Day 20 - Convenience Food and Sweet Potato Fries

Day 20

One of the things that has been getting to me is the sheer idea of convenience food, without having to pre-plan anything or make it yourself. It's annoying really that we have become so reliant on food that we can just grab from a shop without any effort into its making what-so-ever. I love that though, which is the annoying thing. Some things i'm hugely missing out on are chocolate, crisps, crackers, biscuits, sweets, yoghurts, cheese, drinks etc. A lot of these you can get alternatives for, but these are in very specific shops, or even online places, and not somewhere you can just grab and go.

I'd like to think I would keep not using a lot of these products after this experiment, however will power can waiver and my stomach may win over my morals. It's just a shame more companies can't supply more products that aren't draped in plastic.

One thing that is pretty easy to make however is sweet potato fries. I love sweet potato in most forms, and as fries they are delicious! I love wedges as well, but the fries are a favourite of mine. Now the only thing about these is having to cut them up, but my friend has a clever little machine specifically for cutting out fries/chips from potatoes, so I've asked her if i can borrow it to make a decent batch of both normal and sweet potatoes so  I can freeze them for quicker use when i come in knackered from work. It's all in the preparation. If you think about it, a few potatoes are much cheaper than a bag of chips, so if you have some time, or one of these machines, then this will help save some time when you're in a hurry. Easy peasy.

Anyhow, until next time.

Thanks for reading.

Day 19 - Homemade Chips and Crisps

Day 19

So I'm regretting  not buying some of those frozen chips from the farm shop, as I have no chips that I can just throw in the oven and I sometimes like to put them in the oven and just relax without worrying about cooking. However pretty much all chips come wrapped in plastic. Yes, even microwavable oven chips as event though they are in a box, they are then wrapped in plastic after. I've done a small search but haven't found any alternative, apart from the farm shop which is a tad far to drive 40 minutes for chips! So in my lacking of chips I've decided to make my own, and I've done it before but It can be a bit annoying, especially if you like smaller fries like me, which takes more cutting. I love my fries skin on so I just cut up a potato into thin pieces, coated with oil and put in  the oven. It took about 30 minutes but they came out great. I've decided to try and do my own frozen ones by doing this and then freezing them, so all they'll need is to be warmed up and Crisped up when I need them. Hopefully that'll work! I also looove sweet potato fries, so I'm going to make a box  of them for the freezer =). I recommend trying  it if you haven't. But making from scratch when you're hungry is a bit long I have to admit.

Crisps. Now that's something i'm very much missing right now. I've stolen the odd crisp from my partner when he's bought some, and I think that one will be pretty hard for me to give up. I am more of a savoury person, so instead of reaching for cake, i'd go for crisps every time. Annoyingly most crisps seem to come protected in plastic. I did know one company called Boxer Chips that I used to sell in a previous job, which were great but the boxes were covered again in plastic. It's a shame because their idea was good - the crisps were in the box, the box would unfold into a small bowl and you could eat them like that, and if inclined, share with friends. I have been told about a company called Brown Bag Crisps, and from their website it does seem like the packaging is just paper, but i'm going to email the company to find out whether this is actually the case, and if it is, how I can get my hands on them. I'm pretty excited about that actually. So fingers crossed. I'm also aiming to make my own potato crisps and vegetable crisps soon, and i've been informed you can do them in the microwave! So that'll be an interesting experiment :). The next time you reach for a bag of crisps in the shop, think of me lol. I like ready salted baked crisps, pickled onion monster munch, skips, discos, sunbites... the list is endless.

Anyhow, until tomorrow!

Thanks for reading!

Day 18 - Water Bottles and Internet Shopping

Day 18

So I realised I have managed to go for 18 days without mentioning one of the biggest topics in plastic free life at the moment, and that is the water bottle. Statics say that the UK uses over 3 billion litres of bottled water every year, which is around 15 million wasted plastic bottles every day! This is an absurd amount of unnecessary plastic used when there are easy alternatives to solve the problem. For one, i'm sorry but if you buy bottled water for your house then you sir are a moron. You have tap water that costs 0.097p a litre, and you could get 1000 litres for just £1. Bottled water will cost you in usual circumstances around 50p-£1 for a 500ml bottle.. If you tally that up how much it would cost you for 1000 litres of bottled water at a rate of 50p per 500ml, then it would cost you £1000 a year just on water. If you were thinking of trying to cut your budget somewhere to save money, and you use bottled water, i'd suggest you cut it here. Tap water is not dirty, it is not dangerous and actually is well filtered by our water boards. A lot of effort goes into supplying fresh, clean tap water for our homes, at such a cheap price too, so you'd be insane not to drink it. Bottled water isn't any better for you than tap water, in fact tap water has a lot of the same elements as bottled water, just in varying ratios across the country, which is why tap water in different places tastes well... different. I have been brought up drinking tap water and i love it. I only ever used to buy bottled water if I really couldn't get tap water safely - going abroad, or at airports/ festivals where there is no where to top up bottles. I have been using my aluminium and stainless steel bottles for a decent amount of time now. I carry them everywhere I go and I use them at work (usually keep 2 in the fridge and 1 with me at all times). I do drink a lot of water as well, I kind of have a problem where i probably drink too much, but i'm always hydrated and it's better than spending money on fizzy drinks or other random drinks. I decided I needed another bottle to take with me on my outings, because I have 3 small 250ml bottles which don't appear to be enough, I could get through those in a couple of hours, so I figured I should buy some bigger ones. I bought a bottle from Amazon which claims to be an eco friendly bottle. It is mostly bamboo and stainless steel, with the most minimal amount of plastic compared to any of the others online. It is super insulated keeping drinks cold for 24 hours and boasts to be leak free. It contains an infuser, so you can make loose leaf tea or fruit drinks, it has a wide top for adding ice to it and best yet has a Lifetime guarantee if you are ever unsatisfied with the bottle at any time. Seems a tad good to be true. It came today and it does look good to me, but I will be putting it to the test and i'll let you know how it goes. If anyone is interested it is by Vireo and is a 400ml - £22.

So basically the moral of this story is buy yourself a reuseable metal bottle, and get drinking tap water to help stop this madness! Also if more places could install water fountains that would be bloody fab! Cheers!

ZSL Zoos are currently running a plastic free bottle campaign, where they have replaced all their single use plastic water bottles with paper bottles, which are much better for the environment. It's a good start and a good way to start raising awareness for people.

So you may have noticed that a lot of this stuff i'm buying i'm having to get on the internet.. Which in itself is causing me some internal quarrels. Yes, I want to buy plastic free, eco friendly amazing products - but NO, i do not want the ridiculous amount of packaging that comes with it (especially plastic). Unfortunately it's annoying, but i've come to the realisation that if I want to buy things that are long lasting, and will do the time, I will have to search further afield than my local area. It does mean more packaging now, but in the long run it will help me replace a lot of the plastic that could have been wasted in things like water bottles, shopping bags etc. I'm not aiming to get everything on the internet either, and smaller companies I am trying to ask that where possible could they avoid plastic for the packaging, which has been okay so far. Places like amazon can be good, but it depends on the products. At least their external packaging is all cardboard and paper.

Anyhow, i'm pretty tired, so until tomorrow!

Thanks for reading!

Day 17 - Vegetable bags and Natracare Tampons

Day 17

So I discovered a bit of a flaw in using paper bags to collect my fruit and vegetables from shops. One, if the veg is chilled and has moisture on it, then the bag would rip easily and i'd be left with a mess at the till; and Two, the paper bags I bought weren't overly large, so I couldn't fit a huge amount in - and heavy things like loose potatoes rip straight through. So I decided to try some cloth bags, but to try to avoid places saying that i'm stealing, I decided I would order some net washing machine bags which are see through, well ventilated, large, durable, washable and have zipped tops so it's easier to move the bags around without a disaster at the check out and the person looking at me like i'm an absolute loon. So i've ordered 3 standard bags, of varying sizes, and also 3 "bra bags" which are smaller little round mesh bags, maybe more suited to small fruits/ tomatoes etc. They are light weight as well, so if they need to weigh them at the till, it would be easy to weigh them in the bags too. So hopefully they'll arrive tomorrow and then I can put them to the test some time soon! I also found these things called origami bags which are cloth sewn with two longer pieces up the sides and created into a pouch. You can fill the pouch and then tie the top up when you're done. They look cool, so i might see if I can make some to try out (as i'm not spending like £5-£7 on a piece of cloth!). Either of these would negate the need for me to use the plastic flimsy bags the supermarkets supply you with in the shop which usually are thrown away relatively shortly to getting home by most people.

I received a tweet response recently from the brand Natracare, basically saying that they'd like to explain the deal with their tampons being wrapped in plastic. They messaged me explaining that because the tampons I bought are without applicator (i purchased these accidentally, which i'm not too happy about) means they have stricter hygiene laws on keeping them bacteria free and safe for the user. They could not be wrapped in wax/paper because if it ripped, it would directly compromise the tampon itself. Whereas their applicator based tampons come wrapped in wax paper, and are much more environmentally friendly, which I can say I will make sure i purchase the right ones in future! They said the plastic used is BPA free (meaning it won't leach any bad chemicals into the tampon) and is "recyclable" - however I have looked into my local recycling and it seems much more difficult to be able to recycle this type of plastic than it does other forms of plastic. I will go over recycling symbols in one of my next blogs because it's interesting how many things can actually be recycled, but obviously not all is accepted in our kerbside waste - therefore mostly doesn't get recycled as most people don't know what to do with certain products. So i would like to thank Natracare for being very prompt and professional in their responses to me.

Anyhow, until tomorrow!

Thanks for reading! (apologies for the delayed blog!) :)

Day 16 - The Butchers and The Weekly Shop

Day 16

Okay so after my realisation that going to Farm Shops for all of my fruit/veg/ meat was quite nice, it also worked out pretty expensive. And if I was going to survive without running out of money and spending it all on food, i decided i needed to be more clever about where I bought my goods. Luckily 5 minutes drive around the corner from me is a small town centre and I'm kinda luckily to live in a not so well off area, so everyone really is looking to get everything as cheap as they can - especially when it comes to food. I decided to arm myself with a cool-box to keep anything I had cool, as I also planned on going to get the milk from that farm (which is a bit more expensive, but i love that milk so i'm not giving that up too!). My first stop was the butchers. I walked in and asked straight away if I could take the stuff in my own box without plastic and I was met with a confused face and the statement "why wouldn't i let you take it in your own box?". I explained to the lady the issues I had with the supermarkets and she honestly couldn't believe their responses to my needs. Our butchers isn't overly expensive either, far cheaper than the farm shop and the quality of the meat from there is phenomenally better than the stuff you get at the supermarkets anyway. So i bought 12 rashers of bacon and 2 minted lamb chops - as they are my partners favourite.

So after this I went a couple of shops down to see if I could get some salmon from a fishmonger/ newsagent type shop. On the way in I noticed they did a large variety of fruit and veg, most in bowls that were a £1 each - slightly less quality than the supermarkets, but almost all of it was plastic free, so I opted to get some potatoes, a swede (as I know supermarkets have those wrapped) and some onions. The guy at the fish counter agreed I could use my own box, which wasn't a problem at all. But when I asked for two fillets he said you have to buy the whole fish, which he could fillet for me, as they sell theirs by the fish. So i picked the smallest salmon, which came to £8, and he descaled it, and then filleted it in front of me. He cut it into 4 fillets and put it in my box and kindly added a bit of ice to keep it chilled for me. It worked out the same or even better than the supermarket price, as the pieces of salmon were big, and usually 2 fillets would cost roughly £4-£5 so it worked out fine. The guy at the till though did try twice to put my veg in plastic bags, but I just abruptly said no no please no plastic and showed him the bag i had already put on the counter. He asked if i was sure, and then laughed and shook his head as if i was a mad woman. I might start getting a reputation around my local shops for this, but hey, i don't care lol.

My next stop was Sainsburys, where i needed some tinned goods and the last of the veg i required (which actually turned out to be just celery for the stew I'm cooking right now). Unfortunately no where seems to do unwrapped celery, and I wanted my stew, so I did buy a pack (Bad i know!). I also bought a tonne of tinned tomatoes, soup, beans and tuna. What annoyed me about the Tuna was, if you buy 4 tins that are in a multi-pack wrapped in plastic, it costs you £3.70. If you don't want the plastic, but want 4 tins of tuna to buy individually, it will cost you £1 a tin equalling at £4. I'm not sure how having a small amount of plastic wrapped around it would bring the price down.. It really baffles me and is something that seems inherently wrong to me. Why? So i skipped the multipack and opted for the single tins instead. Got me some salad cream in a glass container as well as tomato puree too.  I also got some butter and other bits (including painkillers - still in pain with the wisdom tooth!).

After sainsburys I then went to the bakers and bought a loaf of bread (unsliced - because if they slice it for you they put it in a plastic bag) which I got in a paper bag. After this, me and my partner went for a drive up to get the milk, which I have begun to love doing. It's nice to see the cows, it's novel using the machine and I saw they do ice cream so i've vouched to go back and try some :).

With that shop over I've come home pretty triumphantly knowing i've significantly reduced my plastic use for the weekly shop, and quite easily and cheaply this time! And i feel like shouting take that supermarkets and your overly crazy rules on meat/fish handling.

Anyhow, i'm hungry, so until tomorrow!

Thanks for reading!

Day 15 - Train Travel and Hangovers

Day 15 

Okay, so I have to admit, after Saturday night I wasn't in the best shape in anyway. It had been a long long night, with just a few drinks (lies) and I was feeling very much worse for wear with a long journey from Barnsley back to London ahead of me. I had some food in the morning/ afternoon when I woke up and some tea, and I thought that I would be set. On the way back on the train however I learnt we had a 50 minute stop over at Sheffield station, which only led to exacerbate the situation (what does exacerbate mean? It means to make things worse! - apologies for my rubbish film references lol). By this point I was very tired, very hungry (since I get very hungry on a hangover day) so i decided we'd look for some food. The only thing available to us was a Pumpkin Cafe inside the station, and guess what? - Yes all was covered in plastic. Being in a bad way I did make the executive decision to put my overall well being first and buy some food to keep me going on the journey.. So i bought a sandwich, crisps, a tea and a muffin (the muffin was the only thing not in plastic). So i do feel bad about this, but I wouldn't have made it home in one piece without some food, and unfortunately the challenge did suffer that afternoon. I apologise, but at least I was honest.. I wanted to show the ups and downs of this challenge and this was certainly a down moment.

So the other side to being hungover is obviously painkillers.. I have used painkillers today and over the last fews days for my wisdom tooth pain too, so this is something i'm struggling with too. I don't hold out much hope to find any painkillers that aren't in plastic, but I will keep looking for alternatives. It's frustrating, but I figure in the medical world that plastic is coupled with cleanliness/sterilisation. I imagine you could potentially use the vegetable fibre type packaging for this, but i'm not certain it would take in case any medication were compromised because of it. So again, apologies, but today is kinda helping show the realism of the whole mission I have on my hands.

Anyways, until tomorrow!

Thanks for reading :)  

Day 14 - Pubs and Takeaways

Day 14

Today was Saturday, I was away from home for a friends birthday and we had a night out planned in Barnsley. So obviously from the start I knew there might be a few things that would crop up over the evening, which I was partially prepared for. I went out wielding my new metal straws (not literally), and had my bottle with some water of mine in my bag for if I got thirsty on the way home (which is definitely more than likely!). So the day was going great, we went to a wetherspoons and had some food with some drinks to begin with. I was going to for a Magners cider until I realised that they've strangly changed the top of the bottle so instead of having a metal bottle cap, they've now got this absolutely pointless plastic ring pull thing on the bottles! Why!? So i avoided that entirely thank you muchly. I had mostly rum here and luckily not one of the bar tenders decided I needed a straw (which was good, as in London they seem to presume you do and stick it in your drink anyway). So then we went to a few other pubs (maybe more actually...) and everything was great until we got to the last place which was open until 4am. When we got there all the drinks came in plastic cups and I have to admit that with my inhibitions having relaxed with alcohol intake I didn't notice this for quite some time. Once I realised, I switched over to drinking bottled drinks which they handed over without the plastic cup, so that was good - i had some Hooch, which also gave me a bit more energy as it was very sugary! It made me think though of all of the disposable plastic cups they must go through unnecessarily each night. Is there an alternative to using these, other than glass of course, which i'm sure they were avoiding knowing the state of their clientele between the hours of 12am - 4am in the morning.

 I had a quick search online and found a company called VegWare that offer plastic like cups, that are cups made from plant based material, and are fully compostable!  They seem to have quite a range of disposable and compostable products that ordinarily would be made from plastic! The only downside I could see is that the plastic versions are cheaper, with 1000 9oz cups costing between £15-£30 or individually wrapped ones at £69.99; whereas the Vegcups are £57.74 for 1000 cups of the same size. In smaller denominations if anyones interested in purchasing them for a party your throwing, you can get 50 cups for £4.92, which if you think about it really isn't a great deal if you think of the damage you could prevent!

On the way home at 3am- ish, luckily everyone said no to takeaway (as I saw they were selling it in polystyrene boxes!) but we did opt for Greggs, which weirdly was open til about 4am! Crazy talk i know, but it's true I tells ya! So I bought a sausage roll, which came in a paper bag and then we were on our way back. This made me consider then, how much plastic takeaways must go through in plastic/ polystyrene containers, especially with the large boom of takeaways we've had in our area, the amount of wastage must be absolutely phenomenal! Apparently VegWare where there to save the day again and also do Takeaway boxes made out of highly pressurised sugar cane, which again is completely compostable. It's annoying you have to pay more for products like this though, because there should be some form of government backing on reducing the availability of these plastics, and we should be pushing companies to move towards these form of products. There is ABSOLUTELY no need for us to have products wrapped in plastic that we tear off two minutes after buying and throw in the bin, but yet stick around in the environment for x number of millions of years. What right do we have to do this so readily. I won't rant, It's just sickening the monumental waste that we as a species allow and find acceptable. *Fingers crossed* for a monumental change in attitude sometime in the near future, but that's definitely wishful thinking and therefore very worrying indeed.

Anyhow, that's enough doom and gloom for one day.

Until tomorrow!

Thanks for reading.

Day 13 - Travel Food Problems and Metal Straws

 Day 13 

So today was the first time i've had to travel, without the convenience of my car, so i was not as prepared as I feel I could have been (as there was a lot to carry). My journey time was roughly 4 hours, which fell slap bang in the middle of lunch time, which I didn't think about before I left. So when I arrived at Kings Cross station, with a 3 hour train ride ahead, I realised that I would need some food/drink for lunch. So II started searching around for some plastic free food that I could buy. It wasn't easy but after looking around I found a sandwich shop (Benugo) that sold these lovely looking baguettes, however I did notice they were putting them in plastic wrap, but I could see they also had paper wrap for their pastries, so I asked if I could have it in the paper instead. At first the woman didn't understand and went to put it in the plastic and so I kind of said no no no no just paper please and she realised what I wanted. So then I realised i'd need a drink/ snack too, so I bought a can of coke for the caffeine and a oat cookie from Pret. So we then boarded the train and got settled in for the journey ahead. During the journey, a snacks cart came through offering tea/coffee, and I couldn't resist having a tea (i'm a bit of an addict with tea). I unfortunately haven't bought a travel tea mug yet, so they gave it to me in the cardboard cup and I told the girl I did not want the plastic top to the tea as I didn't want it and wouldn't use it anyway. She put the lid on anyway, to my disgust and said "I have to give you the lid" which was a ridiculous statement! So unhappily I paid for it, and set my sights on buying a travel mug to prevent this happening again. It seems like it would be very difficult to be able to get something to eat on the go at trains stations. I was lucky it was a big station like Kings Cross as there was more selection, but other stations I may not have been as lucky. So I looked up a travel mug and found one that appears to be made of bamboo, stainless steel and a rubber seal, so I may be buying this to use.

 So knowing i'd be going out drinking this weekend I decided to buy some reusable straws to use instead of the plastic straws. Unfortunately when I ordered them they came wrapped in 2 layers of plastic. They come with their own pipe cleaner and they seem to be quite alright to use. Although when drunk and you try to bite the straw forgetting it's metal kinda isn't recommended! But they are great. So I will be testing them tonight out and about, so I'll see how easy that is to navigate (I may loose one).

Anyhow, I'll see how today goes!

Until tomorrow.

Thanks for reading.

Day 12 - Razor Blades and The Trip Away

Day 12

So my razor is getting a bit blunt, and it occured to me - crap, that's almost ALL plastic, with heads to replace, but that's still more plastic straight into the landfill. So i got searching on the internet and saw you can buy safety razors that are all metal, where you can just replace the blades, or sharpen the blades, depending on the make and how expensive they are. I have found one with decent reviews that is £21.99, seems like a decent razor and in the comments a few women mentioned using them so it seems promising. It's something i'm willing to pay out for as I see it's something that i'll keep in the future. I'll let you know when it arrives and useage reviews. But yeah, it's just insane the amount of plastic we must go through for shaving alone - especially men if they use disposable razors! It's madness!

A small review I have for the Teo deoderant bar I bought from Lush. I have to say that I do have quite sensitive skin, and I found the bar to be quite abrasive and a bit itchy. It's also very very powdery and little blue bits in the bar end up over the floor everywhere. It smells nice and works well, but it's not right for my skin, it gets everywhere and would probably show up on dark clothing. You also can't use it on damp armpits, dry only, so if you need to reapply you'd have to try dry your armpits off first it seems.

So from tomorrow I will be taking a few days away up to Barnsley to visit a friend of mine for his birthday, so obviously this does concern me, as i'm not going to be sure what I can get around there, what's going to occur food wise too. At home I know where some of my resources are and I have back up tins of things in the cupboard, but away from home that leaves me a bit more vulnerable. Although this could be gotten round by eating out, but then it would be more expensive. But what will be will be and i'll try to update you tomorrow evening (if i've not had too much to drink, or even if I have it might make for an interesting read).

Anyhow, until tomorrow!

Thanks for reading.

Day 11 - The Madness Continues and Sneaky Tiger Bread Plastic

Day 11

So yesterday I messaged Waitrose, to get their take on the whole taking meat/fish away in your own containers thing. The response I received stated that due to health and safety they couldn't allow the person to take my container over the counter due to fears of it contaminating something else, and also the meat is weighed in plastic to health and safety reasons too. It does seem odd to me that a farm shop and a butchers would allow the sell of meat without plastic and have no qualms with this, but it's not for me to judge. Although I still don't see why they can't go back to using butcher paper or something of the like instead of using plastic. My post to Waitrose has caused a few people to reply, and one person stating that I should should just accept that it's not going to change. To which I replied that if everyone accepted everything that was wrong in the world then we would never change anything for the better. I said I would continue to use the butchers, fish mongers as long as they accept to put it in my containers. Sometimes the small changes you make can make a difference if enough people with the same values choose the same path. Anyhow, enough on that for now but i'm sure this is a to be continued subject!

I needed some bread after work today, so I asked my other half if he would be able to stop by Greggs (a bakers) to pick up a loaf of bread (not in plastic of course) however when he called me he said that even there everything seemed to be in plastic. So as I was hungry and needed bread for dinner I headed to Tescos as it was close, hoping they did something not wrapped in plastic. Being an express shop i was pleased to see they had a small baked section, with loose rolls and things. I then spotted some tiger bread wrapped in paper, so i picked this up in a rush and then paid at the till. It wasn't until I got it home I actually realised it had a small thin panel of clear plastic on the other side to showcase their product, which I must have missed in my rush to get home to eat. It's annoying as well because there were no paper bags supplied for the other breads/ rolls, just the plastic, which is why I went for the tiger loaf. I will definitely check better next time - it's very annoying actually. There is a Lidl around the corner from me and they have a new baked section, so i'm sure if i take my own paper bag I could go get something from there easily and probably cheaply too.

So i've been doing a lot of coursework this afternoon, so my partner got to work on making some yummy cheese biscuits. They came out good, but the amount of cheese recommended in the recipe was no where near enough the amount that should have been put in, however I am a bit of a cheese fiend so that might be why! They are nice and are going to serve as a bit of a snack in the next few days - yaay!

The guinea pigs are now gone - actually they've been gone a few days now but I forgot to mention it, so no more worrying about their diet! Although I do have 4 rats which do require a pellet form of food, so i'm going to have to look up alternatives for that - if any. Luckily their substrate for the cage I use is called Catolet which is actually a recycled paper based cat litter which comes in a paper bag too, so I don't have to worry about anything there.

Anyhow I thought I'd leave you today on a picture of one of my Moon Jellies at work, which is pretty awesome as it has 6 stomachs instead of the usual 4 - very pretty!

Until tomorrow!

Thanks for reading.

Day 10 - Stale Bread and Snack Cravings

Day 10

Doing this has already made me realise what we a lot of the time take for granted, and it's things such as the longevity after purchase of the food we get from supermarkets. What made me think of this? Well it's been 2 days since I purchased the multi-seed bread from the farm shop, and I have had to make sure we used it up quickly because by the end of the first day it was starting to get pretty tough! Today I had some for my lunch at work and thought the rest would last until tomorrows lunch, however when i got to the bread this afternoon it was so tough I had to microwave it slightly just to make it edible - and I was hungry too, so I needed it to be edible. It makes me think how great it is to have bread that doesn't go out of date that quick, but then think well that means it must have a lot of preservatives in it to keep it that way. So then what are we putting in our bodies? It's interesting to me because I remember reading something online a while back about places in south america that have found that bodies that have been buried in the last couple of decades do not seem to be decomposing at the rate that the body should decompose at. They theorized that it could be due to the sheer amount of preservatives that are in foods nowadays, which seems to have had an effect on the peoples bodies over time. Whether this is true/ been studied or not, i'm not sure - i will aim to look up about this more but i'm pretty tired tonight, so i'm keeping this one short tonight - apologies!

So, another major inconvenience to me at the moment is snacking. I ordinarily eat a lot of crisps (not an unhealthy amount, but maybe a pack every few days, and recently decided to get a liking for TUC biscuits. I forgot how amazing TUC biscuits were as a kid, so decided to start eating them again recently, which i realise now was a mistake because they are pretty addictive to me now. It's annoying because everything i seem to like/ become accustomed to are things that have a barrier of bloody plastic in the way of me and them. I believe I had a vague dream about driving to find the TUC biscuit factory last night to ask them if they would fill up all of the containers I had with the biscuits so I could gorge myself on them for the next few weeks!  How insane is that?! I'm actually seriously craving biscuits and crisps. Another one for me which I do sometimes buy, is a small premade birthday cake from Tescos. It sounds weird, and I know it's not my birthday, but I love that particular birthday cake, it just tastes good. Unfortunately one little plastic window on the box stands between me and it right now. And it's annoying because I don't get them regularly and I don't tend to eat cake, but right now i'd eat about 10. I'm craving snacks, convenience food and just food I don't have to plan ahead with.

I'll leave you with a photo of the last TUC biscuit I had before I started this whole thing. I wish I had savoured it more!

Until tomorrow!

Thanks for reading :). Goodnight zzzzzzzzz

Day 9 - Environmentally Friendly Toothbrush and Homemade Meals

 Day 9

I was awoken bright and early by the postman delivering my order from the Ethical Superstore where I ordered some environmentally plastic free staples. I ordered a 9 pack of toilet rolls, 2 kitchen rolls, tampons (two types) and 2 environmental toothbrushes. So upon receiving the box I noticed that it was done up with sellotape (fail one), it would be great if they could use masking tape/ paper tape instead - i'll ask the company if this is possible in future..
The toilet rolls and the kitchen rolls are fantastic, only about 10p more expensive than the sainsburys toilet rolls we buy, they are made from 100% recycled paper and the packaging is 100% compostable. Perfect! They also don't have that annoying 2 minutes of struggle of trying to get the edge of the roll off, they actually have a small easily peel-able edge to pull and the rolls are quite soft. Very impressed with this brand and I see myself keeping this after the  month is up.

Upon inspection the tampons looked good, however when I opened them up I realised that each tampon was individually wrapped in plastic. The advertising for them is misleading as it states they are plastic free, however they are wrapped in plastic - I imagine they meant inside the tampon itself, as these are 100% cotton, but this is misleading none the less. So, I am a bit disappointed to find this was the case, especially when I have now bought these over tampax tampons which come with a cardboard applicator and are wrapped in paper. Just a shame they haven't got 100% cotton tampons to boot. I have contacted Natracare about this to see if they will consider using paper in future instead - as they are selling themselves as an ethical, environmentally friendly company.

Also this "Environmental Toothbrush" I bought looked great on the surface and from what I have read on most of the sites that are selling them, they seem to be 100% biodegradable and are sold as "Bamboo Toothbrush". However when I inspected them upon delivery, i noticed the bristles looked suspiciously like plastic, so I started to look deeper into the internet for information. I found out that the company who supplies them used to advertise them as 100% biodegradable, however was contacted by a fellow plastic free patron last year, who pointed out that the bristles were plastic. His supplier from China had lied to him about the content of the brush, and so he has righted this on his own website. It seems though that maybe other sites have an old description, or do not go into enough detail, as to me it seemed as though these were 100% plastic free. These do seem to be the best alternative at the moment to the conventional plastic toothbrush. However there is a supplier in Germany that makes Beechwood toothbrushes and the bristles are made from pig hair, which sounds good, but the pig hair is a by-product from the Chinese meat trade, so i'm not exactly sure I'd be willing to call this an ethical solution. I did think hmm, maybe I could make my own toothbrush out of something, but as of yet i'm lacking a decent alternative. If I find one, i'll let you know!


Okay, to the food of today! For lunch I decided to utilise a great deal of food i've gotten in the last week. So me and my partner had broad beans and bacon on multi-grain toast with honeyed figs and balsamic glaze. It was loooovely. As I have mentioned before I absolutely love broad beans, even if they are a bit of a faff (mostly because we de-shell them as the beans themselves have a much nicer flavour than with the shells).

 For dinner I decided to use the rest of the sausages, and make sausage casserole. I used a Hairy Bikers recipe, with broad beans, tinned tomatoes and a mix of different spices and seasonings (including fresh thyme from one of my herb pots!). This was great, which fed me, my partner and just enough for two lunches whilst i'm at work in the week.

 I also made some oat cookies, which I can enjoy anytime I wish and some maple and cinnamon granola, which I will be having for breakfast. If  I like it i'll make a huge batch to last me a couple of weeks. I love it because it's so simple and quick to make.

I also took a trip back up to the Farm to grab some milk, 1 litre for me and 1 litre for one of my friends who read about the milk here and decided it sounded delicious so he placed an order with me. I have a mission to transport this milk from London - Barnsley on Friday to get it to him, so that'll be fun! Especially as raw milk has to be kept cold as it contains bacteria, so you have to be careful. So i'll be grabbing a cool box and some cool packs to transport this to him - fingers crossed it works!

Anyhow, that's me for today, so until tomorrow!

Thanks for reading.

Day 8 - The Cheese and Meat Success

Day 8

After spending a lovely morning/ afternoon watching Come Dine with Me, with my sister and our partners I decided to set out in search of the farm shop I had been told about by a friend of mine.

As we pulled up to the shop I could see it was huge, with a garden centre and cafe attached to the side, which is always a good sign! I noticed that they had an extensive loose frozen food range, pastries again, frozen berries, chips, mushrooms, diced vegetables, fish cakes etc. It was incredible! Unfortunately I did not bring enough boxes with me to buy everything I wanted, but I will certainly go prepared next time.
I also noticed they had a fish counter and a meat counter (unfortunately we got there a bit late in the day and they were cleaning down the fish counter, so I opted to buy some meat instead.
I sheepishly asked the meat counter guy if I could take it in my own container - explaining to him how I'm not using plastic at the moment and he was fine with it. I gave him the container and he weighed it all out for me. How nice! He even didn't mind having his photo taken of him weighing out my sausages either. Brilliant! I bought bacon and sausages, and I have earmarked all of them for each meal I am going to have. Starting tonight with toad in the hole mmmm.





























I also nabbed a few other goodies whilst there including some sweet apple juice, strawberry and kiwi cider (!), multiseed fresh bread and some goats cheese (that the lady allowed me to put in a paper bag instead of cling film - yay!). I also picked up some potatoes, cabbage, tomatoes, more broad beans and cherry tomatoes. The shop was great, and even though there was a lot wrapped in plastic, most of the fresh and frozen produce was not, so that made me happy.

I also noticed this in the shop - it's a place to bottle your own oil and vinegar with a great selection to choose from - things like raspberry vinegar, balsamic vinegar, ginger oil, garlic oil, basil oil etc. They also had a keg of cider sitting on the side, so that you could refill your own bottles with cider too! Genius! It reminded me that I remember a shop in  Windsor (from when I used to work over that way) called Vom Fass that do refills on all sorts of alcohols (spirits, wine, cider etc) and also had the oils/ vinegar too. So that's something i'll be looking up.

Anyhow, that was may day, so until tomorrow!

Thanks for reading!

Day 7 - Supermarket Food and the Packaging Problem

 Day 7

 So this morning was pretty uneventful, I had a bit of a lazy morning. So I had weetabix for breakfast and then made a rather nice tuna crunch sandwich for lunch (tuna, red onion, Bell pepper with tomatoes on the side). I must mention that I buy my tinned skip Jack tuna from sainsburys, as they are the only ones I have found that sell sustainably sourced tuna. How can you tell? They put the MSC - marine conservation society logo on it to prove it is being monitored and regulated. Ignore the other bullshit logos that might claim sustainable or ''dolphin friendly'  but that practically means nothing. Look for the msc logo and you'll be fine.

For my second lunch -  I was hungry alright! - I had this burger from a stall near my sisters house in Cambridge. There was some sort of fete going on so we made the most of it. All non plastic packaging I'll have you know too!

So I'm in Cambridge at the moment for my sisters birthday weekend and I decided I wanted some snacks for her house. The nearest shop is a huge sainsburys so I thought I must be able to get something in there. Walked about for ages looking at all my usual crisps, biscuits, sweets, refrigerated foods.. The picture of the bananas and other bits is what I eventually came out with. At least I managed to get something but it did make me feel a bit crap walking past everything I love to eat and having this physical barrier stopping me buying it. It was unbelievable the amount of plastic that covers everything. Seriously. The next time you go to the shop, just consciously make the effort to look at think about it. Things you'd think wouldn't have plastic actually do. Things that are in boxes have plastic inside. It's a mine field!

So being my sisters party (love you laura!) I was drinking rum and coke. Rum comes in glass and the coke I can get in cans so that's okay. Also had pizza for dinner and my only fail was that tiny pot of sauce that arrived with the pizza. Not bad for a whole days worth of plastic =).

Until tomorrow!

Thanks for reading!

Day 6 - Tshirt Bags and The Farm Shop

 Day 5
Today was  my sisters birthday, and she decided that she wanted to go to a farm shop to have lunch. So when I picked her up we went on a drive to go visit one. She also gave me these two awesome upcycled bags from my friends mum Karen (thanks Karen!). She was making them and saw what I was doing so wanted to help in anyway she could, so I am now the proud owner of these amazing tshirt and crochet bags. They are really well made, with denim straps, lining inside, and beautiful decoration of fish and tea. I love them. So the first picture is me sporting  the bag outside of the farm shop we went to.

 The Farm shop was great, we stopped for lunch and we had a cheese ploughman lunch with some tea. The Farm shop is associated with or owns the place that does the raw milk, so that was cool to find out. I bought some things from there today. I saw that they  do a selection of  loose frozen food, such as various pastries, breaded mushrooms, onion rings, Yorkshire puddings etc. So I bought some Croissants, pan au chocolat, cinnamon swirls and cookies all to bake at home. Annoyingly though I saw on the instructions when  I got home that 3/4 of  them  have to be washed with egg and then proved in the fridge over night first.. I'm beginning to think this lifestyle requires a lot more planning than I'm used to in my usual day to day! Not a problem really, just a little inconvenient.

 I also bought  some more eggs and some fruit and vegetables (asparagus, cherry tomatoes, mushrooms and apples). I can say one thing already that having to go out of your way for the food  you want really makes you appreciate it and also not waste it. Especially once I get my hands on meat  / fish, I will not be taking that for granted. Even the vegetables though, knowing that I can get certain things from certain places I'm less inclined to over buy on impulse buys  and waste food.

 On that note I was researching how long raw milk can last in the fridge and I'm pleased to say it can last 2 weeks, which is good news because I'm only just at the bottom of the first bottle. Also I realised that if I'm reusing those glass milk bottles I bought then I'd have to make sure I sterilise them properly otherwise I could affect the freshness of the new milk I get next time. So that is going to be a bit of a faff I'm sure.

I've been a bit lucky with meals today as I ate out at lunch and then again for dinner with the family, so I've not had to worry about cooking. But I will be adding my meals for each day to this blog so you can see how it might be affecting my diet / snacking abilities.. Actually on the snacking thing, my boyfriend ordered a sandwich for lunch that came with loose crisps on the side.. This may not seem like an exciting thing, but 5 days in and no crisps or proper snacky food and I'm craving it. I'm not really a person with a sweet tooth, so my main snacking would be savoury things like crisps. At the moment my snacking is limited to apples and bananas because I haven't been inventive or prepared for such times that I might want something to snack on. So that's something I'll have to improve on.

Anyhow, it's getting a tad late, so until tomorrow!

Thanks for reading.

Day 5 - Breakfast and Sun Screen

Day 5

"Let's start today with the new  Bran Flakes I bought from Planet Organic" I thought this morning. I was pretty happy to be finally having cereal that hadn't been tucked away inside a plastic shell on top of my fridge and so my expectation was that my new buy would be great. I used my raw milk, which I've been told you have to really give it a good shake to mix the cream back in before you use it (ooops) and sat down with that and my tea. I took the first mouthful, and thought hmm this is quite nice, if a slight be cardboardy.. But then as I carried on chewing, it hit me. The salt! Salt bombarded my taste buds, and my face actually recoiled a bit at the taste! It was awful, the salt was soo strong, even after I decided to add a little sugar to help the situation. The experience really wasn't enjoyable and i'm not even considering eating them again because they were so disgusting. So that leaves me in a slight conundrum because that was the only cereal I kinda fancied at the shop. However my mum told me you can buy porridge in a box with no plastic! For me this not only means the promise of porridge, but also homemade granola! I love granola, and i've made my own in the past, so this is great. Also my dad mentioned that Weetabix is also all plastic free, so that's another option for me too if i'm feeling too lazy to make granola. I think those bran flakes are going to become bird food if i'm honest.

 Today I took my sister out to ZSL Whipsnade Zoo for her birthday, which was great! We got to see lots of animals and meet some too (the peacock under the picnic table and the cute little baby lemurs we got to feed <3). The day was absolutely beautiful - actually more beautiful than I had planned on it being, and I had not come prepared whatsoever for the weather. The zoo is massive compared to what I'm used to, so there was A LOT of walking around in the sun, realising that with every minute we would be frying away. This made me think that all sun screen seems to come in plastic containers! But there's no way you can't use sunscreen in hot weather and risk skin cancer/ melanomas etc. So I got researching online and found that you can create your own sunscreen. Apparently the basic principle of it is to use a few moisturising agents such as almond oil, coconut oil, avocado oil etc, bees wax and the UV protection ingredient - Zinc Oxide. Now when looking these up, there were also other articles online about being careful making your own sunscreen as you cannot guarantee the SPF factor of your own made screen, and you'd have to apply it quite readily. However on the other side of the story is that apparently people are making their own sunscreen because they are concerned with the hormone disrupting chemicals in shop bought sunscreen. The active ingredient Zinc Oxide in sunscreens was difficult for the skin to absorb, so years ago people would have difficulty getting rid of the white paste effect the lotion would leave on their skin. These days apparently the zinc oxide has been produced so that the particles in it are much smaller, therefore it is easily absorbed into the skin and doesn't leave that pasty residue behind. Great you think! Apparently not, because now it's able to be absorbed into the body, then with the help of oxybenzone, it disrupts hormones in the body and can cause a number of issues, such as: changing oestrogen/testosterone levels, lowering sperm counts, delaying or increasing rate of puberty in children and many more issues not mentioned here. So, as you can imagine, this is a tad worrying to be reading that unexpectedly. Apparently there are a few brands that do not contain oxybenzone or nano particles of zinc oxide, so they are a lot safer, brands such as Badger, but all seem to come in plastic containers. I am considering trying to create my own as it does seem simple enough, but this may be one of the things I might not be able to get around for health reasons (although how often is it THAT sunny in England anyway!) so may not be too problematic - only if I go on holiday. Though I am slightly pink after my day in the sun with no sunscreen, so it's something I will have to look into for now! And i'll need to look into after sun too, because ow it does kinda hurt right now!

One last thing! I wanted to mention that for my dinner last night I had these frozen Cheese and Spring Onion Cake bake things from Sainsburys which came in cardboard and no plastic! Win! They were pretty tasty too, so I was very pleased with the purchase. Will definitely buy these again!

Anyhow, that was my day. Until tomorrow!

Thanks for reading.

Day 4 - Shampoo Bars and the Morrisons Mishap

 Day 4

So my day started with my raw milk again.. I realised why it was sooo creamy yesterday.. Look closely at the photo, there's a huge amount of cream that has just settled on top of the milk! So with my stomach not being overly ready for the cream, i tipped the top part into a glass and then used the bit underneath, then poured it back in. I'll make something with the creamier milk later when i'm more ready for the richness. Still lovely! So whilst making breakfast i noticed I was low on cereal - and that's all I tend to eat for breakfast (mostly because i'm too brain dead in the morning to navigate my way around the kitchen enough to make anything else) unless someone makes me something, then that's fine. Whilst out on Monday I bought some large jars to start storing cereal and pasta in. So I took these with me this morning and headed to Planet Organic straight after work to go fill them up from their Unpackaged section that I mentioned on Day 1. I decided to go for Bran Flakes (organic apparently ooo), lucky I love bran flakes too being given them all my childhood by my grandparents, so this was great. Would like to have seen cornflakes in there too, or some form of granola - but I can make my own granola as they sell porridge oats loose too (although they were out of them today, so i'll have to go back). So I bought 350g of bran flakes for £1.84, 548g of conchiglie pasta for £3.84 and 662g Penne Pasta for £4.63 (which thinking about it is quite a bit of money for pasta) but from looking at it, it's not the same as just the dried pasta you buy, so i'll try it out and see what it is like.

 A bit of news I had today was that the shop that inspired me years ago to buy refillable foods in Brighton, called  Ecostream has closed down. While this is deeply upsetting for me, as this was an incredible shop, I found out it was because the company was owned by Sodastream, who were involved in terrible human right issues in Palestine.. So I mourn the loss of the good the shop could have done, and not the company itself. They had a very good slogan which was "Buy the product, not the plastic" - great words and very apt right now!

I also took a trip to Lush to buy some non-plastic hygiene products, such as a shampoo bar, conditioner bar, deoderant bar and a sugar scrub shower block. In light of not finding anything else toothpaste wise, I decided to bite the bullet and go for their Tooth Tabs and the Tooth Powder too to try them out (and I will give them the pots back for them to send for recycling afterwards - not ideal I know!). I must say that I have always gone past Lush wondering what the big hoo haa was about them, but actually after trially a few of the products I'm very much impressed. The shampoo bar I bought (the yellow one in the picture) was great! You have to wet it, rub it between your hands to create a lather and then put it in your hair. I think it's great because it bubbles up nicely, and turns into a thick foam when on the hair which makes it feel rather silky whilst it's in. Once you wash it away your hair is a bit dry, but that's where the conditioner comes in. Apparently these bars are supposed to last for up to 80 washes, so if they do, i'm completely sold on them! The conditioner bar confused me at first.. You have to wet it, wet your hair and then rub the bar on your hair. It was a little weird at first, and might take some getting used to, but once you feel it starting to slip over your hair it actually feels good. And your hair is pretty silky after you've washed it out and dried it, so I'm impressed. The sugar scrub was good, it resembled a tougher bath bomb. It has the same fizzyness about it, but it's designed to last longer, and feels/smells nice. The deoderant bar is weird though, i'll have to say.. And I can see it leaving white marks on black tops, but i'll have to trial that to see if i'm right. The bar is very powdery, but feels and smells nice. Not sure how it would do after a long work day at the zoo, but i'll be trialing that too! Now the toothpaste products. I thought I would like the powder more, which is a strawberry like flavour, but i'm actually more impressed with the tablets. The tablets you take one, crush it between your teeth and then start brushing. Once you start brushing, it mixes with your saliva to create the foamy paste, and is quite nice and refreshing. The taste was very powerful to begin with, it felt like it was burning my tongue, but it dissipates very quickly into a nice flavour. The strawberry powder you dip your brush in and then start brushing, which was still nice, but not as refreshing as the tablets.

Another thing that happened today, which i'm rather peeved about, is I went especially to a large Morrisons shop today, with the aim of purchasing some fresh fish and fresh meat off of their open counters. My aim was for me to give them my own container, they put the food in it, put the label on the lid, and then I go pay for it at the till. However, I went to the fish counter and asked if I could use my own container and I was rather rudely refused the right to do so. I was offered a thin plastic bag, or a bigger thicker plastic bag to put them in. I was told I wasn't allowed to use my own containers. I asked why, and the guy shrugged and walked away. So I must point out that i wasn't in the best of moods, and was really looking forward to buying some fish to have for dinner, so when he refused me, i took the few things I'd already put in my trolley out onto a shelf and walked out. I have tweeted Morrisons about this, and a lovely man called Joe apologised and said he would look into the matter. I'm hoping they will say that actually you can use your own containers, but that is yet to be decided, so when I hear anything, i'll update you on the situation. So this incident has left me fish/meatless (not that I eat a lot of either, but i sort of fancied it!). I will try my local butcher, as that's a family business and I might get further there, and I will try find somewhere else for fish. But it shouldn't be this hard! Society has gone mad is all i'm going to say. I'll sign a form to say I take a risk or whatever taking it home in my own container, i don't care.

So, that was my rollercoaster of a day today. Until tomorrow!

Thanks for reading :).