How I live eco-mindful.
HELLO FIRST BLOG POST!
Oh god, another blog in the world of too many blogs.
Stick with me, there’ll be recipes and fun stuff.
Hopefully…
Nobody is perfect.
It’s near on impossible to live a carbon neutral life. Even if you went and built a house out of driftwood, grew all your own food and bicycled everywhere you would still be contributing in some way (we make our own gas ^_^)
All you can do is try to make little changes, you’ll soon realise that IT AIN’T HARD when you’re used to it. Try to be mindful in your actions and forgive yourself if you actually just want to order 5 takeaway pizzas in non recyclable boxes and forget to turn the lights off in each room when you leave them.
There are piles of facts I could spew at you about ice caps melting and fish dying and birds going crazy and hail in July and heatwaves in November and the fact that there is LITERAL SMOG around some cities in the world but I am completely unqualified and you can go look it up if you want to get all depressed about the future (or empowered to make a change, depends on your mindset I guess). The FACT is that you can see what’s happening and you can help do something about it.
I make a lot of waste.
Cooking for tens of people at a time, I use a lot of food but also a lot of ‘equipment’. I have tried my best to source eco friendly products that are biodegradable (meaning they break down faster than, say, plastic).
If you have a local eco-shop, you can usually find some brilliant recycled or reusable items to integrate into your household kit. My favourites for baking are from a great company called If You Care which you can find on like a million online shops (one of which I have linked there for you and has LOADS OF STUFF).
I order toilet roll through Who Gives A Crap (absolute godsend when lockdown started as we’d just had a 48 roll box delivered haaa) and honestly it’s so easy BECAUSE YOU NEVER HAVE TO THINK ABOUT BOG ROLL AGAIN! And they’re all wrapped up in cute packaging AND they give 50% of their profits to building toilets for people who don’t have them. So that’s an extra gooey feels factor.
I also buy a lot of food in bulk, reducing the amount of packaging that gets put on each 250g packet of sugar or nuts (I clearly buy a lot of sugar and nuts, they were all I could think of).
I don’t have space.
In a dream world I’d live in a beautiful restored castle in France and have 5 stock rooms with floor to ceiling shelving units and 3 solar powered fridges (I’d also have a hot tub, 29 rescue dogs and my own veg plot… ONE DAY!)
Reality just whacked me round the head and was like, ‘Gemma, nobody in real life has space for a bunch of 25kg bags of flour, rice, oats and all other sorts of nonsense’ and tbh neither do I. That’s where refill stations come in!
My local Steep&Filter is my fave place for this! It’s run by Michael & Dal who are some of the most honest and conscious people I know - and they really care. It’s a vegan cafe. It’s a refill store. It’s a greengrocers for (mostly) organic fruit and veg. They’ve done something really special here and there are a lot more places like this out there if you just go look.
Take your jars & boxes, become part of a community and ASK. These people didn’t start an eco shop for the quick money and fun of it all (because realistically it’s hard and profit margins are raaaaaaazor thin), they care and they can tell you a lot of stuff to make this all easier.
Make your own.
If you can grow your own food, that it amazing and I am JEALOUS! Having a lovely patch of concrete at the back of my house and a 3 year waitlist for the allotments makes this legit impossible for me (and probably you)!
I mean, go foraging if you know what you’re looking for! Honestly I go crazy for wild garlic in the Spring but I’ll find a bunch of wild mushrooms and be like ‘hmmmmm are these gonna be; a delicious treat; a trip into my mind where the trees melt and I become scared of my own giant feet or; mouth fizzing death?
More easily, there are so many things you can make instead of buy.
Granola
Hummus (even better from those dried beans you picked up at the refill shop)
Bread
Crackers
Yoghurt
Milk
Nut butters
It’s all just about thinking a bit more about what you do everyday.
I drive a car (it does have an ‘EcoBoost’ button but I’m not entirely sure that actually means owt).
I binge watch Buffy on my 52” TV.
I legit have the oven on all day at least 4 days a week.
But as I may have mentioned earlier nobody is perfect and it’s more important for everyone to make very small changes (sort your recycling properly, buy reusable cloths and eco friendly cleaning products, walk to the shop instead of drive) than a few people to live in a self sustaining yurt.