Wednesday, June 1, 2011

No Plastic No Air-miles

So, I'm going on a diet. No plastic, no airmiles, for the month of June. I had also planned on giving the blog a break for the month as well, but a friend asked me to keep a diary of how things go, so i'll blog about that, maybe put up a few recipes, if i come across anything interesting.

The basic rules;
  • nothing flown/shipped from over seas - (so irish produce, local as possible)
  • no plastic packaging - (which is everything!)
  • no heavily processed foods - (mainly because the more processed the more unkown ingredients)
I've been planning this a while, as a long term way of eating, and been buying food with this in mind for about a year, since the BP spill and from spending my days learning about gyres and landfills, but more as a vague guide that conveniently avoids things like teas and sugar and salt and bisuits (all those things that make food tasty...).

i've a few exceptions, for the time being;
  1. Milk/buttermilk - tetra paks are 22% plastic. plus i'm not too sure of the sources of ingredients involved in the pastuerisation process or feed for the cattle. Will try source some local producers, that maybe use refillable glass.
  2. Butter - not entirely sure this is an exception, wether or not plastic is a component of the foil packaging.
  3. Reduce to clear sections in groceries - Only if there is an abundance of produce. Hate food wastage, especially when its because of a date printed on a package. But mostly I'll avoid buying things here too.


    Things I'll want to source;
    • Honey - there are plenty of irish honey producers.
    • Nuts, seeds, grains - i'm a veggie, i needs me minerals.
    • Wild herbs/edible weeds - so far my forraging skills amounts to nettle tea and dandelion rissotto (alas, no more rice...) And its not quite berry picking season

    So yes, going to focus the blog on this for the next while. Might make a seperate page for it, somewhere to list food produce and recipes and things. For now, here's some random little sketches;



    my niece and nephew made me some geometrically awesome birthday cards;

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I read the part about no plastic.... but didn't see anything about no airmiles. can you elaborate?

Unknown said...

Oh sorry. That's just an ongoing endeavour to reduce oil use from my day to day living. maybe i'll post a few links over the next week or so on things that have influenced opinion on such things, if you'd like?
i've reduced my amount of travel and haven't used a plane in about two years. but after recent flight to england figured i have to re-assess my thoughts and feelings on the issue.
Also, I am always keen to get a better understanding of acquiring food locally, home-growing, foraging. But I've been lagging a bit on that front lately, so felt I needed to give myself a kick.
Hope that helps in any way!

Eilis said...

Hurrah :) Thanks for keeping the blog alive. There has been a promise of more eggs...

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