Earth Day reduce, regrow and rethink

 It's EARTH DAY today and it's a great time to think about how we use our resources every day.   Some environmental experts have said that by 2050 there will be shortages of certain foods in the World.

Lately my focus has been Food Waste because I have noticed I have wasted more food than I could afford to for the cost and what the effects on the environment are.  I struggle with this every time I take a bag full of expired food to the garbage or a bag full of plastic containers to the recycle bin.

Donald Trump likes to say that there isn't any truth to Climate Change and it's not cause by people.  But it's hard to see what's happening in the world and not wonder what's happening.  It's now the 22nd of April and we are finally getting normal spring temperatures after an extremely long winter but we almost had an ice storm as crippling as the one in 2013 in Toronto.  Many people lost power from downed trees but it didn't last as long as the last time but just as crippling for the people affected by it.  Around the world the droughts, floods, hurricanes, tsunami's, earthquakes and more are getting more extreme each year and the polar ice caps, the coral reefs and the shore lines are decreasing.  It's really hard to see the big picture when you are just trying to live your life everyday but what kind of world are we leaving for our children?  A life of GMO food and constant environmental disasters that become normal life?

What can we do?   Try and make decisions that will have lasting effects.  If corporations produced less plastic products that never break down and pollute our landfills and oceans maybe they can think about innovative ways to change their products and productions and people have to choose products that have less of an environmental impact if they can.  I know this is challenging because sometimes we don't have a choice on how the products we use are sold in stores.

We can also teach our children about food.  Yesterday I showed my friend's 3 year old daughter how to regrow vegetable scraps in water by letting her help fill the containers of water.  Hopefully she will watch it sprout over the next few weeks and get excited about it.  Even if we don't grow our own food it's important to be mindful of where it comes from and who is producing it.  If you can go to a great Farmer's Market where the farmers are on hand selling their food then that's a great step in supporting the people that make your food.   If you have a balcony or garden and can grown some food then that's a great thing because you will purchase less packaging and will waste less food.

At the beginning of April I placed a carrot top in a small bowl of water and now 3 weeks later you can see how much it has sprouted.  It can be planted in earth when the weather is a bit warmer.  I tried to see if I could get avocado seeds to sprout but that hasn't been successful.  I am going to try and see what happens to a sprig of cilantro.  The easiest one to regrow is Green Onion.  There isn't much to do except make sure it has clean water at about the height of the white end of the onion and placed in sunlight it will just regrow and sprout up from the centre.

Tomorrow I have organized an Earth Day event to do the same thing and have my coworkers learn how to regrow certain vegetable bits that would normally get discarded  I will turn the wasted bits into the food waste soup I have been making through the past year and we will also attempt to plant some seed packets into one of the small greenhouse boxes that I picked up from Canadian Tire.  This is new to me so I don't know how well it will do but I wanted to try and plant a seed or start something in our current office before all of us move to a new office in May and hope to have a communal little food area that we tend to that can feed the soups and lessen the waste produced by our office.  The building we are going back to is a Leed certified building so we should consider what we contribute to it.

I am constantly trying to improve my bad habits about what I buy, toss and repurpose and hope that more people be mindful of the impact to our future generations from our daily actions.

Earth Day - Tips to Waste less food

TIPS TO MAKE THE MOST OF THE FOOD YOU BUY

I have been thinking about FOOD WASTE for a long time now and it seems like today is a great day to do a post about some of the things I have been trying to do over the past year.  I have wasted so much food since I moved because I used to have an extra freezer that I could always put leftovers in it if there was too much.  Now that I have one small freezer and I am cooking just for myself I am finding it a lot more challenging to save money on food and still eat a variety of foods.

I hope that some of these tips will help you waste less food and money and respect the food that people break their backs to grow and sell as fresh as possible.

EARTH DAY TIPS:

1.  Some vegetables can be re planted like the ends of these Green Onions.  Just put the white end into water and you will see it sprout again in a few days.   You can just snip off the tops when it grows.  You might want to change the water to keep it fresh.

2.  I just started saving all of the trimmings off of vegetables and putting them in a ziploc bag in the freezer and I will use them to make a vegetable stock that can be used for soup or other recips.

3.  Not long ago I went to a Food Waste event and they let us take home some produce so I took lettuce, tomatoes and potatoes.  With the lettuce and tomatoes I made this BLT. 

4.  I made a potato salad using the event's potatoes but another tip would be to boil a bunch of eggs to have in the fridge to either grab for breakfast or lunch or to make egg salad or to add to your salads and sandwiches during the week.  It wastes less energy to boil a pot than one egg at a time and it's a great source of protein.  I suggest buying organic because it tastes better and also if it's a reputable supplier it's better for the chickens and the environment.

5.  I also got Roma tomatoes and they aren't as good for sandwiches by are amazing for soups and Pasta sauces because they have less seeds.  It's great to use them when they get a bit soft or have blemishes.  You can also do this with peppers.  Keep the ends of the rind of Parmesan Cheese and put it in the soup while it's cooking for added flavour and then just take it out before you serve the soup. That's kind of 2 tips in one.

6.  I also went to a Food Trade show and one booth were giving out all of the breads they had on display so I took home a massive loaf of bread.  I couldn't possibly eat it all, so I made some stuffing with it.  You can make bread pudding, croutons or bread crumbs with stale bread too.  The stuffing also cleaned up some stuff in my fridge like carrots, celery and onions.

7.  Quiche or Fritattas are a great way to use up bits of cheeses and leftover vegetables and you can do it with or without a crust.   I used the one Russet potato and grated it to make the crusts for 4 of these muffin tin bird's nest quiches.  I used a bit of leftover goat cheese, gruyere, parmesan and some leftover fresh dill and some frozen spinach and the caramelized onions I made above that I save the peels from.   I ate one for breakfast and have one in the fridge for tomorrow and the other 2 I put in the freezer for a quick breakfast or lunch or snack even.

8.  One thing I need to do more often is freeze certain fruits when I buy them fresh so they don't spoil before I use them up.   Things like pineapple, strawberries, and blueberries.  They come in containers that I don't end up using it all at once.   I need to get better at this.

9.  Another thing that I should do more of is meal planning.  My plans change at the last minute and sometimes I grocery shop with the intent to make a certain thing but then I run out of energy to actually make it and then when I have the time and energy it's too late.  If you can meal plan and have a well stocked pantry of basic items that you can add to make anything that will be helpful.

10.  Batch cook as much as you can.  I wish I had a spare freezer still because it's great to make a big pot of soup stock and store in single serve containers.   It's also great to make lasagnas and either freeze portions or even half of it to put in the oven when you want a complete meal that is no fuss later.  Chilli is one of the best things to do in a huge batch because it freezes great.  You can also make pulled pork in a Crockpot using a great spice rub and a big piece of Pork Shoulder when it's on sale and let it cook while you are doing other things and when it's done shred it and portion it and store in ziploc bags in the freezer for fast tacos and other dishes.

I am not always the best at doing all the right things for the environment but these things are mostly pretty simple and they will save you money and time and hopefully less trips to the grocery store.

There are so many more ideas and I hope to do more posts in the future with more useful tips.

Let me know if you do any of these or have other things you do.

Reduce Reuse Recycle and Eat Well and Save Money.

Earth Day - A Smarter way to grow plants.

Smart Pots that let you grow food from your phone

I was recently introduced to a very interesting project underway in India called Greenopia. A young team of farming experts, designers and technologists have come together to make growing food at home and gardening easier for the urban population around the world.  

It's great for people that don't have green thumbs like me and busy people that travel or spend a lot of time away from home but want to be able to grow herbs or other kinds of plants but just don't have the time to keep up with taking care of their plants.

Greenopia, is a sleek smart pot that allows us to grow food at home and care for it even when we’re not around. The internet enabled pot can track soil pH level along with need for water and sunlight.

What's interesting about this app lets us water plants with just a click of a button. The Greenopia community also gives us the option to share and learn experiences from users located world over.

Mani, Co Founder of Greenopia shared his idea behind the project, also believes that food ties everyone together. "We noticed that getting fresh food and ingredients was becoming incredibly difficult. Simultaneously, urban professionals were unable to take good care of their plants – that’s when we thought of creating a technological solution that resolves both problems.”

Greenopia smart pots are made to be virtual gardening assistants that can give you advice and actionable guidance that help keep your plants healthy. 

Greenopia recently won the Indo-Russian MTS Innovatsii Award for 2014. 

They are currently crowdfunding for this unique project on Wishberry. With a contribution of an amount as low as $80, you can own a Greenopia smart pot. 

The deadline is 30^th of April, so if you need some gardening help from this smart pot to change the way you garden and grow food at home, help them out here: 
https://www.wishberry.in/campaign/greenopia/

If you’ve got 10 minutes, have a look at their informative video.

Green Kitchen cupboard multi taskers

          Green Kitchen Cupboard Multi-taskers

Today is Earth Day around the world and I have been thinking about how the products that I use in my kitchen can also be used for other tasks outside of cooking.

Here's a quick list of Kitchen Ingredients that you can use to clean, moisturize or freshen other things.



1.  Baking Soda
Great for using in drains, used as a cleanser for pots and pans and in laundry.

2.  Vinegar -
Great to use with baking soda to clean the drains in your sinks,  great for glass and windows when diluted with water,  You can use it in your laundry cycle to get rid of odours and as a substitute for fabric softener.
Today I used it to clean my drains and also on my shower head to clear the calcium deposits.

3.  Coconut oil
This one is a great one because you can use it as a body butter or even as a lip balm.   You can eat it, cook with it and use it on your body.

4. Oil
Oils like Olive, Hemp, Almond oil can all be used for conditioning your hair or as a moisturizer on your body.   You can probably also use it to keep your cutting boards in good condition.

5. Oatmeal
Oatmeal is great to use for a facial.

6.  Salt
Salt makes a great copper pot scrub when mixed with real lemon juice

7.  Lemons
Lemons are great for adding to all purpose cleaning sprays as a disinfectant.
It's also great to use with salt as a pot scrubber (see above)

8. Honey
Honey can also be used on your lips, as a moisturizer and in your hair or even in a bath.

I bet there are a whole lot more uses for things our grandmothers had on their shelves because that is probably all they had in some cases.

We didn't know we needed a 100 different bottles of cleaners until manufacturers created products to sell to us on tv.

More and more I am trying to look at things we did in the past that are better for our health and the environment.

If you think about it you will realize that real food seems to be the answer to a lot of the world's problems.  Health, the environment and also the economic impact of the cost of goods we purchase and of course the cost of producing, packaging, marketing and selling these products.

A lot of companies would go out of business if we all just bought 10 products that did double duty in the kitchen, the bathroom and in cleaning our homes.    HMMM.. what a concept.

If you have any other multi-tasking food ideas feel free to post them in the comments section.

These are just a few of the most common ones that I know of but I know there must be a whole lot more.