1. Opt out of the plastic bags that are offered to carry lunch from the restaurant to your desk. The average plastic bag is used for 12 minutes and remains forever in the environment.
2. Keep your own mug at the office for coffee, tea and water. Minimize waste from disposables, and reduce your exposure to the plastic lining inside of paper coffee cups.
3. Keep your own cutlery at the office for take out food. Avoid plastic cutlery, their wastefulness and their potential toxicity.
Food waste is a growing issue on a global and national scale. A third of all food is wasted squandering 25% of all fresh water and 300 million barrels of oil in its production. Worldwide, $250 billion is lost to food being thrown out or spoiled every year. There is a way to curb this phenomenon, it is composting.
What Is It?
Composting is the practice of mixing your household and yard organic waste in a pile or bin and enabling the decomposition process to create compost (a humus like material that enriches soil). These organic products can include food waste, vegetable scraps, garden waste, coffee grounds, and egg shells among others.
How Do You Compost?
Composting can be done in your home or in your yard, and is very easy to do. First you must choose your location. It could be in your back yard, garden, or home. Next you must decide whether you will be using a pile or a bin to collect your organic waste. If you are doing it in your home a bin is necessary.
To be able to create the healthiest and least time consuming compost, you must have brown and green organic waste. Brown organic waste includes sticks, wood, dead leaves, ash and other items with high amounts of carbon. Green organic waste includes food waste, grass clippings, garden waste, and coffee grounds and products with high nitrogen content. Do not use meat, fish, bones, or dairy products. Composting, whether in a pile or a bin requires water.
The finished product can take up to a year to complete and will have a dark and rich color. For more instructions on how to compost you can visit this site.
Benefits of Composting
Food waste in landfills rots quickly and releases the potent greenhouse gas methane, which has 21 times the global warming potential of carbon dioxide, compared to composting where the organic waste decomposes. Using your food waste for compost not only reduces methane, but also can save you money on fertilizers, pesticides, and water. Compost strengthens the soil better enabling it to hold in moisture and resist pests and disease. Compost can also remediate contaminated soil, combat erosion, and be used as mulch.
Sugarless Banana Cookies
These cookies are the creation of Vincent Mazzaro. He is a high school senior and I teach yoga to his mom. She arrived at class one week, excitedly sharing the cookies with me. I took them home, and proceeded to eat them all myself! I made a batch of the cookies and served them at a meeting at our home. They were quickly eaten up!
Here’s to happy healthy eating. Thanks Vincent.
Vinny’s Natural Cookies
3/4 cup mashed banana (approximately 2 large bananas), mashing with a fork in a bowl
3/4 cup plus 1 Tablespoon rolled oats
1/4 cup raw almonds, chopped
1/4 cup raisins
Preheat oven to 350º. Prepare a baking sheet with parchment paper.
Mix together the mashed bananas, rolled oats, chopped almonds and raisins in a bowl with a wooden spoon.
Drop by tablespoonfuls onto the baking sheet. Cookies will not spread during baking. Bake for 10-12 minutes. Once baked remove the cookies from the sheet with a spatula and cool on a wire rack.
Earlier this month I went to the Omega Institute (near Rhinebeck, NY), a holistic living educational and retreat center. I went for some time in nature, time to focus, and to be fed by someone else for a change. Omega was just what I needed, the campus reminded me of summer camp and the food was fantastic!
That is where I met this Carrot Salad recipe. All meals were served cafeteria style and this salad was out at lunchtime. The ingredients were posted with the salad. I wrote them down and then worked on proportions at home. With some minor adjustments this is my version of the recipe
This salad needs time to sit for the flavors to blend. Make it the night before for lunch or in the afternoon for dinner. Allow time for the carrots and raisins to marinate in the dressing before serving. This salad is just as delicious as a leftover.
Why not try grating the carrots by hand? I noticed the difference between the batches of salad where I grated the carrots in a food processor or by hand. The flavor was better in the hand grated salad. Was this my imagination? This is not a way to keep you in the kitchen longer! But it is a way to let you pour your loving thoughts into the food as you prepare it.
Prepared salads are perfect to have on hand for hot summer days when light and cool eating is what the body needs.
Moroccan Carrot Salad
2 cups grated carrots
1/3 cup raisins
2 Tablespoons chopped shallots
1 clove garlic, crushed (about ½ teaspoon)
Dressing
1 Tablespoon olive oil
1 Tablespoon apple cider vinegar
2 teaspoons lemon juice, freshly squeezed
1 teaspoon maple syrup (or honey)
½ teaspoon curry powder
½ teaspoon salt
Freshly ground black pepper
Combine the carrots, raisins, shallots and garlic in a bowl. In a jar or small bowl combine the olive oil, cider vinegar, lemon juice, maple syrup, curry powder and salt. Shake the jar, or whisk together if using a bowl. Pour the dressing over the salad, stirring to cover all ingredients with dressing. Cover.
Chill for at least 2 hours to let the flavors of the dressing penetrate into the carrots. Allow the salad to sit on the counter for 20-30 minutes before serving. Add freshly round black pepper to taste. Toss again and serve.
Composting – Why & How
Vinny’s Natural Cookies
Moroccan Carrot Salad