Eco Friendly Cooking

Kate · Posted: Mon Jun 11, 2007 6:38 am Post subject: Eco Friendly Cooking

I'm known as the rampant recycler among family and friends. I love it!
There are many ways to help the enviroment while serving your family delicious and healthy meals. I shop for many of my staples in bulk. When I get the food home, I empty the couscous, beans, rice etc into my handy airtight containers. I then shake out the plastic bags, or rinse them as needed, and the next shopping trip, they go with me. I kept count one month and I saved 42 plastic bags! I use canvas grocery bags for most of my shopping. The rare time that plastic bags make it into my kitchen, they get recycled along with the bags from frozen vegetables, the inner bags of cereal boxes etc. I even put the plastic wrappers on american cheese slices (ok ok my daughter loves it) in the recycling. I use very few plastic baggies, opting instead for plastic containers to store food in. I don't buy little cups of anything for my daughters lunches. I use the nifty little quarter cup round containers I found when I make jello with fruit,pudding, applesauce etc for her lunch snacks. They come back home, get washed and used again.A one cup plastic bottle gets filled with juice and partially frozen for a cold beverage. All this eco friendly stuff also saves a lot of money! I timed myself one day when I was making jello cups with fruit. From boiling the water to putting the cups in the fridge, 11 minutes. That includes slicing bananas to add. And the cost...a whopping six cents per individual cup.
I feel good knowing that I'm saving money, serving a better quality of food as well as helping the enviroment.
I asked Guido to add a link section to websites that offer enviromentally friendly products and services.

Ciao...Kate
_________________
A closed mouth gathers no feet.

paulamathers · Posted: Tue Jun 12, 2007 7:50 pm Post subject:

Annoyingly i wrote a really long reply to this post this morning and the server at work crashed. It lost everything i wrote!!!

My local supermarket, Tesco, help with recycling. They do carrier bags called "bags for life". Its a really strong plastic carrier, or you can also get linen bags too (but a bit more expensive). If you re use them, they give you points which get turned into vouchers every quarter which you can use to redeem against your shopping. Once the bags need replacing, Tesco will replace them free of charge. A good idea i think.

I also recycle plastic pots like yoghurt pots etc. They make great freezer containers as most of them come with lids. It saves money because you never need to buy another freezer pot again! Smile

Kate · Posted: Wed Jun 13, 2007 5:58 am Post subject:

Ohhh I hate when that happens! I type them on a notepad and save it every few lines just in case. Then copy and paste it here.

Here when we bring our own cloth bags, Albertson's gives five cents for evey bag you use off your grocery order. But they don't replace the bags for free. They are only ninety nine cents though.

That's a good idea for the yogurt containers. I buy yoplait and it has a peel off foil top. But I have used those containers to start tomato seeds. When the tomato is ready to transplant, then I recycle the container.
_________________
A closed mouth gathers no feet.

paulamathers · Posted: Wed Jun 13, 2007 9:37 pm Post subject:

thats a good idea. my dad cuts in half 2 litre pop bottles (ie pepsi, 7up etc) and fills them with soil / compost and uses them to plant things until they're big enough to go in the garden

Kate · Posted: Wed Jun 20, 2007 1:23 am Post subject: Boo To Albertson's Grocer

Albertson's is a bit expensive for my budget normally, but today I needed carrots for dinner and they are close. I grabbed my resusable grocery bags that , by the way I bought at Albertson's, and headed out. When I was paying for my groceries I asked the clerk if he gave me my five cent per bag credit. "Oh we don't do that anymore" was his reply! If you have a lot of groceries and bring your own bags, it adds up. So let me get this straight Albertson's, you will sell me a re usable grocery bag, that when I use it saves you money because it holds a lot more that the 50 little plastic bags I use to end up with, but you won't give the incentive reimbursement?
I will take my cloth Albertson's bags to Ralph's, where I can get double the value on my coupons and get my bag credit. I know it's a small issue, but many people need an incentive to be echo friendly. It's a matter of principle.
_________________
A closed mouth gathers no feet.

paulamathers · Posted: Thu Jun 21, 2007 7:09 am Post subject:

Oh definitely! That's bad that they stopped doing the incentive. It makes people think "well why should i bother" if they're not going to get anything out of it. If Tesco stopped doing clubcard points with their shopping, i wouldn't shop there. People need incentives when it comes to recycling to make them do it more.

Kate · Posted: Sat Jun 23, 2007 8:59 pm Post subject:

I agree. At Albertson's half the time you had to remind them to give the refund. They have had this program for years, and it even included bringing back your own paper bags.
_________________
A closed mouth gathers no feet.

paulamathers · Posted: Sun Jun 24, 2007 7:58 am Post subject:

on tv whenever you see Americans shopping, they always have the paper bags. Weren't they hard to carry when you had a lot of them?

Tesco sell bags that act as cool bags now too. It's good in the summer because it keeps things like ice cream from melting. Tesco are generally pretty good though, they always add on the "green clubcard points" for re using the bags without being reminded. It's bad that you have to remind them, it shows that they don't really care.

guido · Site Admin Joined: Oct 18, 2004 Posts: 381 Location: Italy

Paula,
it's not hard to carry, just INSANE.
They give you 20 little bags with two items each, and it is plain stupid. Moreover, you cant reuse those even as rubbish bags because they are too small, and you need to buy bags for the recycle bin.
Funny also when you carry your own bags, they end to fill those with two items each, and when you run out of bags, they start filling again their small bags. LOL
More than once I had to ask the clerk to put more stuff in mine.
It is really dumb.
_________________
In vino veritas!

paulamathers · Posted: Sun Jun 24, 2007 8:15 am Post subject:

weird. i dont remember england having anything but plastic carrier bags. the linen bags are a new thing, but little paper bags with no handles??? that is pretty strange when you think about it!