The Elephant 4.83

what do we mean by earth friendly food? put simply we are trying to create food that is delicious and healthy to eat but which doesn’t endanger the health of the planet in its making. we don’t claim to have all the answers or that we don’t make some compromises along the way, but we are moving towards our own sustainability and trying at the same time to raise the awareness of visitors to ubud, our local guests, neighbours and staff.
• refuse: reduce: reuse: recycle: our fundamental policy in all things is to apply this awesome mantra when we are confronted with a choice. the classic example is that we take our own bags to the supermarket so we can refuse the ones they offer us. on the occasions we forget – yes even us holier than thou types – we make sure we reduce the number of bags they give us by squishing everything we can into one. then we reuse those suckers again and again on trips to the supermarkets and finally as garbage liners. and ultimately we recycle any excess…if you do the maths on it this simple process could have a massive effect – use a bag 5 times and you cut your consumption by 80%. imagine a world where 4 out of 5 plastic bags never got made, never got chucked into a river, never went to landfill… also, we retrofit our restaurant with used and secondhand equipment and furnishings. looks good, didn’t cost too much. didn’t eat up lots of unnecessary resources. try the refuse:reduce:reuse:recycle philosophy sometime, you’ll be saving the world a little bit.
• waste management: we separate all of our waste comprehensively so that the organics get eaten by pigs, the reusables get reused, the recyclables get recycled and the residual amount only goes to accredited landfill (ie not to some cowboy who dumps it in a river, an unlicensed dump or beside the road as often happens, even with paid collectors
• chemical free vegetables: we buy from reliable farmers those fruits and vegetables which are being grown organically in bali - almost all of our salad greens and herbs; lots of our raw salad and juice ingredients; not so many of our cooked vegetables unfortunately.
• permaculture garden: we are developing a waste water wetland and kitchen vegetable garden to rehabilitate some unloved spaces around the restaurant as well as beginning to grow our own supplies
• packaging, plastic and …: our staff hand make bags from old newspapers & we use paper and cardboard and banana leaves (with just a little bit of hard to avoid plastic for sauces & dressings) for take away and delivery. reusable bamboo straws save us thousands of pieces of plastic each year.
• water conservation: while you wouldn’t know it in ubud bali is fast approaching a water crisis through overuse by hotels and villas. to lessen our dependence we are harvesting and filtering rainwater to use in the kitchen and for your drinking pleasure
• pest control: totally organic by means of permaculture landscaping, companion planting and by adopting a kitchen cat.
• cleaning products: must try harder here. we are starting to use hydrogen peroxide and are following up some other leads. keep you posted
• energy use: fail. we are using efficient bulbs where we can in the kitchen and work areas, but not in the restaurant where we value the ambience.
• low food miles: more than 75% of our ingredients are local
• education: apart from proselytizing to you here we are trying to teach our staff the meaning and importance of these practices to this island of the gods, bali