my parents are also very creative. They reinvented a lot of things, taking things like I, I tell people stories of taking the bottoms of cereal boxes. And cutting them off and making them drawer dividers, because they would do things like that because they would see potential and things that people would consider to be trash or unusable. And so, I, most of my career I spent, in the special events world, but during the pandemic, when events were not operating in full force, I actually took the opportunity to then look at, well, what other things and what other services could I provide to the world to fill in the gaps?

Right? So if I'm not really working as much, could I do something else? And I've always loved cooking. I've, I've had a passion about cooking and just how food can bring people together. It's such a powerful tool that actually brings. Communication, collaboration, comradery, social opportunities, political opportunities happen at centered around food.

And I just love what it does in terms of bringing people together. And I started, taking that as a platform to start teaching cooking classes for people. And that's actually when Spicy Grasshopper was really born. yeah, so, but I, taking some of the lessons from my parents about just cooking judiciously, that was something that I just started realizing was sort of a specific niche that I had compared to most other chefs.

A lot of chefs will pick an angle like, oh, I'm like the Italian Mexican cook, or I am, you know, the gluten-free or the paleo, or the vegan, or, there's so many different facets. But for me, I thought, well. I could cook a lot of different things. You know, having a Taiwanese background, but also from the south.

[00:06:42] Meg: Like I could totally make you some of the best, like three cup Taiwanese chicken, but also at the same time, like if you really need a mean biscuit, like, and a spicy Mac and cheese, like I got you. Okay, I got you with that spicy mac and cheese. So, you win a competition with your mac and cheese?

[00:07:01] Sophia: I, I, I have, I have won a play. I tied her first actually with the mac and cheese competition, so it's pretty, pretty elaborate. But, but you know, I actually like asked my friends, I asked them, I said if I was gonna create an angle or a specialty of what I did for cooking, what do you, what are like the identifiers that make me different? And actually one of my friends, she was so helpful in it because she said to me, what I really respect about you in your cooking is that you always make something out of nothing. And that's really what made me realize. Oh, you know, you're right. But, and I, and I sort of justified that by saying, well, it's really because I have food in my fridge and I don't want it to go to waste. I'd like to use it. So I get really creative then about digging into the items and the ingredients that are in my fridge, and then how do I reinvent them or how do I lean them into the next possible recipe that I'm cooking with?

And that's really the mindset is taking what is existing and flipping it up and, and maybe adding one or two fresh items, right? You, you have to do that. But then how do then you maximize those ingredients in that life cycle?

[00:08:13] Meg: Okay. So the, for those of us in the audience that may be kind of unfamiliar with the concept of E either zero waste, which I don't think you purport to be zero, zero waste, but, but really focusing on waste reduction, what does that look like in practice and why is it so important, not only to you specifically, but to us as a society, to us as a global community?

[00:08:42] Sophia: So zero waste cooking. and, and I will candidly say, I don't think that we will ever reach the zero and zero waste. We as humans and as beings will always produce some level of waste, right? But the idea is that if we don't try, if we don't attempt. We'll never reach any of it. So there's no reason for us to do zero action. We just really need to think about it as waste reduction. Right. And, and it really is exactly what I mentioned before. It's about taking what you have already and making something more of it. expanding it, making it into something bigger. So a great example I tell people is that like my goal oftentimes is not to teach someone how to fish, right?

We all have heard the idiom about you teach man to fish.or you, you, you give a man a fish, he eats for one day and then you teach a man to fish, he'll eat for a lifetime. Well, my goal is taking that exact same lesson and saying, well, my goal is not only to teach you how to fish, but then teach you how to take the fish. To cook the fish, and then after you've cooked the fish, take the bones and make fish stock. And then after you make fish stock with the skin and the bones and all the remnants of the fish, and then you can take the fish skin and make fish skin bacon. And that to me is like really kind of core of what I'm trying to do with zero waste is taking something that may exist only in one dimension and one facet, and making sure that it lives the best possible life It could, could have lived.

And you know, that fish is like, I'm really proud of what you did with me. You know, like. You did more than just eat me. Like you made me into something that continuously just stretched. And I think that's kind of a lesson even from when you think about our indigenous, people here in the us, like the Native Americans, and they did that.

You know, they used every single part of every single animal, of every single morsel. Of every single being. And I think that that's really what I tout and that's really what I love to lean into and challenge people with, right? I challenge myself daily, constantly. Could I use this in some other way before I literally throw it away before or compost it, right? So, but the reason why, to lead into your second question about why it's so important is that so. A lot of us, if we are not living in an area where you can compost easily, or if you're not composting on your own easily, the average person probably does put their trash, their food, waste trash into the regular landfill trash, right?

There's not much of a separation. And the problem with that is that with a lot of our landfills, there's not the proper amount of bacteria and dirt and organic matter that goes into that food, which is actually organic matter as well to help it break it down. So what happens is that when that food goes into our landfills, it releases methane gas, that methane gas is what we attribute are what we call greenhouse gases.

And those greenhouse gases are what we believe true through science that are depleting our ozone layer and also creating a significant part of the climate change that we're experiencing right now. So for me, the passion yes, comes from not wasting food because it's, it's a value that was instilled in me by my parents and my family. But it is also something that I realized, wow, if we can just as simply as removed the food waste from our trash and dispose of it differently, it could change the way that we also impact climate change. And a lot of scientists and climate experts have actually identified that reducing food waste and food waste in our landfills is actually the number one most effective and most quickly impactful opportunities we have as a society to impact that climate change.

[00:12:49] Meg: Wow. I didn't realize that. That's very interesting. So it is. Reducing, the food waste in our landfills, which reduces the methane gas, which then reduces the impact on our, the deleterious impact on our, our, our environment, which is, is a huge, for many people, that's enough, right? That is, that is enough reason to begin dipping their toe into some of these practices of, oh, okay, how can I utilize this entire thing?

And I think there is a, there is a, a movement of our society toward that. honestly, a return back to, as you mentioned, the indigenous way of using absolutely every part of the animal as a way to honor the, you know, the sacrifice of that animal and, and the fact that we have to consume or choose to consume other beings for our own, you know, and it just, it feels good, right?

[00:13:50] Sophia: Yes, 

absolutely. 

[00:13:51] Meg: Beyond that, beyond the good for the planet, good for our environment. what other benefits are there? I'm thinking more psychologically and personally. Emotionally. Do you think reducing food waste in this way, learning to get more creative with ingredients might have on an average person?

[00:14:18] Sophia: Yeah, I mean, I will say I'm not a psychologist, so I couldn't tell you psych like scientifically, the effects. But I will say that I think there's a great sense of that feel good moment,

right? That you have when you feel like you truly are doing something good for someone other than yourself. And that's like a deep, there's been a lot of studies, right, that we've heard about and talked about.

You give somebody $10, right? You ask them to spend it on themselves. And they're like, yeah, that was good. You know, it was 10 bucks, you know, I got a Starbucks and a maybe like a small treat, right? But when you take that $10 and you spend it on somebody else, it changes. It like completely, literally changed their day. and, and it can maybe even change someone's life as there's somebody on the corner of, the street that's, you know, asking for someone to help them, you know, are you helping them in a different way? So I do think that psychologically there's a huge value. Knowing that you're doing something better for someone beyond yourself. I think that that's also why sometimes there's a great satisfaction and when you cook for other people, there's just this beautiful thing of like giving them not only something that you've made with food, but also with your time and your energy and your love and your brain power to create like this beautiful recipe.

I think that there's something really beautiful about that, and I do think psychologically for me, it kind of makes me whole, a lot of

times it just makes me feel like, okay, I might not be a perfect person, but today I did do something for somebody else that's not myself. And I may not see the results of that later on, but I do know that I at least put the effort in.

[00:16:03] Meg: Mm, mm-hmm. I love that. And it reminds me of some other conversations I've been having with podcast guests recently about leaning into these things, these, these different ways of thinking, different ways of behaving as a practice and not as a, you know, hard and fast, strict, rigid requirement, but as something that is living and breathing and that you practice.

so I'm curious when you work with your clients, which by the way, tell us a little bit about your, your Spicy Grasshopper cooking classes.

[00:16:41] Sophia: Yes, of course. so while I am very passionate about reducing food waste, one of the great things in services that I do offer are cooking classes, and I'm really passionate. So it's, it's funny that you mentioned the cooking classes because when I started on this journey, I had a lot of people who approached me about if I wanted to start a arrest.

Restaurant and it's, it's, I think it's very interesting, to bring up, because when people hear that you are a chef or like you love to cook, they immediately assume you're gonna open a restaurant. And I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, no. That's, that's not my goal. My goal is not to open a restaurant. Now, I, I will say, that's not to say that I wouldn't revisit that conversation later, but most immediately, my goal is to really empower and educate other people.

That is my ultimate goal because if I empower one person, that person will share that information with maybe 2, 3, 4, 5 people. And those 2, 3, 4, 5 people will continue to share and. Give that information right to everybody else. There's a, there's a greater domino effect, in my opinion of the message. And so the cooking classes that I teach, yes, they're based in a lot of fundamental cooking skills.

the things that I teach, could be complex. They also could be more simplified. It sort of depends on the skill level and the type of classes that I'm teaching. But ultimately, the classes that I have are all really founded against this idea of, okay, you've bought all these ingredients for this recipe.

What are great ways to use all these ingredients afterwards? What are also some of the best trips, tips and tricks on how to store this item so it lasts longer?

what are some ways, like, great example, I've got a fried chicken class that's coming up, in a few weeks, and a lot of people are like, oh my gosh.

But there's all this like. Flour excess that you have afterwards, right? Like what do you do with all of that flour that's touched your raw meat? Like can you do something with that and or the oil that you fried your chicken in? Did you know that there's actually, there's techniques in ways that I use the flour. so that I don't actually roll all of the chicken and all of that flour. Like I basically take segments of it and sprinkle it onto my chicken so that I'm wasting less. So if there's leftover flour, I can actually save that for the next ba batch of chicken. The oil that you're frying in actually can be cleaned. I, I think a lot of people don't realize that all that sediment that's in inside your oil can actually be strained out. And then with just a very simple combination of corn, starch and water, you can actually take that and it'll actually pick up all of those dirty parts of the oil. You can clean it out and you can actually continue to reuse your oil. So there's like a lot of these tips and tricks that people don't realize, and I think that that's really what's different about my classes is about helping them see. Oh my goodness. There really is more that I can do with all of these leftovers, even if they're seemingly just waste, right? Seemingly things that I cannot use anymore.

[00:19:39] Meg: That is amazing. I. Did not know that you could do that to clean your oil. And it did not even occur to me. It, and I think that is something that as I kind of, as I have gotten to know you and, have taken your lessons into my personal life and cooking, I, I realize the, the things that I would typically have wasted and I do now question myself like, Hey, how can I use this again?

Which is your whole message. But I think that jump from like total obliviousness to awareness of what you're doing, like the chicken flour never would occurred to me to like maybe do it a little bit differently so that I don't waste as much flour. Right. And, so I think. That is a, is a totally unique way of approaching, you know, and I've taken lots of cooking classes from lots of different, amazing cooks before, but this is such a unique angle and I love that you pair your cooking classes with instructions on how to store food and, and ideas for making other things and leftovers and things like that.

So, when you are working with people, you know, and I know you do in-home cooking classes and you host cooking classes that are at like a, a venue. But when you're working with clients, what are some of the biggest challenges that they bring to you and how do you help them kind of work through those?

[00:21:09] Sophia: Yeah. So I think that in general, I think that people just have lost touch with

food. they've lost that connection with food. and I think this has just been a really big phenomenon, especially in the last, I would say, 50 years. Especially. I, as we're really sourcing all of our food from grocery stores, but we have forgotten that. Our produce are actually plants and that they're, these were all like living, breathing things at some point, right? But we, because everything's been sort of boxed up or packaged up or jarred up in these shiny little labeled packages and lined up perfectly in a row and the shelves of a grocery store, we have forgotten what it really means to care for something as if it were another living item.

And I think that's the biggest thing that people struggle with is they, they get stuck. A lot of, a lot of people get stuck in this, this cycle of just doing the same thing over and over. They buy the same things over and over. They cook the same things over and over. And that's one of the biggest things I think we've gotta get people out of the mindset of, is realizing that you may have bought a pepper and a cucumber and a carrot, right?

And you might have only used half of all those items. With this one recipe, but the biggest thing that I really challenge them to do is then instead of going back out and buying the same pepper, carrot, and cucumber again next week, is to say, Hey, what are these items? What do they have in common? What can I make with that? Is there something that we can create with those items because they already exist in my fridge, and can I layer them into the next recipe? Is there something that these have all commonalities of that can actually help me into the next piece? So. That's one of the things that I realized is that people just, I think sometimes get this creative freeze. They're not inspired by their food. They're not inspired by what to cook next, and they just kind of do it out of this necessity of eating. And I think that's one of the biggest things is helping people understand and get back in touch with food and to think, oh, like if I were a pepper, what are some ways?

And literally it could be as simple as that. Like a children's exercise. If I were a pepper, what else could I be today? Like, you know, and it's like, oh, you're right. Like, oh, I bought this pepper because I was gonna make fajitas. Let's just say, well, guess what? I bought too many peppers because they came in a bag right of six.

And that's the other issue, is like they come in packages, they came in a bag of six. I only used three, I have three more. What could I do? And I, and I could say, oh, maybe I could do a stir fry with one of them. Brilliant idea. Great. What can I do with the other two? Could I do stuffed peppers? Could I do something else with that?

Right? And could that carrot be, you know, minced up and put into the stuffing of, of the stuffed pepper? Could it be that it, it could be so many things. So I think it's really, for me, trying to break down those barriers and those walls of societal expectation and get back in touch with the food and just kinda say, Hey, what can this food do?

And also like the seeds of your peppers could be saved because you could grow more peppers.

I think people also forget that, right? Or your herbs, if you put them in water, especially Basil and especially mint oftentimes will sprout their own roots and their plant and you can just replant them. And you could be then after that, growing your own herbs. But that's literally from a stem that you can get at the grocery store, right?

[00:24:45] Meg: Mm-hmm. I love that. I love that, that notion of reconnecting with our food. And I recently, again, and I, I come back to this realization often because I forget, and our culture is very.it's very conducive to forgetting that you are part of this world, that you are part of nature, and that you are in relationship with these things that give us sustenance, right?

So I had gotten into some really bad habits, especially as my kids have been young and lots of packaged foods, and I kind of looked at my stuff one day and I was like, this is all in boxes.

And that just feels wrong. And, you know, and I understand that there, there's all different levels of access to food.

There's all different levels of, of, barriers that people have to food, right? Food. There are food, food deserts. There are, monetary constraints, which we'll talk about in a second. but as I was evaluating my own practices, I, I, I did that very thing. I was like, this, this is all. I could grow it in my backyard if I needed to.

And why don't I, right. So I did, I started growing a lot of my own food and that is another kind of, it's a related practice that would help us get to that same relationship with food, right? Because if anybody has ever tried to grow their own food and they have been beset by pests or. Lack of rainfall or just something that makes it go go wrong.

You understand that it is a finite resource and every morsel that you get from that is precious. And we forget that when we go into the grocery store and everything is there for us. We forget that. And another, another thing as I've been a mom of young children, I'm realizing, my daughter asked me the other day, where'd you get this?

And it was, I can't remember what it was. an eggplant maybe. And, and I was like, well, I got it at the store. And then I stopped myself and I was like, wow, that is teaching her that eggplant comes from a store.

[00:26:59] Sophia: Mm-hmm.

[00:26:59] Meg: We were driving home and we passed a truck that had just an open bed and it had flats of onions.

And I, I kind of was making conversation with him. It was a long trip back and I said, oh, what's that? What, what is, what is that truck carrying onions? Okay, great. So we know, we know onions. Where are they going? And then, then it got into this discussion of like, the farmer grows the onions, the, the truck takes the onions to the grocery store.

And that's where everybody, and then there were questions about like, oh, well, what, like just the shortening the, the supply chain to go to the farmer. Anyway, that's a whole other discussion. But I love

[00:27:41] Sophia: That is 

[00:27:43] Meg: of reconnecting with our food and the sources of 

[00:27:45] Sophia: yes. Yeah, and I mean, you make a really good point, right? There's such a process that's required whether if it's, you know, if it's grapes that we're getting in the middle of winter, like those grapes are certainly not coming from Virginia. They're coming from some other faraway place. And I do think that like, the more that you begin to realize that this idea of our grocery stores providing every single, it is almost like, it's almost like there's no seasons with the way that we buy our food now. Because we, we can get strawberries year round, we can get pretty much everything year round at this point, you know? And I think that there is something that's inherently broken about that because we're not eating seasonally. Or forcing somebody to take strawberries from, you know, some far away location to then truck it, like you said, somewhere on a truck to get to us so that I can buy a pin of strawberries.

Like it seems a little silly when you think about it versus saying, okay, well what are the fruits that are local to me during this season? Is it more the apples? Is it more the pairs? Is it, you know, something that I really can lean into because of the fact that it's more local, more seasonal. So

[00:28:59] Meg: Yeah. Yeah. And, and to say nothing of the fact that a strawberry in February tastes like cardboard. It's, you know.

[00:29:10] Sophia: fair. That's a

hundred percent fair. 

[00:29:13] Meg: But it's tough, right? Like you get, it's easy to get to that place of disconnection. And so what advice would you have for someone who is kind of looking to maybe dip a toe into this more sustainable lifestyle or, waste reduction lifestyle?

Do you have any, like, any like top, top tips for our audience?

[00:29:39] Sophia: Yeah, I, I will say the number one, first thing that I encourage people to do is before you even step foot out of the house to buy anything, is to shop your own home. Like your home has so much. We are so fortunate in this country. and I would say probably the vast majority of the people listening, the vast majority of the people that I interact with. Probably have never truly experienced hunger and in the way that a lot of other countries or a lot of other people have had to. So because we are privileged and because we have that opportunity to not be in pain of hunger, is to look at what we already have. I think that that's just like a base mindset that I love to share with people is Let's open your fridge.

Your fridge has the most perishable things. Number one, they're gonna be the first things you're gonna want to use. So open your fridge and let's look at what's in there. Do a inventory, right? And I, I encourage that inventory regularly. But then also do the same thing with your freezer, and the same thing with your pantry.

My husband will always say, you're, you're always reorganizing the pantry in the freezer. You're always in this and that, and da da and, and chacho thing. And, and that's a good thing because what it does is it helps you understand what's. Your own home. I think that a lot of us don't wanna see it and sometimes don't wanna deal with it.

So we just close it off and we just go buy new.

And yes, there are certain circumstances where that's absolutely necessary, but one of those big tips that I have is then, hey, if you just look at what you have in your fridge first you reconnect to that, you know? And then again, that exercise of, if I were a pepper today, you know, what could I be tomorrow?

What can I, what, what are the different ways that I can reinvent this pepper? And then if I have an add another vegetable to it, or another item or another herb, how can all of these things, what do they have in common that we can then create something great together?

[00:31:35] Meg: Hmm. I love that so much.so. We kind of touched on it a little bit earlier, but groceries have gotten so freaking expensive in many locations that, you know, a lot of people who may not have ever given any mind to waste reduction for, for its own sake are, are now having to reevaluate cooking on a budget and how they can stretch things.

So what, is there any relation in your mind between cooking on a budget and waste reduction and, well, there's obviously a relationship there, but what do, what information should we arm ourselves with in order to go to the store and make the best choices for waste reduction and, keeping our budget in mind?

[00:32:33] Sophia: Yeah. so a lot of the things that I do is I, I always love to go in with a plan. and I think that a lot of people will say like, make a list, right? Of the things that you need. Oftentimes, even when I make a list, the list is kind of interesting, 'cause I'll just say fruit. And the reason why I say I don't necessarily list the specific fruits is oftentimes I'll also look at. What is looking good. So one of the big tips also is to always inspect your produce. When you buy it, look at it and say, does this even look fresh? And I mean, yes, a lot of, because this is another way that we're out of touch with our food. We just kind of pick whatever's on the grocery store floor and we just move on.

But if you actually take a moment and expect, does this apple have a cut or does it have a bruise, or does it have something on it that indicates to me that it may not last as long. Right? Is it a little wrinkly in a, in a corner, or that maybe it is a pepper, right, that has a little wrinkled corner or a little shriveled, or does my parley have a lot of brown leaves and it's kind of shriveling up and it doesn't look hearty and fresh? I think that's also another big part of it, is also keeping in mind that you wanna pick things that will last longer. And a lot of people just pull whatever off the shelf. And that's also one of like the techniques that I would say will help you to not only get in touch with your food, but also help your produce last much longer in your fridge ultimately. but I oftentimes will also just look at what looks good in the grocery store before I buy it. So even if I'm wanting to buy blueberries and they all look like a little, you know, like little shriveled up and a little crushed up and someone's like, drop this one and there's blueberries everywhere, eh, that's not attractive to me.

Sometimes I'm like, okay, no blueberries today. But I also love to look at the circulars. I think a lot of people assume. That coupons, right? Discounts from grocery stores are all for, for processed items. That is such a misconception. if you download the apps of all the major grocery stores, and this is, I also understand that sometimes you just gotta get food from a grocery store, and that's totally fine. But if you shop at a grocery store, all of your Safeways, your giants, your hairs teeters, your Wegmans, even have apps and a lot of them run circulars. They run circulars of items that are on sale that week. Now, I will say just because it's in the circular doesn't mean that it's actually a really good price.

You kind of have to keep track of things, but that's how I actually plan my menus, is I look at the items that are for sale and then I say, oh, you know what? Apples right now are on sale for 99 cents this week. We will definitely be buying apples. Apples are gonna, because 99 cents a pound is a great price. And I think that a lot of people. When they look at something like, oh, well they're a dollar 99 a pound last week and they're 99 cents this week. What's a dollar difference? Well, guess what? You're buying five pounds of apples. The dollar times five now has become not $1, but it has become $5. If I'm buying chicken and this week it is a dollar 99 a pound, right for chicken breast, but next week it goes back up to 3 99 a pound. In your mind you're saying that's only $2 difference. But the reality is, if I'm buying five pounds of chicken, your five pounds times the $2 per pound has now become $10. So that's very simple math. You could see how exponentially it adds up so quickly

and you realize, okay, this week, because this chicken is on sale for a dollar 99 a pound, that's what we're eating 

is chicken, right?

And those are like the little things that I would say that has, has helped me encourage people to say, okay, and then now with this chicken. We've got some apples and we've got some peppers. What are we gonna make with that? Can we do like a chopped champion, like little creative play? 

Is 

[00:36:29] Meg: I love 

[00:36:30] Sophia: do?

Right? Is there something we can do? 

[00:36:33] Meg: Yes, I, I sometimes do that too. And I think when you and I first met, at a networking thing, we kind of connected over the fact that we play chopped in our own kitchens sometimes because it's fun to just pull things together and see what you can , make from what you've got.

And, yes, it does take some, some creative thinking and, and, you know, an experimental attitude towards food, but it can be really fun and it can be really delicious. but those are amazing tips and I hope that, our listeners can, you know, kind of start to move toward that mentality in everything that we do, which is to, to use the things that we have to enjoy, the things that we have to shop seasonally to just have a little bit of a think about something before you buy it and before you, just kind of go on autopilot.

[00:37:23] Sophia: Exactly. Exactly.

[00:37:25] Meg: Well, today has been such a wonderful, wonderful discussion. what I normally do at this point of our chat is to, pepper you with some rapid fire questions. So if you're ready to go, I've got some ready for you.

[00:37:41] Sophia: Yes. Absolutely. Let's go.

[00:37:43] Meg: Okay. So what is your favorite thing to cook? Right now

[00:37:48] Sophia: Oh goodness.

soup season.

Soup season, yes. So anything soup right now, I would say,

[00:37:55] Meg: Okay. What is, what is your favorite soup to be cooking right now?

[00:37:59] Sophia: oh my gosh. Well, I just made Arab and corn chowder yesterday,

so that was pretty good. but I, I, I'm actually excited 'cause I think, actually a really great, like Taiwanese hot and sour soup is on the docket. It should be coming soon as well. I'm ready for that. Yeah.

[00:38:16] Meg: That sounds delicious.is there any food that you don't like or really don't use in your kitchen?

[00:38:23] Sophia: Oof. That's a tough one. any food that I don't like or I don't prefer, maybe, oh God, this is hard. You know, it's funny that you mentioned that because, there were actually several foods that I did not like in my childhood, and I've actually trained myself to like them.

[00:38:38] Meg: Oh, interesting. What were they?

[00:38:40] Sophia: Yeah. Eggs for one.

[00:38:42] Meg: Oh,

[00:38:43] Sophia: eggplant, zucchini and squash were probably on the top of that list.

And actually those are all things that I cook a lot with now because I have found different ways to use them and actually identified why I disliked them and converted them into ways that I did like them. So it's kind of interesting. But I would say those are the top ones that I didn't prefer, but I, it is kinda shifted and changed now a lot.

[00:39:07] Meg: was it a texture thing?

[00:39:09] Sophia: I think it was texture, it was also preparation. Like eggs can go really sulfurs, like really quickly if you overcook them. And that was a big issue for me. But if I do like a fried egg or a pouched egg or a something like sunny side op, it actually ends up being much more palatable to me for some reason. So, I don't know, apparently dry scrambled eggs are not my thing. So dry scrambled eggs. There you go.

[00:39:37] Meg: I'm gonna have to cast a vote for that one too. That sounds terrible.

[00:39:41] Sophia: Not my favorite at

[00:39:42] Meg: What cuisine is your favorite?

[00:39:46] Sophia: Ooh, that's also really hard. I mean, I think I'm always gonna be a little bit impartial to Asian cuisine of sorts. it's a little general, but I mean, just because my parents are from Taiwan, but I will say I do really love Taiwanese food. There's something like full of soul and like stick to your insides kind of feeling good, feeling food. It's not fancy, but it's very much so makes me feel at home. And so I think that's what I love about it the most.

[00:40:14] Meg: I love that. What is one book that changed the way you think?

[00:40:23] Sophia: Wow, that's a really powerful one.my goodness. And I'll say candidly, I don't do as much book reading as I hope that I would at this time of my life. I used to be big, the biggest bookworm. I would say for me. As a child, one of the books that I read was number of the stars,

and it's always stuck with me because it really taught me a lot about humanity and how we should treat one another and just the power of perspective, how everyone's gotten a different perspective and how much every perspective is valued and every perspective is, is very different. It also kind of drew me into the whole like Anne Frank story and, and a number of the, just the Holocaust and such. For me it was very powerful to, just understanding, biases and, helping me to become a better, more, I guess you could say more neutral pers gaining a better neutral perspective on others and having that, understanding of other people.

So that was probably a really powerful book for me

from a, young age. 

[00:41:30] Meg: really good book. really good answer. not that I'm judging it people's answers, but I concur.

Okay. So if there was one thing that you want the audience to take away from today's conversation, what would it be?

[00:41:49] Sophia: So I would say the idea of being 1000% perfectly sustainable every single day in everything you do is extremely overwhelming and unrealistic. None of us are perfect. I myself remind everybody that I talk to, while I aim to be zero waste and to be this fully sustainable person, I myself am definitely not perfect. And so one of my very favorite quotes that I love from another Zero waste chef.she says that we don't need a few people doing zero waste perfectly. We need everybody doing it imperfectly. And so my challenge to everybody is not to beat yourself up when you do it imperfectly. Just do it. Do it the best you can.

Maya Angel said, do the best that you can until you know better. And when you know better, then do better. And those are just very simple things to abide by, right? Let's just do the best that we can. Don't beat yourself up, but if you can do a little better, the world will feel it. And if everyone can just do a little bit better, then we'll all, we'll all be better as a society overall.

[00:43:04] Meg: Oh, I love that. That is such beautiful, beautiful advice. and love Maya Angelou. Love her. Okay, so final question for today. What would you say to someone who's looking to make a big change?

[00:43:19] Sophia: So. Don't look at the giant stairwell in front of you. I think we all get intimidated by where that end goal is. The castle on the top of the hill, whatever that Mount Everest is that you're trying to scale. Trust me, I've been there. It is so hard to make that kind of change. It feels like you'll never get there.

But the reality is, can you just put one foot in front of the other today, one step, one foot, is it? Today we have decided that we're gonna save all the seeds from our lemon so that we can plant them and grow another plant. Is that just one tiny little change? Yes, it's a seed of change. Tomorrow will we put the other foot in front of that foot? We will, and little by little you will scale the mountain, but we can't look at the mountain constantly. It's the same as like when we, a lot of people, like in your 4 0 1 Ks, they say, you just gotta put a little bit in and you're like, well, my $10 isn't gonna do anything today, but that $10 will grow.

It'll also give you that momentum to keep going. that even from a financial perspective, right? You're not gonna reach that million dollar retirement goal today, and it feels intimidating. But if you don't start with anything, you'll never get

there. So you have to start somewhere. So don't be intimidated by the mountain, just focus on the path in front of you and the few steps that you can take today.

[00:44:40] Meg: Such good advice. This has been an amazing rapid fire section. Thank you so much.

[00:44:45] Sophia: Of course.

[00:44:46] Meg: and an actual final question, I, I lied before. So where can people connect with you if they want to learn more about this spicy grasshopper or just learn more from your, food waste reduction practices?

[00:44:59] Sophia: Yeah, so you can definitely find me on my website. if you actually just look up the spicy grasshopper.com, that is my website. It also features a lot of my upcoming events. A lot of classes I actually do post, postop in little markets all over, so you'll see me pop up in a lot of different, really interesting markets all throughout.

There's no real one market that I'm consistently in, so definitely check that page. Also, my Instagram is a great way to connect with me, so I'm just the spicy grasshopper on Instagram and I also have a Facebook group as well. So, but I love to hear from you guys. I love seeing, and I'm always inspired, especially when people. Message me and say, today you inspired me to do this with my leftovers. I took these items and made X with it. I, it just really lights up my day because it makes me realize, wow, there has been impact, there has been change. Yes. Just little me, the little spicy grasshopper has made some sort of impact in some sort of change.

So

[00:46:00] Meg: Oh, beautiful. I love it. So everyone who's listening, I want you to go home, look in your fridge, create something from what you've got, and then be sure to. Tag Sophia Anno at the Spicy Grasshopper so that she can see what she came up with. And thank you so very much for joining us here on Change Ology.

Sophia, it was great talking to you.

[00:46:24] Sophia: thank you so much for having me. I'm excited. and yeah, looking forward to more conversation for sure.

[00:46:30] Meg: Wonderful. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Change Ology, and I will see you in the next one.