Hello fellow readers!
Welcome to the first post on this blog, and I hope this will be helpful for many of you stuck at home during this pandemic.
Many of you might be quite bored with nothing to do at home, and many have taken this time to be a lot more creative and delve more into themselves. However, we can also use this time to reflect not only on ourselves but how to be much more caring and sustainable at home and into the future. Here are a couple things you can do during quarantine, all with foods that the UK is known to waste the most.
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Dairy Products
You may be interested in trying to make your own milk at home, using plants! It can be really fun and rewarding, and having plant milk once in a while can help your body stay healthy and less bloated.
Milk production is increasing every day due to population growth. There are currently around 270 million dairy cows used to produce milk across the world. From food to manure, these cows produce around 2.7% of greenhouse gas emissions, which is known to contribute to global warming.
You can always move towards plant-based milk, such as coconut, almond, soy and oatmeal. These are known to have less of a carbon footprint than dairy milk.
Please be aware of almond milk - large almond plantations in California has been known to cause recent wildfires due to drought. Try alternating between different kinds of milk instead of using just one milk. Do not be ashamed to still have dairy! It's my goal to keep you informed but happy.
Due to quarantine, you may find you are quite bored and many have started to use these times to create different things, and especially start cooking and baking a lot more.
If you would like to try and make your own plant-based milk, here are a couple links to recipes!
You can also give a go at making your own Greek yoghurt for the summer, a perfect snack and salad dressing!
An excellent topping to Greek yoghurt is the beloved granola, which you can also make at home (if you have an oven!)
Fruit
You may have a couple fruits laying around your home which haven't been used yet. If your fruit is starting to go bad, you can simply whip up a couple things with them to not waste any. The UK wastes around 4.8 billion grapes and 2.6 billion apples every year. Here are some recipes for you to try to help reduce your waste with these two fruits.
Have a go at making your own jam, crumble, pie, drinks or even ice lollies!
Another one of the UK's most wasted fruit is the banana. If you have any bananas that are starting to turn brown and mushy, fear not! Banana's are very sweet and creamy fruit. Make into banana bread, smoothies, ice cream and crumbles!
peanut butter, banana and cinnamon smoothie
Some of these recipes might be difficult to make due to shortages of flour in the UK. In this case, great alternatives can be blending or rolling oats into a fine texture, using bread crumbs into a paste. You can make flour out of most carbs at home. Try rice, coconut, almonds or even chickpeas!
Vegetables
You might also have the same problem with leftover vegetables. One of the most wasted vegetables are potatoes, which are very versatile and delicious! Give these recipes a try if you have any potatoes.
Tomatoes are also thrown away quite often due to its softness. It rots quite quick but can be such a delicious piece to many savoury dishes. Here are a couple ideas on what you can use tomatoes in.
Growing plants using these foods
You can easily germinate a couple plants just by using a piece and putting into some soil and watering. You should expect a shoot from many plants after 2 weeks.
Some great foods to use are:
- Peppers (remove a couple seeds from the core)
- Garlic
- Strawberries (remove seeds with a toothpick)
- Cucumbers (remove inner seeds)
- Whole spices mix (seeds such as coriander, mustard, cumin
- Tomatoes (remove seeds inside)
- Spring onion (bottom)
You can use egg cartons, eggshells, as well as empty orange halves as pots for these seeds to grow in before moving them to a larger pot.
I hope this post has been helpful for all of you stuck at home but still want to try some new things. I wish the best for you all during these unpredictable times and that you are all safe and well.
You can share your work using the hashtag #elysiumprojectuk on Instagram, and spread awareness on being eco-friendly at home.
Good luck!
nice info!
ReplyDeleteThank you Hani :)
ReplyDelete