su-STAIN Remover

Aron came home the other day with large pinkish purple spots on his T-shirt. (Needless to say, he wore it for the second time. Why do these things not happen to worn out cloths?) It turns out, they had beetroot with lunch. Lovely. How will I ever get it out?

I remembered vaguely that i saw this trick a while ago on 'How clean is your house?' that they used baking soda and vinegar to remove mold stains from a window frame. There was no way I was going to use vinegar on a T-shirt, but I thought I would replace it with lemon juice and worked perfectly.

Here comes how you do it:

1. Sprinkle 1 teaspoon of baking soda over the stain.
2. Get half a lemon and squeeze it gently (drop by drop) over the sprinkled baking soda.
3. This will make a lovely fuzzzzzzzzy foam. It is really fun to watch. Make sure the kid is not present, because he will want to keep making stains. It is that much fun to watch.
4. If no more foam is produced, rinse it with lukewarm water.
5. Repeat the process if needed.

This works surprisingly well, so no more vanish and or any other chemicals when there is a su-STAINable remover.

RSR - Sustainable

Do not get me wrong. I am not trying to lecture anyone and I do not have the answers to all questions. In fact I do not even have all the questions. These are just my notes to myself to hold myself accountable.

I think cooking is a wonderful tool to pursue a sustainable lifestyle. It has an instant turnover, its outcome shows right away.

My interpretation of sustainable food is

• it has come from a sustainable source.
• it has been produced in a sustainable manner.
• it best serves my sustainability.

Let me start in revised order. Food is the ultimate means to help your body sustain. This is why i think it is essential to stop wasting food . A funny thing happened when I introduced sustainability into my kitchen. On the first week I lost 6 pounds. It was not intentional at all, it was the side effect of my cooking choices. I have reduced the amount I am cooking and i am more picky on what to buy which results in healthier nutrition but less calory intake.

Cooking in a sustainable manner requires low-power kitchen appliances and using as little energy as possible in the process. (I know, I am back to square one, reduce energy consumption but you cannot waste what you do not use.) There are lots of tips on how to cook on low power, but that alone will use up a whole post. I will also need to measure how much energy my appliances consume, so I will come back to this later, too.

I consider the farmers market a sustainable source. Not everything is organic and free range, but they are definitely local. Also I try to buy fruit, vegetables and even fish when they are in season. They are not only the cheapest then, but also they are at the peak of their vitamin and nutrition content. two birds with one stone.

I am also avoiding supermarkets these days because mass production undermines sustainability. I am replacing store bought spice mixes with my own mixes which is healthier (no sodium of any form) and gives me a great opportunity for expirement. Reading the packages always made me wonder why I should intake stuff I cannot even pronounce.

Here is the first recipe. I have it from a friend so the credits are not mine, but surely better than the store bought mix.

Ranch Dressing Mix

2 tablespoon + 2 teaspoon dried onion
1 tablespoon dried parsley
2.5 teaspoon paprika
2 teaspoon sugar
2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoon pepper
1.5 teaspoon garlic powder

Mix it, and use 1 tablespoon mix with 1c mayonnaise and 1 c yogurt.

The impact of food waste on climate change

This is an article by Lloyd Alter, which I found on Treehugger. Shocking. I am not sure if these statistics include the apple cores, banana peels and fat trims from meat as waste or if this is only the restaurant leftovers and the expired food at supermarkets. Either ways, this article only underlined why I believe 'Reduce' is the ultimate golden rule. 

 It is estimated that 40% of the food produced in America is wasted; it amounts to 1400 calories per person every day. According to the EPA, 31 million tons is thrown into landfills. Much of that produces methane as it rots; the gas is 25 times more potent a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. The UK website Next Generation Food estimates that each tonne of food waste is equivalent to 4.2 tonnes of CO2. They conclude that if we simply stopped wasting food, it would be the equivalent of taking a quarter of all the cars in America off the road.

·         

The numbers are extraordinary:

In the US, a report in Plos One at the end of last year found that per capita food waste has progressively increased by 50 percent since 1974 reaching more than 1400 calories per person per day or 150 trillion calories per year. Food waste now accounts for more than one quarter of the total freshwater consumption and 300 million barrels of oil per year.

The consumption of water and fossil fuel making food that is thrown out, the 150 trillion calories per year, landfilled, that could have fed people around the world, the statistics just pile up.

It seems that so many of our problems, from energy independence to climate change to world hunger to water, could be significantly mitigated if we could just get control of our food system and stop wasting so much.

See the entire infographic here

RSR? WTH?

We loooove letters. We love abbreviations. We even need them. We feel secure and cool when using them thinking we are part of a secret society of some sort because we know a letter word only a few understands. No wonder I had to come up with one of my own.

By RSR cooking I mean – reasonable, sustainable and responsible. Today let me dwell on reasonable.

I wish I had the great backyard big enough to grow my own vegetables and keep my own animals in. I do not. I live in an apartment. Yet I believe I can take some baby steps towards a sustainable kitchen by introducing a few reasonable principles.

I think it is very important to be realistic about sustainability and draw a reasonable line. Where? I stop at the vegetable stand for some carrots. option 1: local carrots, but were not grown in a sustainable manner. option 2: organic carrots imported from Austria. Quite a dilemma. Either I pick, I keep a rule and I break a rule. As long as the carrot is neither canned or frosen, I think I am fine.

There are so many factors to consider when I want to stay reasonable.

• How much will I need? (not at all as obvious as it sounds)
• How much did my food travel until it landed on my table?
• How much energy do I need to process the food?
• Are the ingredients organic/free range or not? Is there an organic option?
• How much of that certain fruit/vegetable can be used up? How much will I throw away? Can this be reused?

And I could go on and on. These are just some of the most important questions I ask myself.

Reduce – I try to buy as little as possible. Is it reasonable? Oh yes! The less I spend, the more I have left in my pockets. She is happy, he is happy. And this is only one obvious advantage. The less I buy, the less I’ll waste. My top priority is to reduce as much as possible. All the rest I subordinate to this golden rule.

Reuse – I try to waste as little as possible. If I use every plastic bag only twice, it means I already halved my littering. Of course this principle applies to any other container etc that would otherwise end up in the trash.

Recycle – When I do need to waste, I do it the proper way.

Meal plan – I did apply this principle in the past, but it slipped through until very recently which I regret. This is a wonderful tool to keep myself organized and a brilliant aid to reduce the family’s consumption.

Buy local food – I live in a town surrounded by wonderful farming land. Literally thousands of family farms are all around. This would be a huge mistake and an even greater waste to miss this opportunity. Fresh local food is available all year round. Why is this reasonable? Not only because I supported the local farmers but I also reduced CO2 emission.

These are not only my major principles, it is also my priority list in this order. I know, this all sounds as if I was making New Year's resolutions, but far from me. A little attention and care can help a lot.

What's new in cooking?

Soooooooo many cooking blogs all over the web, why to start one more?

These days I am more and more interested in pursuing a sustainable lifestyle. Being a mother of 2 I feel responsible for the future of my kids and this includes a healthy planet to leave onto them. By now I think everyone is aware of the big trouble this civilization has created by overplowing our lands and overloading the atmosphere with CO2 etc, etc. No need to overexplain. If i wanted to have a play on words, I'd say "the reason is given, so the response is sustainability" or "this reason requires sustainable response" and I could go on and on.

Well, i've always had the reputation of a good cook, therefore the first step came very naturally - I should line up my cooking habits along sustainable principles. This is not at all as easy as it first sounds considering all the factors involved.

1. How to keep sustainable cooking within reasonable boundaries?
2. What makes cooking sustainable? Is it the ingredients or the food processing?
3. What is my responsibility and what is not, if any?

This blog is my journey to establish and maintain my sustainable kitchen. Welcome aboard.