IT’S in the soil.

“We take it for granted but whatever we have—what nourishes us—comes from the earth. And whatever we do with it, will either lengthen our life, or shorten it,” so says Susana Pascual-Guerrero at the launching of her latest book about, err, cooking.

Indirectly, that is.

The book, entitled An A-Z guide for a Green Pinoy, offers practical tips on waste management that Pascual-Guerrero, The Cravings Group Holdings Inc. president, said matters a lot about our food intake.

“Many are not aware that they can avoid generating waste in preparing food, so I thought, based on my experience with Cravings, why not write a book to help raise that awareness,” she told the BusinessMirror on the sidelines of the book launch on Thursday night. Pascual-Guerrero added printing a book is also better than publishing pamphlets that she noticed are just thrown away and adds more to the piling garbage.

It would also take a lot of pamphlets to print 40 pages of the A-Z guide alone. In addition, the 146-page book also contains a directory of companies that offer recycling services, junkyards from Antipolo, Rizal, to Valenzuela, and organizations supporting a green lifestyle.

Proceeds from the sale of the book, which is being sold for P120 each, would go to the Culinary Education Foundation Inc. and the University of the Philippines-based Isko Cleans UP group.

“I’m not like [late environmentalist] Odette [Alcantara] who’s articulate. Ni gahibla man lang ng galing at tapang nya hindi ko nakuha. [I wasn’t able to acquire a slither of her bravery and talent.] So I thought it’s better that I write,” she said.

“In all projects, setback and triumph, she was with me. She was always giving hope,” Pascual-Guerrero added of her friend to whom she dedicated the book.

But while it was Alcantara who influenced her philosophy on environmental concerns, the idea of zero-waste living came from her family’s experience during the war. “It was a time of great necessity so we had to reuse whatever we can and harvest what the earth offers us to survive,” she recalled.

She said her mother harvested talbos ng kamote [camote tops] and malunggay near their home in Malabon.

That’s why she said she’s frustrated with their community in La Vista subdivision, where she now lives, as it receded from its lofty status of a zero-waste community.

“We were already awarded for being a zero-waste area but there was a backslide. I don’t think many appreciated, or know the meaning of such a community,” she said.

Pascual-Guerrero said she hopes through her book, readers can connect solid waste with global warming and climate change.

“Simply put, the source of life is soil, air and water. You pollute these, di wala ng life or sources of life. Especially the soil: whatever we put in it, that’s where we get our food and what we put inside our body,” she said.

This philosophy Pascual-Guerrero said she injects in the operations of TCG Holdings and its subsidiaries. For instance, the company’s Center for Culinary Arts Manila, a school affiliated with the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology, Canada, uses organic greens in some of its recipes, especially in salads, she said.

Pascual-Guerrero, which owns 40 percent of TCG and 99 percent of its subsidiaries, said they’re also cultivating organic gardens that she hopes could be expanded and provide a steady supply for their restaurants.

Currently, she tends to a 4,000-square-meter garden that was once a dumpsite but which she was able to rehabilitate into a vegetable garden.

“Lettuce and other green vegetables are what we have planted there but we’re now growing laurel [bay leaf,]” she said.

Pascual-Guerrero added that the TCG Holdings also benefits from the 3R philosophy of “reuse, reduce, and recycle.” By cutting our solid waste, we can also cut costs, she said.

Pascual-Guerrero admits the Philippines is still a long way behind the goal of zero-waste, a movement that began in the 1970s. While the law [Republic Act 9003, or the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act of 2000] is already a decade old, compliance is a little more than 10 percent.”

She pins the blame on the attractive P8-billion waste-based business.

“And that revenue potential’s for Metro Manila alone so I can understand why many local government officials are tepid with alternatives,” Pascual-Guerrero said. But she hasn’t lost hope, even without Alcantara by her side.

“I already wrote a book that hopefully can be a recipe for the soil that many people can cook,” she said.