Plastic Free Packed Lunch

The summer term always seem to whizz by at top speed.  This has been a term of being out and about in every bit of my spare time at community engagement events, school assemblies, school sustainability conferences and carrying out as many assessment visits for Eco-schools England as I can fit in.

When I've been out and about a lot in previous years, I've often found myself living off packet sandwiches, crisps and tea and coffee from paper cups.  Does that sound familiar?  This year, though, having made the decision to try to go (single use) plastic free, that had to change.  I thought that this part of my plastic free year would be the hardest part to succeed with, but in fact, it has been easier and much nicer than I expected.  It just involves a teeny bit of forward planning.

When I'm making dinner, I usually now plan lunches for myself and Junior Daughter for the next day and make a bit extra that we can turn into a packed lunch. This usually involves either pasta or couscous or mixed salad.  We take our lunch with us in reusable plastic tubs and take tap water in a refillable container everywhere we go.  JD likes the fact that she saves about £20 a week doing this (or rather having it done for her mostly, although occasionally she will make her own and mine rather than me making it).  JD has also reported back that many of her friends comment on how delicious her lunch looks and she says that she knows she is getting a healthier diet than she'd end up with if she shopped for lunch in the supermarket every day like most of her friends do.

When travelling by train or bus again I take snacks with me as well as water so I'm not tempted to buy packaged foods. Again this is a big money saver :)  I also have a refillable coffee cup which occasionally goes out and about with me, but I'm pretty fussy about my coffee so I often take a flask of fruit or herb tea instead.  Fruit tea and herb tea have the advantage of not getting that bitter, stewed taste if you don't drink it straight away.

Freddie the Frog contains banana chips, cranberries and dates to help me
 avoid the temptation of packaged/processed snacks on the train journey.

Trying to live a plastic free lifestyle is certainly a trial, but at least this part of it is easy.  This is a plastic-free habit I feel I can keep up.  As for the rest, well…

Wonderful Wind Power

Yikes, it's been cold today.   But I still managed to get my laundry dry for free, thanks to the wonderful power of wind.

From 101 Ways to Live Cleaner and Greener for Free.  Check out the savings this can bring!

I couldn't resist making use of the bright sunshine beaming down on my solar panels and so I put on a load of washing at around 10.30 this morning.  I took a short break from work late morning to make a cup of tea and while the kettle was boiling I nipped outside to hang the washing on the line.  It was cold, but even so, I could feel a pleasant warming of the sun on my back as I pegged everything out to make use of this perfect wash day combination of wind and sunshine.

This was particularly appreciated, not only for the sheer pleasure of enjoying a few moments of autumn sunshine, but all the more so, to think that Junior Daughter might also be benefitting from its gentle caress as she treks in the Brecon Beacons for her Silver Duke of Edinburgh challenge. Each Duke of Edinburgh challenge she's done so far has been non-stop rain.  Fingers crossed this lovely weather holds for a couple more days!

Recharging your batteries

Do you get through an endless supply of batteries?  We certainly seem to in our house.  About a year ago, I was just about to pick up yet another pack of AAs when I noticed just below it that you could buy a pack of rechargeable batteries and a charger for just under twice the price of one pack of batteries, so I decided to swap to that.  Now when my mouse is squeaking for new batteries I use the rechargeable ones.  I realised that I’ve saved myself about £20 in just a year.  Not sure why I didn’t think of it years ago!

Birdsong

Back in March, I had a lovely weekend entertaining various family members from far and wide. Because there were a lot of us, and we all like food, it did seem that most of the weekend was spent, either preparing meals, eating meals, or clearing up after meals.  And everybody mucked in and helped.

They all got very into my eco-friendly ways - when there is clearly no dustbin in a kitchen you kind of have to.  "What do I do with this?"

One of the things that I love to do is to make up feasts for the birds - my garden is full of birds and birdsong all the time.

Like Louise, who contributed Tip 2 in my book, I scrape up fat from my frying pan to make my bird feasts and then use breadcrumbs, toast crumbs and whatever other bits and pieces seem like they'll make a tasty treat.

This is the bird feeder we made when my family were over in March, when I came back from holiday.

It was full to the brim when I put it out.  Not a lot left in there now, as you can see!

It doesn't cost a penny to make and it takes no more time to scrape the crumbs off the breadboard or the fat out of the frying pan into a container like this, than it takes to scrape it into the bin.  I have no idea if they actually use the little perch I added by poking a skewer through the bottom of the cup, but it looks cute, don't you think?

The Food Waste Scandal

It is good to see that the horrendous amount of food that we waste is a hot topic in the press this week. This is something that we have to act on to keep the conversation going until we actually do something about reducing the appalling waste that is a global concern. It is hitting the headlines because of a new study by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers. They say "it is estimated that 30–50% (or 1.2–2 billion tonnes) of all food produced never reaches a human stomach. Furthermore, this figure does not reflect the fact that large amounts of land, energy, fertilisers and water have also been lost in the production of foodstuffs which simply end up as waste. This level of wastage is a tragedy that cannot continue if we are to succeed in the challenge of sustainably meeting our future food demands."

When I was researching my book about reducing waste, 101 Ways to Live Cleaner and Greener for Free,  I read Tristram Stuart's Waste: Uncovering the Global Food Scandal.  Reading Stuart's book and writing the Reducing Food Waste section of my book, made me realise how much food we waste in my family, even though we have long tried not to.

 I'd carefully store leftovers in the fridge so as not to waste, only to forget about them.  'Why throw it away now when you can put it in the fridge and throw it away on Thursday?' was a common family joke. But in writing some of the shocking figures about food waste that you can find in my book and will be hearing in the news this week, we became only too aware that we could do a lot better.

So, we started our 'Waste Not' campaign.

Plan you meals
First of all, we went back to planning our meals, like I used to when the children were little. In planning (see Tip 3 from 101 Ways...), I'd always make sure I included something that either cooked from frozen or from store cupboard ingredients as we'd often find we'd all be out on occasions.

Portion Control
Secondly, we made an effort to portion control.  You don't need to cut up and cook a whole head of broccoli and/or cauliflower for a family meal for 6 people.  I know roughly who eats what in our family so I started cutting a set number of florets for each person - and that's often only one of each..  That way we had some left for in the week or we'd use the rest the next week.  We cut down on the amount of meat we bought for a joint.  We'd long had a habit of cooking enough for unexpected guests.  But in fact, you can always do a bit more veg from the store cupboard if you do have extras.  We managed to get the portions under control.  My husband said, 'Oh dear, I didn't cook enough' the first few times it all got eaten in one sitting.  But we just kept reminding ourselves that we were reducing waste.

Do You Need to Peel?
We also made sure we wasted as little of what we were preparing as possible. So, if carrots didn't need peeling, we didn't peel them.  If they did need peeling, we'd put the peelings and the ends in the stock pot to boil up for soups (see Tip 6).  We'd cook up the outer leaves of the cauliflower instead of having cabbage. And we always eat the stalk of the broccoli raw.  Just peel off the outer bit, which tends to be woody, and cut into strips.  Taste it for yourself! It is delicious and nutritious.

Leftovers for Lunch
I started checking the freezer for small portions of frozen leftovers that I could have for lunch while I was at home writing, instead of always making a sandwich.

Bag a Bargain
When we were shopping for something to eat on the day, we started to check the reduced items in supermarkets, .  Not only did we feel we were reducing food waste, we were bagging a bargain at the same time.

Finish Up What's in the Freezer
So for 2013, we are going to keep up the good work. Money is tight this month - it took a five month break from work to sit down and write my book! - so we have decided to use up the stocks in the freezer as well as continuing to reduce waste and squeeze every ounce of goodness out of any food we buy.  That way we will be able to let our finances recover as well as making sure we don't end up with stuff that's been in the freezer for five years that we no longer fancy using.

So, January is going to be the month for 'Wait and See Pie', 'Surprise Stew' and 'I'll Decide What's for Tea When I've Defrosted It'.

So far, we've had turkey curry and turkey, bacon and leek in white wine sauce. And it wasn't even this year's turkey - our portion control is now so good we used up all the turkey within 3 days, except for a bit of stock we froze for soup.

The turkey curry was an adaptation of Hugh Fearnley-Wittingstall's chicken curry recipe from  The River Cottage Family Cookbook and the turkey, bacon and leek dish was made using a béchamel sauce.

Tonight's delight will be Jamie Oliver's Prawns with Chilli, Parsley, Ginger and Garlic on Toast (Happy Days with the Naked Chef - remember that one?) as I found two packets of prawns at the back of the freezer from when we'd bought them on BOGOF probably! Bon appetit!