Eco Friendly House And Garden

National Family Week (UK) runs from May 31st to June 6th - but make yours and eco friendly one!

The event is all about celebrating Family and your time together - either indoors surrounded by books and films or outside knee-deep in grass and surrounded by bird song!

But there is no reason why your events can’t be green, local and without creating enough waste to fill your entire bin!

There are many events being held around the country that are on the official website, but why not use their guide to make a week of eco friendly fun for yourself your family and your friends.

The weeks events are running along a sort of ’schedule’ to help give people a rough plan if the week, and you can do as little or as much as you like - or create your own eco fun, but the week is as follows:

Monday - Eco Friendly Picnic:
Why can’t you arrange an event where you make an old fashioned outdoor feast, with local or organic produce brought in bulk - rather than everything in it’s own tiny bottle or individual wrapping.  Why not get one person to bake an enormous cake, one to bake a loaf of fresh bread, one to chop homegrown salad and bring home-laid hard-boiled eggs for the filling. 

Buy huge bumper packs of crisp and nibbles to share out and bring all fully reusable plastic plates and bowls to take home after.  And don’t forget some tubs to collect wild blackcurrants or fallen apples in!

Tuesday - Family Film Day:
Why not extend the picnic theme indoors with a great matinee of one or two of the families favourite films - make sure one is a classic musical to get everyone singing and dancing.  Before the first film, maybe all spend time in the kitchen mixing pastry and cakes so that when the film is over there is plenty of home-made food for everyone to tuck into before the next film!

Wednesday - Great Story Telling Day:
Rather than read other peoples stories - why not spend this day surrounded by scissors, glue and old magazines with a selection of pens and string - and have everyone create their own great adventure story from all your old magazines and bits of the outdoors like pressed flowers and leaves!  Something they can take away and keep.

Thursday - Green Road Trip:
Car or minibus, it doesn’t matter - but if there is an adventure to be had getting there is half the fun.  Rather than take the straight route - why not find the country lanes that go through tiny villages, steepled churches and fields of cows and horses.  Maybe even take in a ruined castle or 2 on the way as well - and don’t forget the camera and a tasty home-made packed lunch!

Friday - Eco Friendly House Party:
Anything goes here - whether it’s literally a party that goes on all night (without annoying the neighbours of course) or whether it’s a day-time party where people bring their family and some tasty goodies to share.  Or maybe help out with some spring cleaning or reducing and recycling.

Take one room of your home that really needs a sort out and get everyone involved. Whether it’s taking stuff to the recycling centre, community furniture project or around a friends - many hands make light work! Maybe get together to help an elderly relative or neighbour - or just your own home and ring some green changes!

Saturday - Eco Garden Fun:
Maybe this one could be an eco garden house party, where you all take it in turns to attack someones garden for the better, laying hedges, creating a wildlife pond, a bug corner, putting up bird feeders or just planting some veg! Things you never really get round to yourself - especially with the kids under your feet! Imagine to things you could achieve with 10 people instead of just you and your mum!

Whatever you choose to do, I hope you have fun - and maybe send in some photos!
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There are many great eco friendly reasons to buy a stainless steel kitchen sink!

Especially if the new sink has a small drainer to the side or is a double sink - as this also makes the process of washing up even more eco friendly - twice the eco credentials!

So, what makes them so eco friendly - and why should you consider changing your current sink to a stainless steel kitchen sink?

Why Are They Eco Friendly?
Well, after writing my article on how you could design your new bathroom to be eco friendly with a bit of forward planning, I was starting to look into how to update your kitchen to do the same.

Needless to say, I spent some time investigating kitchen sinks, and found out that stainless steel was actually a very eco friendly material and had extra eco friendly benefits too!

1) Low Carbon:
The production of stainless steel creates very little carbon, and so therefore each product made impacts very minimally on your homes carbon footprint!

2) Very Recyclable:
Steel is very highly prized in the recycling market as it is so easy to melt down a reuse.  Therefore all the old stainless steel kitchen sinks - as well as cars and other electricals - can be melted down a reused, therefore limiting virgin materials being mined elsewhere.

3) Long Life:
As it is so difficult to damage stainless steel products, they have a very long shelf life so to speak - and therefore the initial purchase of your sink could be a long-term investment in terms of expended energy, fitting and money-saving!

4) Hygienic Materials:
As stainless steel is not damaged by kitchen knives and others scrapes and bangs, there is nowhere on it’s surface to harbour germs.  As a result, you see this material used throughout hospitals, large kitchens and fast-food joints - so you know it’s good stuff!

5) Easy To Keep Clean:
Not only is it hygienic in the first place, it is very difficult to stain, burn or otherwise make stainless steel unclean.  All stains can be easily be removed with warm soapy water, club soda or olive oil, and white vinegar will give it a nice polish too.  As a result there is no need to use harsh chemical cleaners which flush straight into your local water works or burn your skin!

6) Can Save Water:
This one only counts if you buy a double sink or use a washing up bowl as it will make washing the dishes more eco friendly.  You can use the other sink to throw your dirty food and liquid into rather than letting all the dirty food waste into the water you are using for cleaning!  The clean water then lasts longer and can clean more for less!

How Do I Get Started?
Well, I’m not suggesting you get a new sink just for the fun of it, but it isn’t a bad idea to start looking for a new kitchen sink before you actually need one - otherwise you could end up buying the first sink you see in an ‘emergency’ rather than searching for the best one for your needs.

I’m sure that if your old sink suddenly broke or cracked, you wouldn’t take your time browsing for a suitable replacement - you’d want one right then and there.  So why not find a preferred dealer with same day delivery and keep them saved in your bookmarks for when you do need them!

The one I found that fits the bill on all counts is the rather simply named Mr Direct, who not only offers a huge range of suitable sinks, but was one of the only ones I found that offers that same day delivery promise that so many other suppliers avoid.

They also have great images on their website of their double and treble sinks - both left and right-sided options - that I think they have every kitchen covered! 

And with their collection of stainless steel faucets added on, your can even be more eco friendly with the delivery: all your products from the same supplier and on the same van!

I bet you never thought your choice of sink could have such an eco friendly impact!

It’s Monday and you haven’t started cooking dinner yet - so make it the start of your ‘Meat Free Mondays’ campaign!

If you are not already a vegetarian, vegan or a meat-free Monday participant - then maybe you could try it for a few weeks and see if it really makes that much difference to your lives.

There are many celebrities who have given up meat altogether including Brad Pitt and Clint Eastwood, but it can be a difficult life to continue of your diet revolves around processed foods and take-aways.

So, if you can manage to eat at home on the rather sensible day of Monday, you could easily make it a meat-free one.  For example sausage and mash with gravy; pie, chips and peas and even a roast dinner could be made using meat-free ingredients - and I have had them all and they were yummy!

And if you are eating meat on up to 6 other days of the week, I’m sure you won’t really think anything of it - however, you could be making a huge difference to people, wildlife and habitats across the globe!

Benefits In A Nutshell:
There are many good things that can come out of cutting out meat from your diet - even if it’s only for 1 day. As don’t forget that it won’t be just you - so multiply the meat your don’t eat by 1000’s of other people in your neighbourhood, and we are stopping hundreds of cattle from traipsing through the Amazon……

Meat Uses More Land To Grow - By using a field to ‘grow’ cows or sheep, we need to use another piece of land to ‘grow’ the food to feed the cows and sheep.  So meat uses more land to grow than the tasty vegetables we love.

Meat Uses More Energy To Grow - More energy goes into growing a cow than into a cauliflower - so if we ate the cauliflower instead we could save all that waiting around for the cow to be ready for slaughter.

Meat Uses New Land To Grow- More meat in our diet means more land is always needed for farming them - and in South America, we have heard that the rainforests are being cleared to feed more cattle - or more correctly, rainforests are being cleared to make us hamburgers and cheap steaks.

Meat Gives Of Methane - Cows fart!  A lot…….

Meat Cannot Be Composted - Uneaten meat cannot be composted in your garden like leftover vegetables and fruit - and may well attract vermin anyway, so the disposal of meat can become a problem for businesses - and the environment.

Vegetables Are Good For You - By taking the focus off the meat part of your dinner you may well find that you eat more vegetables in your meal instead - all good news for your health.

Your Choices:
Just as with new products and new fashions - if people don’t buy it, people won’t make it. 

So if everyone could just take 1 day a week of meat, you will see a great reduction in the meat in stores, and therefore the amount of land being used to farm them.

I’m not saying that this will be an instant reaction from the farming industry, but it will certainly make a difference over the next few years.  And from current environmental thinking we may well need to start doing this anyway.

So, why not take a stroll up the vegetarian aisle next time you are in a store and try some of the alternatives - you might quite surprise yourself with what is available, and how much you like it.

And to be honest - dinner guests will eat whatever you cook them as long as it’s tasty - and if you don’t tell the kids or the partner when you serve up a fantastic vegetarian meal - they probably won’t even know the difference and so you can easily convert dozens of people you know without any fuss!

This might sound a bit strange - but I am opting for disposable plates for my party!

I never thought I would find a positive reason to buy a disposable product - but paper plates might just be the first!

I was thinking, I don’t have a dishwasher and I only have about 10 plates and even less bowls, so hosting an 4 day munchies feast with some friends would have caused me some serious problems in the kitchen department!

Now, there was no reason to buy more crockery for the occasion as it would just sit in the cupboard for ever more as I don’t need any more - and washing up several times a day just seemed a bit of an energy drain and a huge party-pooper:  ‘Lets have some more houmus and dips!’ says a friend after beating me at Mario Kart for the 4th time, ‘Yeah sounds great, but hang on while I just quickly wash up again…..’

In come the paper plates!
So, they are disposable and I couldn’t find any in my store that were FSC approved - but they can be composted with the remnants of food still on them or biodegrade very easily - and they won’t waste hot water and detergent.

But does that make them the better choice?

If I had a larger family and/or a dishwasher then the plates would be a much better option. 

Firstly, the crockery would be well used over the following year so well worth upping the stocks - and secondly, most dishwashers are now so energy and water efficient that they are less wasteful than washing up the old fashioned way!

But when you only have a hot water cylinder and live alone - then washing up doesn’t seem like the best option.  For a start, I would have to have the boiler on most of the day to make sure that everyone can have a bath and wash their hands through the day - let alone keep filling the sink.

Yes, I could boil the kettle for the washing up water - but this is really going out of the way - especially if my not-so-eco-friendly friend offers to do the dishes for me!

After The Party:
Well, my compost heap will have a fresh layer or tough materials to stoke it’s bacteria, and the water system will have less food waste flowing through it - that’s for sure.

But will it nag at my conscience? 

Did I do the right thing?

Is Eating Meat Eco Friendly?  Should We Convert To Being Vegetarian Or Even Vegan?

There has long been the argument against eating meat - although it covered many aspects it now has another twist.  Rather than just worrying about the health of the animals, the cruelty of killing them, the risk of diseases from them and the whole ‘is it healthy’ debate - the new angle is about how eco friendly eating meat is.

For the Vegans, it’s just another string to their bow about the all-good angle of veganism, but are they losing a few points as the argument unfolds.  I have just covered a few points from both sides of the fence - so to speak - although I must admit that I lean to one side - but obviously you must decide for yourself.

Cows Verses Corn.
Should we feed our animals with grain that could be feeding humans in the first place?  Basically, there are plenty of people who believe that the grain we grow should be eaten by humans rather than processed into food for livestock. 

There are many figures showing that the energy and protein derived from eating the grain is greater than the energy and protein that you finally get out of the animal - however it has also been shown that the proteins from meat are more easily digested and cause less damage to the teeth than grains and pulses.  You would also need to eat more vegetable matter per unit of protein or energy than meat.

Animals farmed for food have to have large areas of land to roam while alive, therefore reducing even further the amount of land available to grow crops on. Others would argue that many livestock - like sheep and goats - roam in fields that cannot be farmed for anything else so would be ‘wasted’ otherwise. 

In addition many animals are fed on plant materials that are not suitable for human consumption - think of your guinea pig in the garden eating the outer cabbage leaves and the ends of your carrots!  Therefore, are all livestock competing with humans for food?

In contrast - eco-friendly organic animal farming uses more land than factory farming, so can the cute organic lamb we are all crying out for actually be reducing the amount of food available for humans?

Cattle & Carbon:
Every kg of beef sent to the stores has apparently emitted 14kg of carbon dioxide during it’s lifetime.  Even cheese releases around 10kg of carbon per kg!  And even milk has churned out around 1kg of carbon per liter produced!  So gulping down a glass of the white stuff is damagingthe atmosphere! 

These figures are very high, and obviously the intensive farming of lifestock uses a lot of oil in machinery and feeds. The United Nations Food & Agriculture Organisation has recently been quoted as saying that ‘animal farming is eco-hostile’.

There are around 1.3 billion cows on the earth at the moment and the total number of all farmed animals is expected to double to 40 billion by 2050.  And we all know that rainforests are being destroyed to make way for some of these animals - therefore causing even more carbon to remain in the atmostphere.

Meat = Methane:
It has been calculated that cows and animal farming are responsible for 18% of human climate change - particularly with their methane emissions.  Methane is such a dangerous greenhouse gas in the short term that we should really be reducing the amount of this gas in the atmostphere as it turns into Nitrous Oxide.
 
To put this in perspective, if carbon dioxide = 1, then methane = 23.  Quite a difference!  But what if I told your that using that same scale, nitrous oxide would be 296!!!

Although 18% is quoted - in a weird manipulation of the figures - it’s not that bad?  Most of the nitogen produced by a cow is held within it’s manure which is usually pumped straight back into the soil to fertilise the next crop - reducing the need for chemical intervention.  However, it can also be used for fuel - which can be seen to be reducing the pressures of deforestation to get wood for cooking and heating etc, but the flipside is that burning it actually releases all that stored gas into the sky!

Local Fresh Meat Vs Less Food Miles:
Many vegans eat staple foods like nuts and grains for protein that need to be imported from across the globe.  This increases the total food miles of a particular product. 

Surely the carbon used in the worldwide transportation of their meat-free foods is adding up somewhere.  Don’t forget - the figures given for the energy used to grow a particular crop may not take into account all the fuel, staffing, building and maintenance costs of running a ship or airplane to transport it to your plate.

Packaging for long-distance foods also includes refridgeration techniques, excess protective packaging and ultimately environmental damage.  Why not just eat some home-grown meat un-packaged from a local farm shop you walked to instead and save all that waste?

Vegans say that just refusing to eat meat for one day a week is more environmentally friendly than switching to a completely local diet.  They really think it’s that bad.  Worse than their own food miles.

Opposition would say that reducing our dependance on meat would certainly make a big difference to the global impact of animal farming, but that a totally vegan diet is not as efficient as one containing a small amount of meat and dairy.  And getting rid of all farm animals would have a huge knock-on effect for wildlife, humans and plantlife - and would frankly not be feasible.

Is it just a cow?
And don’t forget, farm animals are not just about meat.  They give us wool, leather, milk, cheese, manure, transport, traction, security and pet food. 

We would have to find substitutes for all of these products - and many if not all of those substitutes will probably involve more oil and plastic - or ironically plant products.  And aren’t they all as bad as the livestock we are trying to eradicate?

Nothing is ever just black and white……

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Here’s an easy recipe for a chunky vegetable soup, and is so versatile you can use any vegetables you have to make it so saving waste if you have any short-dated produce.

Basically, you need at least 3 big vegetables all chopped up and a saucepan with a lid. It’s that simple.

Obviously you can chop and change these ingredients as you wish and add stock and herbs if you like, depending on your taste. I don’t mind my soup just tasting like the vegetables themselves - but we are all different - and have different left-overs too!!

I make soup like this all the time, the larger the better as I freeze single portions in lunchboxes for later so then I’ve only had to make it once. But of course, you can make it with whatever you have left over from the weeks shopping and as large or as small as you like!

The Recipe:
By following the general recipe below, you should make about 4 portions of delicious chunky soup! Don’t forget that it is very flexible, so pick any vegetables you want. I always use organic where possible so I don’t have to peel them - just give them a good wash. This helps to give the soup a bit of texture too and lessens waste!

Ingredients:

• A large portion of hard vegetables - for example: 1 giant sweet potato, 2 regular parsnips or 1 medium swede.
• A large portion of soft vegetables - for example: 1 large courgette or 1 large head of broccoli or cauliflower.
• A medium portion or strong flavoured veg - for example: 1 medium leek, 1 large onion or 2/3 red onions.

Finally - about 100-150ml of water or stock - basically enough to almost cover you ingredients in the pan.

Preparation Time:
5-10 minutes washing and chopping vegetables.
20-25 minutes cooking time.

Directions:

• Wash all the vegetables in a bowl of water rather than running water. If you do peel any, give the skins to your guinea pigs to eat, or throw them into your compost bin!
• Chop the hard vegetables up into reasonable chunks or slices - not too small, so about the size of a Brazil nut.
• Chop the soft vegetables up into slightly large chunks or slices.
• Slice the leek into thin slices or the onions into small chunks.
• Boil the kettle with at least 200mls of fresh water.
• Put the chopped hard vegetables into the saucepan and start to heat with a little oil. When vegetables are sizzling, take pan off the heat and place on a cold plate. Add the soft vegetables and leeks or onions, then pour on enough boiling water (or stock) to cover nearly all the contents. Take care as the pan may fizzle and steam at this point.
• Return pan to the heat and wait for it to start boiling again.
• When boiling, lower the heat to a simmer (where you can just see the odd bubbles rising around the edges) then cover with a vented lid. Watch for a few minutes as the lid can sometimes increase the boiling rate. If it starts to bubble too much, then lower temperature slightly.
• With the spare water in the kettle - make yourself a nice cup of tea!
• After about 10 minutes, stir contents slightly and add chopped herbs, spices or garlic if required. If the water level is getting low, then top up with fresh water, but make sure you don’t add to much.
• After a further 10 minutes, stir again. Ideally your soft vegetables have started to break up and your hard vegetables are nice and mushy.
• If not, replace the lid and turn up the heat a tiny bit for another 5 minutes.
• If there is a lot of excess water after this, empty some out before the next step, but don’t worry if there is a small amount left in the pan.
• When ready, you should stir the contents firmly with a wooden spoon to break up the vegetables completely so that none are distinguishable from the general mush. You can use a potato-masher for this if you want to but it will break up the chunks if done too vigorously!

Pour your serving into a bowl and serve immediately with some chunky, buttered home-made bread or a giant handfull of home-made toasted croutons!

Any remaining soup should be left uncovered in the pan (on a cold surface) until ready to decant into smaller containers for freezing. Remember not to put hot food straight into your fridge or freezer as it will raise the temperature slightly. This will not only affect the health of other foods you are storing in there, but will also create more work for your appliance to get cold again!

Other tips:
Here are just a few tips that could help you out when making the soups or just saving wate in the kitchen.

Using the soup for other dishes:
If you want to make the soup go further, then freeze slightly smaller portions. I tend to boil up some brown rice or wholegrain pasta for meals - then when this is cooked, I drain off the water and add the defrosted soup. Stir it all together until the soup is piping hot right through then serve thickly spread onto fresh buttered bread, eat as a soup, or dish up like a risotto with fresh vegetables on the side.

Making you own stock:
If you want to make your own vegetable stock, just save the water from boiled or steamed vegetables and freeze until needed.

To make your own chicken or meat stock it takes a bit longer, but is just as simple. Just save bones from other dishes or a whole chicken carcass from your roast - then boil for a few hours in a covered pan (with veg if you want), keeping the water.

Making your own croutons:
This makes great use of stale bread, or saves bread about to go out of date. But to make bread ’stale’ it needs to be out in the open really so it reacts with the air. Out of date bread left in the bag will just go mouldy, so make sure that you get it out of the bag in time!

Take the bread and fry it in a pan with plenty of oil (and garlic or herbs). When the bread has soaked up all it can and has gone quite hard on the surface, move onto a plate and cut up into small squares. Use immediately or store in an open container in the fridge until needed.