Weekly Tips

1/28/2013

Creativity with Glass Jars

While glass is not biodegradable it is recyclable and more importantly reusable.  I love glass because it is easy to clean, sturdy, and free of chemicals.  This week begin saving your glass jars and find other uses for them.  Store leftover food and freeze directly in the jar. Just be sure to leave a little space at the top.  Use jars to store nuts, grains, cereal, anything in a box.  Not only can you easily see the contents, it takes up less room.   Small jars make great storage for craft items and nick knacks like paper clips and thumbtacks.  I would love to hear how you reuse your glass jars so please leave your comments and suggestions!

Tip: I use a vis-a-vis pen or even a sharpie to mark the contents of my jars. They will easily wash off with a little soap and water.

Weekly Tip

1/21/2013

The Essential Organics

Whether of not organic food is more nutritious is highly debatable.  However, the bigger issue for me is the added pesticides and chemicals that conventionally produced food contains.  People ask me if I always buy organic.  My answer is surprisingly no.  It would be great if organic was the norm, but for many people it can be a struggle to find these items at their local market.  Instead, I focus on the dirty dozen.  This list, compiled by EWG (the Environmental Working Group), contains the dirtiest and cleanest fruits and vegetables.  Use this guide when shopping and focus on buying the dirtiest foods organic.  http://www.ewg.org/foodnews/guide/

Tip: I carry the list in my wallet. Whenever I’m in the grocery store I pull out the guide to remind me what I should buy organic.  The above link also has an app for your smartphone.

Weekly Tip

1/14/2013

Stay Away from Single Serve

In our busy lives nothing pleases us more than to have individual size packages of crackers, nuts, applesauce, juice, or popcorn that we can pop in our purse for a quick snack.  We pay a big price for this convenience.  Literally, we are paying a lot more to have someone portion out our food, but we are also paying the price by taxing the environment with add packaging that will most likely wind up in a landfill or ocean.  When shopping this week make it a goal to choose large packages that you can divide up yourself.  It will only take you an extra 60 seconds to put those crackers into a fabric snack bag or fill a reusable bottle with juice.

Tip: I now buy applesauce in large glass jars.  When I use it for the first time, I measure out 1/2 cup servings in smaller glass jars and place in the freezer.  This avoids the leftover going bad before I use it again.

Plastic and our food

\ In an attempt to eliminate plastic try this week not to buy any produce that is in plastic.  For example, choose a cluster of loose carrots rather than a packaged bag of carrots. You will gain more nutrients, avoid chemical exposure, and help reduce plastic consumption in the environment.  A helpful tip is to bring your own produce bags. Resuseit.com has many different types that I like.