Chef Damien, founder of the 750g cooking site, rails against industrial sodas like Coca-Cola

Chef Damien, founder of the 750g site, a true reference in terms of sustainable cooking, rails against climate inertia. He who cooks at home, from dishes to ice cream to bread and ketchup, created in 2022 a powdered vegetable drink intended to replace industrial sodas such as Coca-Cola.

If Picard Damien Duquesne – alias Chef Damien – sold 750g, the cooking site he created with his winegrower brother, and stopped teaching at the Soissons hotel school, it was to devote himself to his Parisian restaurant and above all to invest deeply in ecology. Because for him “in 2022 there is urgency“.

However, he still continues to post recipe tutorials there and has even crossed the 2 mark 000 contributions. “And the second kitchen site today in Franceobserve, a popular site, close to people, whose goal is to make their lives easier.“

“My goal with the 750g videos is to convey my love of cooking and make it accessible to everyone. Every day people tell me that they learned to cook thanks to me and that’s what gives me the most pleasure in life. !“

The one who taught for a long time at the Soissons hotel school claims to be from Picardy, but is keen to clarify that he is “born in Madagascar, raised in the southwest and matured in PicardyAn explosive cocktail, for a strong character and a chef who doesn’t have his tongue in his pocket.

A policeman 27 sponsored by Coca-Cola, one of the biggest polluters in the world, is outrageous!

Chef Damien doesn’t hesitate to use harsh words when customers don’t follow his green ideas, even advising some to eat elsewhere. “Given the climate emergency, we need to stop saying “ there is only, we must » and make real decisions.”

“We need to stop hoping for progress from a Coca-Cola sponsored pseudo COP27, it’s just unbelievable! protest. Coke is 200 000 plastic bottles per minute ! And let it be. I acted out that I wanted to make things happen.“

“I may be just a little hummingbird, as Pierre Rabhi said, but I am. Every day I look for areas for improvement !“, proclaims the one whose bistro-canteen installed in the 15th arrondissement of Paris has two amaretti from the Ecotable label.

To realize his idea, chef Damien invented a powdered vegetable drink with an agricultural engineer packaged in Auvergne in kraft paper. The idea came to him after Covid.

“I wake up one morning and realize I cook 100% at home, He explains. Ice cream, ketchup, everything is homemade. I have biodynamic wines, a craft brewery… and I sell industrial drinks. I said : “ Find the mistake ! “. The mistake, I took it, put it on the curb and told people to help themselves.”

So he decides to do everything to build”a real place to live, to promote coexistence in the face of the digitized world“and of”do business while having a restaurant that is as virtuous, as human and as ecological as possible“.

With the idea of ​​replacing industrial sodas, he starts by making a lemonade, then a tonic. A ginger beer, cola, iced tea and many more will follow.

“Today, in my restaurant, I no longer have plastic or glass bottlesrejoices. When customers sit down, the first thing we put on their table is a carafe of water. And more and more of them come to taste my drink.”

This new drink, a concentrated solution to which we add sparkling water, sells “three times more and takes up seven times less space.”

His goal today? “Convincing restaurateurs that there is a climate emergency, that margins are good and that this is what people want !“

One of the basics is not to throw anything away but to recycle as much as possible.

In both her 750g videos and her cookbooks, she seeks to make an impact, to encourage people to pay attention, by giving ideas for packing up leftovers, for example.

“It’s simple, I’ve been encouraging Internet users to cook with yesterday’s leftovers for at least ten years. !”, smiled the cook.

“At the restaurant, he saysWe don’t throw anything away. We take glasses of water to water our aromatic herbs, we have a hundred of them. The same goes for bread, it is dried to make croutons or a bread crumble.”

To go further and reach more people, Chef Damien has in mind a busy comic project on the meaning of cooking and on the involvement of those who make it. I just have to find the designer. Notice to amateurs !