Eco Friendly House And Garden

Take inspiration from the tricks of historical homes – and reduce your impact!

If you have ever visited a historic house that retains a certain amount of it's true furnishing – then you could be inspired to try the same.

Now obviously, many historic houses have things that any modern eco friendly home should avoid – like extensive glazing on northern facing walls, trophy animal heads from overseas and dinner parties with 11 courses – but they also have some great ideas that you might need to investigate a little further to see the eco benefits to.

One recent idea that took my fancy was a room decorated with curtains instead of wall paper.  Now at first glance it seemed totally overwhelming and somewhat odd – but on speaking to the room steward it all made sense.

Eco Friendly Furnishings:
It turns out that this 'curtain' room was infact a money saving (and personal preservation) idea that incorporated great eco design – stolen from Norman castles and Tudor mansions!

Now, stone walls were no fun – and were very cold infact – so people from history used to create great tapestries that they would hang on the walls of their castles to keep the heat in!  Yes, these tapestries were beautiful in their own right and may well have portrayed a great battle or a great hunt – but they were really for stopping the cold.

If you have ever watched period dramas, they were also used to hide 'secret' doors and to create an image of wealth and prosperity!

And – the eco friendly part – could be changed to suit the mood without being destroyed.

Variety Is The Spice Of Life:
Say you wanted to change your bedroom design.  You would no doubt have to change the wallpaper, paint over existing walls and even the curtains or blinds would have to go.

Now, say you were able to 'peel off' the inside of your bedroom and keep it somewhere safe until you wanted it again – wouldn't that be a great idea?

Well, that is exactly what these wall 'curtains' allowed the home owner to do.  They wanted lighter, brighter and fun designs for the room in the summer; and maybe heavier, cosy and darker colours in the winter to help keep the place warm through the colder months.

So rather than having to destroy one interior to replace with another – and spend money and resources in the doing – they just got the winter curtains out of the loft and changed them over instead!

An instant change of room could be achieved without wasting any more money or materials.  Great for important meals, important visitors or for added wear and tear if it was a kids room!

photo credit: SimonCMason

Modern Twist:
I know you might look a bit odd in your city apartment if you started hanging curtains in every room, but you could use modern tapestries or other materials to cover large sections of wall and still look 'normal'.

Kids could have their rooms painted in a neutral colour and then have removeable embellishments to suit their fancy – like giant curtains on the window wall that don't just stop at the window's edge but continue to the floor and walls – or curtains they can draw on with washable inks.

Maybe they could have great big removable stickers that they could move around the room as and when they fancied a new scene – or even use wipe-clean pens to draw their own wall designs.

You shouldn't need to destroy a whole interior to change your rooms – and obviously any materials hung over doors and windows (and external walls) can help to reduce heat loss at the same time.

We all like change – just do it responsibly!

Could your local shops be suffering due to your bad parking?

If you think about it honestly – do you regularly visit shops that don’t have easy parking close by when you are driving home from work or when dropping off the kids at school?

Would you really say to me that you would be happy to park 15 minutes walk away from a shop to just grab some milk?  Or would you infact make sure you drove to a shop that you knew had spaces right outside – even if it was a bit further away.

Especially if it was raining…..

Or you were in a hurry……

So now, let’s look at this the other way around, and think about why you avoid certain stores due to bad parking and how this can be improved.

Parking Bays:
Many stores have head on parking bays drawn on the road outside the shopfront – mainly because they want all their customers to have a space without a fuss.

However, some people who are ‘in a hurry’ or just a bit lazy – park across more than 1 bay limiting the number of other customers who can visit the store.

Other people might see that space as a good place to park while they go visit their friends – and have no intention of using the store at all.  This is even worse than the first example – as at least they were only blocking 2 spaces while they were grabbing some bread or whatever – but these people could block up that space for hours!

Now if you were on your way home and this store rarely ever had a spaces outside – you aren’t going to shop there are you?  You will plan to visit another store, as no doubt will plenty of other commuters who that store depends on for trade.

photo credit: the spectre los

Your Local Stores:
Now this might not be a local store to you – but consider how you can prevent your local stores from suffering the same fate by planning your parking in advance!

For example – not parking in a busy spot outside stores to go visit your friends or go shopping elsewhere for hours would be a good start!

And if you live in the area – you will know when it’s busy – so avoid those times if you can.  Not only will it mean that you won’t get stuck in a crowd and have to queue for things – it also frees up that busy time for the commuters who don’t have much time to do their business.

It’s exactly the same principle as not going to the bank during other people’s lunch hour if you don’t work yourself!  They only have a hour to get things done – so the last thing they need in front of them are 5 people who could have come here at any time they wanted – but are now making them miss their entire lunch break standing in a queue!

And when parking in unmarked bays, make sure that you park up to the edges so that the most number of cars can fit in around you.  You must have seen cars parked about a metre away from the edge of the bay – wasting that space completely for other drivers!

There are a myriad of ways that your parking habits could prevent other people from doing their day to day activities – or their one-off trip to town.  And if they can never find a parking space when they come to visit your local area – they may well go find somewhere else to spend their money instead.

And your local stores will find it harder and harder to turn a profit.

Now that the Holidays are over – you will have plenty of things ‘left over’.

It’s not just the food that gets left over after all your family have finally gone home – there are all sorts of other things around the house that need to either be stored for the year, re-used, recycled or given away! 

However – the food is the easiest to sort out – so make that your priority!  No matter how much you plan to buy less this year – it doesn’t always work out like that – so sometimes you end up with much more than you wanted – but don’t worry – you can make it all go to good use if you think ahead!

photo credit: Dplanet::

So, get your pen and paper to hand, and start sorting everything out!

First Things First:
Before you can start making plans for your left-overs – you need a diary!  You ned to be able to plan not only the next 4 weeks – but also the whole next year.

Ideally you will have the next 4 weeks on a day to day diary – and then the rest in months – this way you can organise which days you need to have eaten certain foods by and which days you already have plans for, and then dot things off into the future for birthdays, holidays and next winter!

It’s amazing how quickly days can come around when you are working and visiting friends!

Food For Thought:
So, starting in the fridge you can start planning your food – as this food normally has the shortest dates!

Go through everything in the fridge and write it down on a sheet of paper with the latest date you could eat it by; then look at fruits, cakes and breads etc, working your way through absolutely everything you have in the freezer and cupboards – including those traditionally ‘long-dated’ items – just to be sure. 

I’ve noticed stores selling very short-dated items over the holidays as people are just buying everything!  So never assume that things have long use-by dates – check everything properly.

Once you have listed everything, you can start to put them in date order and plan your meals over the next few weeks.  That way, you can plan to eat everything before it goes out of date – wasting as little as possible!

By actually having a list of when you need to eat or drink things by infront of you – you will be able to see what you can’t use in time – and so could open up the opportunity to invite people over to yours to help finish it off – or take things over to someone else’s house when you visit them!

New Creations:
Don’t forget that food doesn’t need to be thrown away by it’s use-by date if it is made into something else; for example all those root vegetables could be made into a lovely soup and frozen for another month!

Once cooked – meats can be frozen, bakery and dairy can also be preserved ‘on chill’ for many weeks after they can be used in their refrigerated state.  So by using your kitchen skills and your left-overs – you could spread your food over the next month without really trying too hard!

I know your compost heap might miss out on a few things – but we all know that food is in short supply on a world-wide scale, so why not make better use of it all – even if it means buying a specialist book on it – and trying some new dishes with the family!

Future Gifts:
No doubt, on your list there are boxes of chocolates, biscuits, wine and other products that have another 6 months or a year or 2 still to go – so why not think about keeping them to hand for upcoming birthdays and as yet unplanned dinner parties with family and friends.

I have biscuits for cheese and bars of chocolate that has more than a year on it that I am planning to hold on to in my ‘spare’ kitchen cupboard for some get togethers!

Of course – you are more welcome to eat them all yourself!

Your choice of festive gift could mean the difference between survival or big changes!

But in this case – both choices can have huge effects down the line – I mean do you choose between losing local services or losing the fight against poverty, animal cruelty and climate change?

It needn’t be that huge a choice – but we already know that buying off the Internet can have a negative effect on the high street and local stores as they are losing customers – but what about shopping for ‘invisible gifts’ instead?

By this I mean the ‘keep giving’ gifts like a one-off donation to a child overseas, the gift of a farm animal to an African farmer, sponsorship of an endangered animal or annual membership to a conservation society.

The recipient of the gift doesn’t get the gift itself – they just get proof of this great donation from you.  They will know that the money you have spent on their behalf will be invested in the future and help whichever cause that was chosen.

photo credit: Effervescing Elephant

I have received and given many such gifts myself over the years: I was given sponsorship for Mr Crusty the donkey last year – (and he is doing fine!) and joined up my niece and nephews to the RSPB as well.

What About The High Street?
As you can imagine these types of gift don’t involve shops on the high street – you mainly buy them online or direct from the charity or organisation.

But then the gifts available in the stores could be said to be less eco friendly in the sense that they have an eco footprint.  They are manufactured somewhere and transported to your stores.

Yes, you can choose only those gifts made locally, out of sustainable materials or eco friendly related for the home or garden – but they are still gifts in the sense that they need to be made, used and then disposed of at some point.

However, the very act of going into Town can be locally supportive.  The carpark fee, train fares, bus tickets – they all go towards supporting local businesses as well as the fact that you might stop for a coffee while you are there – and hopefully buy things to boot!

Supportive Gifts:
When you sponsor a child or donkey – it’s all done online in a few seconds.  No need to travel anywhere.

You still use up paperwork and postage with these gifts for the confirmation letter, but no need to travel into town, or wrap things up with bows and labels!

I mean, these gifts really are the ethical and the more eco friendly when compared to games, ornaments and ‘silly’ presents that we seem to see in the stores – as these types of gifts are those most likely to need batteries, have excess packaging and be thrown away after a few months use.

But when you think about helping local business people or distant wildlife or habitats – the line isn’t quite as clear.

I must admit that I feel a bit better about myself when I support distant projects such as rainforests, tigers with WWF and cross river gorillas with FFI as they seem ‘more important’ in the sense that they are the last of their kind on the edge of extinction - whereas you can open a new shop in 2 years time.

However, if the stores aren’t there to sell me gifts – will they be there to sell me other things when I need them?  I’m getting a bit sick of giant out-of-town superstores these days – so I need the high street to stay competitive and still stock everything I need all year round.

I think this one is stil undecided!

Did you know that the money in your savings account could be destroying habitats?

When you invest your savings into a pension fund or other savings accounts – do you actually know what happens to it?

Do you think it just sits in the bank you are using earning interest?  No it certainly doesn’t!  Your bank or other company use it to fund other deals around the world to make your interest.

And they may be using it directly: through funding a company or buying that company’s products, or indirectly; by funding other companies who happen to fund that company or buy their products.

Now, what if that company were drilling for oil in the Amazon and had had a few serious leaks over the past 10 years?  What if that company were growing oil palm in Borneo after clearing hectares of prime rainforest?  

Do you know where your interest is coming from?  Has that extra £500 you earned last year cost the livelihoods of tribal warriers in Brazil, or the actual lives of the dwindling numbers of wild orangutans left in Borneo?

photo credit: BlatantWorld.com

Ask Questions:
So, next time you are thinking about what you can spend your savings on – think what they have cost the planet and the animals and people on it.

However, the way to feel good about your savings is to have invested in a suitable eco investment.  Such schemes may well fund replanting of woodlands for eco friendly timber; planting of rare plants and trees for niche industries like violin manufacture; or green oil production.

Find out where your bank is going to be investing your money before you hand it over.  All the while nobody is asking – they will just carry on as usual.  If the returns are calculated purely on financial gain – then your money will probably never be spent on green alternatives.

Make sure your bank is aware of your concerns for their spending – and you may well be part of the crowd that makes them change their funding.

It’s Your Money!
The irony of your investments could be ridiculous if you actually looked into it.  I mean you could be donating £10 a month to an eco friendly charity trying to halt the destruction of coral reefs – yet investing in shipping industries who regularly travel through these delicate waters damaging the coral.

Or you are making sure that you buy sustainable consumer products – while funding the farming companies who are blanketing the earth with monocultures and oil plantations at the loss of the very environments your ethical products are trying to save.

Basically you are funding both sides of the argument.  You are paying for the destruction in the first place and then funding the charity who is trying to ‘fix’ the problems afterwards!

And of course it also means that you are paying twice: once to break it, then again to fix it!

Welcome back – and I hope the first 2 eco bathroom tips made sense!

I’m still in this holiday cottage – and in just the bathroom alone I am still finding ways to reduce their impact on the environment by making simple changes to the design and function of their bathroom.  Obviously I haven’t mentioned everything – like having a smaller sink – but I hope to have covered the main areas that could easily benefit your home if you are planning an eco-upgrade!

Needless to say all the little things added together really can make a difference if you think of them in the long term and for the whole community too. I mean 1 extra squirt of sealant in your bathroom might not seem so bad this week – but if every household in your county all went to the store and brought a tube of sealant for the same thing in the next 12 months – then it becomes a serious eco issue!

3) Proper Sealing:
The floor is tiled in this cottage – but the skirting is wood – so there is no waterproofing on the floor for cleaning purposes.  I know that it isn’t a full wetroom, but when you mop these tiles, you are going to get the wooden panels wet and allow excess water to seep down behind them and into the floor – not such a good idea really.

photo credit: Ken Doerr

Why not use tiles as the skirting so that you can virtually waterproof the room by using the same grout as the floor and so protect the walls and ground beneath from absorbing moisture.

Same goes for the sink.  Why not get a sink with a raised protective back that reaches a little way up the wall.  So, rather than the white sealant between the wall and basin holding a layer of soap or toothpaste-filled water and eventually going yellow and rotten or becoming mildew – the sink itself is in one piece so feeds the excess water back into the plughole!

It will eliminate all of the above problems and reduce the amount of cleaning and maintenance needed to virtually nothing.

4) Protect The Walls:
I don’t know about you, but I always hit the wall with the swinging light pulls – the larger the handle the more banging seems to occur! As you can imagine, each bang is damaging the wall.

Also, people can’t always find the string in the dark, so end up touching the paintwork or – as I have done if the pull string is too near the wall (as it is here) – chipped off some paint and sometimes plaster under my fingernails!

As you can imagine, it doesn’t take long for the paint to become patchy or the wall to become a bit dirty – so protect the wall with a tile. If you put a large tile or 4 smaller ones in the area where the most contact and therefore damage will occur, you can save having to repaint the entire wall for just that dirty patch!

A few tiles or a whole tub of paint?

5) More Hanging Space:
There are only 2 of us here, but the hanging space in the bathroom is virtually non-existent – so what do we do with the wet towels?

Well, you have to hang them somewhere, don’t you – which will inevitably be the backs of wooden chairs or over other wooden furniture like the stair rail. (Don’t forget that we are in a little self-contained unit away from home and without a garden so a drying horse or washing line just aren’t an option unless supplied).

Needless to say, the moisture from the towels is now being absorbed by the furniture and the room so as a result this could all be reducing their workable lifespan. And seeing as this property is designed to be used almost continually by family after family it is going to get through furniture a lot quicker anyway.

The Answer?
Well, there is nothing much I can do here as it has already been installed by the owners, but it is certainly worth considering these things when redecorating or improving your own bathrooms.

The future is looking towards sustainability and the longevity of our resources – so why not help by reducing the amount of repair and replacement your bathroom needs!

PS – it’s not quite damage to the bathroom itself, but one other thing they did is certainly a big no no and was very uncomfortable too:

6) Toilet Roll Holder:
They have put it right behind the toilet, so you have to reach right round to pull off a few sheets – but inevitably you pull off way more sheets than you actually wanted as you are bent sideways. But now they are all unrolled and in your hand – you are going to use them all aren’t you.

I mean who but the most eco addicts would leave those extra few sheets to one side and use them later?

By swapping the toilet with the sink in this room, they could have had the toilet roll holder to the side of the toilet reducing the excessive use of this already over-used resource.

Eco design should be a part of your eco living – it’s not just about the individual products.

Choosing the right plants could help rid your home of toxic fumes!

We all know that our furniture, carpeting, toiletries and paints all leak out potentially harmful chemicals – but sometimes we can’t buy chemical-free eco friendly everything – so what can we do about it?

Well, there have been a great many studies conducted about our homes, trends in furnishings, chemical usage and lifestyle questionnaires by all sorts of agencies – including NASA – that we have a great deal of knowledge about reducing our exposure.

photo credit: marcusrg

Obviously not bringing it into our home in the first place is the perfect answer – but we know that this isn’t a viable answer for most people – and can be very expensive in some cases.

Going Green:
Well, luckily, many of the surveys have worked out that plants can create a more healthy environment in the home or office to counter the effects of these gases and chemicals in the air.

Certain plants have even been found to actually ‘suck’ such toxins out of the air as part of their natural actions as a plant!

Plants ‘breathe’ in a different way to humans and so their actions whilst sitting their seemingly doing nothing in a pot could be freeing your home of bad air and making your home more healthy!

Plants in certain rooms or close to where you spend the most time can be most effective as they are clearing the worst areas first and fastest – so beside your desk, your bed and in newly furnished or freshly painted rooms.

Problem Areas:
There are some places and times where there will be more chemicals released than usual, and these include the obvious ones like: new carpet, decorated room, varnished floor etc.

But there are also some places or things you might not think of:

Ceiling Tiles – give off formaldehyde and benzene
Cleaning Products – give off ammonia when used
Cosmetics & Nail Polish – can emit alcohols and acetone upon application
Photocopiers – regularly emit trichloroethylene, xylene, benzene and ammonia
Your New Curtains – give off formaldehyde
Grocery Bags – also give off formaldehyde when new
Paper Towels – give off formaldehyde as well!
Even Pre-Printed Paper – contains acetone

And don’t forget that we as humans give off chemicals when we breathe, sweat, wear make-up, deodorant and hair products – so in a stuffy office – you are inhaling your own and other staffs bio effluents!

The Results:
Now, I’m not saying that you should fill your homes and offices with plants – but a few here and there in the right places could make the world of difference to you in terms of reducing headaches, rashes, allergies and general tiredness.

photo credit: bfishadow

And in the right pots and sizes – they can help to relax you as well!

Now, the lists below are their common names, but look an image of them up before you buy as some are very common plants that you might already know about – and others might be totally the wrong shape of size for your home.  And check out the care instructions too as some need direct sunlight, and some only like shade!

Plants that remove formaldehyde best:
Boston Fern, Florists Mum, Gerbera, Bamboo Palm, Dwarf Date Palm.

Plants that remove xylene and toulene best:
Areca Palm, Dwarf Date Palm, Moth Orchid.

Plants that remove ammonia best:
Lady Palm, King of Hearts, Lily Turf, Lady Jane, Florists Mum.

And best plant for bioeffluents:
Peace Lily.

photo credit: Tahmid Munaz™

So get yourself to the garden centre!

Eco Friendly Food Has Just Got Really Tiny – And Really Crunchy!

If there was a nutritious food that you could buy in the shop, that wasn’t a cow or a pig – would you consider eating it for the sake of the planet?

Bearing in mind that meat production – especially beef – is currently one of the biggest concerns in the ‘fight’ against world hunger and deforestation (thus a curse to humanity and biodiversity!) – and then think of a way to get the same animal protein but at a much smaller environmental cost.

Below are a list of this new foods eco friendly qualities – and decide for yourself:

1) Living Space:
This food supply does not need a very large space to live in -  therefore there will be no need to leave millions of acres of land bare just to graze them – and the rainforests can stay standing!

2) Living Requirements:
This food supply comes in many different forms so can quite easily be farmed anywhere in the world without any extra requirements such as heat, specialist foods or disease resistance.

3) Food Supply:
As this food source has only minimal food requirements as an adult – there will be no need to use valuable farmland to grow food for our food (i.e.cows) to eat rather than for our people to eat directly.

4) Land Supply:
This food will not be affected by rising sea levels or other changing environments that prevent food being grown – so supply can continue to be produced regardless of the weather events.

5) Land Requirements:
Due to the way this food would be farmed – there are no specific land needs other than not too polluted or too cold.  Therefore you could use wasteland, roof space, disused factories and any salty, exhausted or otherwise useless farmland, etc.

6) Human Interest:
This food already has a successful market around the world although it has never really been a favourite of the developed world.  Millions of people around the world already eat this food almost every week and there are a whole host of recipes and uses already being used for these foods.

photo credit: waywuwei

So what am I going on about here?

Well, the UN are now starting to take the current food crisis seriously and are looking for serious solutions – and they have come up with insects.

Weight for weight; grasshoppers hold almost as much protein as ground beef, crickets are high in calcium and red ant eggs are great for carbs (and low in calories).

What if you could breed millions of insects in every town or city in just a large warehouse and feed hundreds of families nutritious food that is grown at low environmental cost and using only a fraction of the land and resources of cattle farming?

I know the thought of eating bugs doesn’t immediately appeal – but think what is in black pudding and all but the best sausages.  What is the other 40% in most hamburgers these days and even the ingredient breakdown of different cheeses doesn’t make for good reading!

Think about it.

Source: National Geographic Magazine 2010

Not all natural products and alternative products should be praised for sustainability.

Take for example little known herbs, common ingredients and plant extracts that we love to think of as eco friendly because they are chemical free.

But they will never become mainstream eco friendly products because anything in excess becomes unsustainable and less eco friendly.

Take the humble lemon for example. Praised across frugal networks for its cleaning ability, loved by old-fashioned housewives for its versatility around the home and loved by eco friendly gurus for its chemical-free natural qualities.

photo credit: foodiesathome.com

But what if everyone used lemons for everything? What if we all used lemons for the 101 things lemons can do?

The Requirements:
So, lets say that you have 30 apartments in your block just as I currently do. And lets all assume that they are jumping onboard the eco band wagon and using lemons as the natural alternative to everything!

So, lets say we are using lemons for the following examples:

Sanitation: Lemon juice is great for killing bacteria on everything from chopping boards to kitchen counters, and oven tops to toilet seats!

Bleaching: Just squeeze the juice on to stained wooden or cloth surfaces for food or tea stains, rub in and leave for 20 minutes before rinsing – all clean!

Cleaning: Wash white clothes with a half cup of lemon juice, rub with salt into pans for a shine, or rub on the grater to get rid of cheese or sticky foods.

Health: Heat up a half lemon and mix with honey for a cold remedy, add to hot water to ease digestion or use for a nice aromatherapy session.

Beauty: Rub direct on fingernails for a whiter tip, brush into hair for a lighter colour, or rustle up with a few other ingredients as a hair loss remedy!

Treatments: Dilute the juice for a smelly aftersun lotion, rub the peel into painful joints for 2 hours for ‘instant’ relief, or use as a bleach on your freckles and age spots!

It can also be used for polishing funiture, cleaning microwaves, washing windows, keeping cut flowers fresh, reducing the irritation of insect bites and to get rid of strong smells in your fridge!

And of course you can cook with it!

The Practicality:
Needless to say if we used lemons for all these things to be green and healthy, chemical free and ‘natural’ then my apartment building would consume around a 1000 lemons a month as a minimum.

Multiplied up for the year = that’s nearly 11,000 lemons just for my block based on 1 lemon a day per flat. Which I would say was quite a low guess-timate – bearing in mind the cold remedy alone uses half a lemon per drink – and they don’t last for ever in the fridge so many would be thrown away or composted.

Multiplied up by my home city (assuming that there were half as many households as people) this would mean that we would need over 175 million lemons a year to be totally lemon-based eco friendly chemical-free conurbation!

Now – where do you suppose we would get our 175 million eco friendly lemons from – organic, fair trade and locally sourced of course!

Probably the same place we get our billion battery chickens from or our thousands of litres of palm oil from: i.e: not a nice place!

Where in the frost-free world could we grow the 4000 chemical free, non-intensively farmed outdoor organic lemon trees just for my towns lemons? Or the 20,000 trees for the neighbouring 5 towns as well?

The Results:
As you can probably work out – using lemons for all their natural purposes will result in lemon factory farming – and the use of acres of arable land for non-food crops.

Neither is very eco friendly.

Unfortunately, this is the case for most such natural products; like bicarbonate of soda and white vinegar. They sound great for the individual but wouldn’t be practical or sustainable for the world.

This also applies to lifestyles not just cleaning products. Living in an ‘off the grid’ commune with low energy demands and only eating high energy home grown foods and washing in a river with no telephone is fine for a group of friends in their own woodland – but this is no way to run a country!

It isn’t really suitable for running a business either! If everyone lived like this, there would be no information network, no technology, no power, no policing, no imports or exports (so no coffee, chocolate, foreign natural resources) no transport network or tourism, etc, etc.  I mean who would be working in the factories and offices to power these things? 

Sometimes, eco ideals are only ‘ideal’ because we live in a world where you have choices.  What we do need are large scale solutions that will work for our growing population, not just a few people in each community.

Cucumbers contain 97% water – So why are we still growing them?

In an age where nearly 7 million people need food to eat – why are we covering vast areas of arable farmland with something that is just water coated in green skin?

Yes, it’s juicy; it’s crisp on a salad and it has long been a favourite for the dieters among us – but this last ‘positive’ fact is actually totally negative in terms of sustainable farming and the environment.

Dieters love it as it has virtually no calories – but this is exactly what makes in a terrible food for the environment.

1) Water:
It is around 97% water – which means that this plant is a thirsty one!  I would imagine that this crop need to be watered much more than many other food crops and cereals – with much of that keeping the plant itself alive rather than filling up the cucumber itself.

Needless to say – water shortages cannot happen on a cucumber farm – so the water must be ‘stolen’ from other resources; such as landscapes, wild animals, plants, remote communities and other farms downstream.

2) Calories:
This food can hardly contain any calories as there is only 3% of the fruit left after all the water has been removed – and most of that will be seeds or skin.

Needless to say – farmland is being wasted on a crop that cannot possible sustain the world!  This cucumber land – and all of its water and other fertilisers – could be growing some seriously calorie-dense crops that can fill a person tummy and give them the energy to stay alive.  A person eating only cucumbers would soon be a non-person!

3) Nutrition:
Added to just the energy deficit – there can only be useful vitamin and minerals in this remaining 3% as well – so eating cucumbers may well be great as a supplementary food to something crammed full of vitamin and minerals – but then why eat it at all?  It probably uses more calories to carry home from the store, wash it, cut it, carry it into the dining room on your plate, chew it, digest it and poop it out than you get from eating it!

Needless to say – there are probably just as many vits and minerals in a 150ml glass of tap water – and you would probably need 100 or more glasses of water from your tap to equal the amount wasted ‘growing’ the 150ml of water in a cucumber!

And I dread to think of the wasted ‘other’ energy needed to farm and transport these fruits.  Collecting seeds, propagating them, preparing the land, planting out, watering, fertilising, harvesting, sorting, transporting to warehouse, packaging, transporting to stores, displaying on shelves, transporting to your home, disposing of your waste.

There are around 10 calories in 100g of cucumber so you would have to eat 500 grams of cucumber (basically 2 whole average-sized cucumbers) just to eat enough calories to then have the equivalent energy to prepare the salad for 20 minutes in the first place (50 calories for a 140 pound person).

If you were planning to do some gentle work on your farm or allotment, you would use around 500 calories per hour – that means around 5000 grams of cucumber – so that is equivalent to more than 20 cucumbers!

Whereas you could have got the same number of calories from just 350 grams of cooked white rice (1 average portion), or only 130 grams of regular muesli (large bowl).

And all these calculations are like-for-like comparisons – and don’t even start to take into account other energy losses.

4) Humans:
With the current world food demands and rising population (with an estimated 200,000 extra mouths to feed today) it does seem rather wasteful to even consider growing this crop – not to mention all the other ‘tasty’ crops that we like to see in our stores that aren’t worth the water, calories or nutrition they take to produce.

Take the myriad of salad greens and lettuces, species of melon, rhubarb, grapes, marrow and celery to name a few, which have ridiculously high water content and painfully low nutritional values.  Shouldn’t we be weaning these out of our diets in today’s unpredictable climate?

Just like cakes and sweets – they are a ‘pleasure’ food that we eat because we can, not because we need to. 

Maybe we should treat these foods along the same lines as the concept of Meat Free Mondays (or as seriously as vegans) as they are just as wasteful to our planet as herds of cattle are.