Some easy thing to kickstart your clean, green lifestyle!

I know it can be quite daunting making a decision to live green, organic and chemical free. I am sure a lot of you have read these blog posts and been a bit overwhelmed by just how much is actually toxic in our environment, and how much we have to do if we want to keep it, and ourselves, clean and toxin free! I agree. It IS overwhelming. You might be tempted to just leave things as they are and I wouldn't blame you. When I first made the decision to make our household clean and green, I had no idea what I was taking on. Poor GLM had no idea either. She mostly still doesn't;) I often get questions about what goes where and why and how! But she does it without too much complaint because she knows it's good for us and she knows it makes her wife happy;)

So, maybe you want to start with some baby steps, just to ease you and your family into things gradually? Well, you'll be happy to know there are PLENTY of small, simple things you can do that will already make a HUGE difference to both you AND the environment. Perhaps you can make it your goal to achieve just ONE of each of the points below, each week, or even each month if it's easier. I found that I started off a little slowly, because I was learning and discovering things, and then I picked up the pace as I became more accustomed to it. I also found that, the healthier I felt, the more I WANTED to change things. The nice thing about following my blog is that you don't even need to waste time trying to figure things out. I've done that all for you and this blog is here for that purpose. To make YOUR life easier:)

What you can do, food-wise:

• Make a decision to cut out at least ONE of the "normal" foods you buy, from your monthly or weekly shop, and replace it with an organic, or free range, substitute. 
• A great example here would be eggs. By buying free range eggs, you are ensuring that you get LOADS more nutrients into you and your family's bodies. Egg yolks SHOULD be a bright orange colour. If they are pale and anaemic looking, they are not from healthy chickens and have little to no nutrients. They are actually probably doing you more harm than good because the chicken it came from is, very likely, ill. By buying free range eggs, you are also ensuring that you are not supporting the many chicken farms that keep chickens in unethical, cruel conditions. Watch this video to see what you are unwittingly supporting every time you DON'T buy free range eggs. (please be aware that it is not an easy video to watch. I still haven't watched all of it! It just breaks my heart.) Free range eggs are available at ALL grocery stores so it's a very easy, small change to make, and yet it will go a LONG way.
• Most grocery stores now stock organic bananas so that's something else you could consider changing. Kids LOVE bananas and eat loads of them so it makes sense to have chemical-free bananas in the fruit basket.
• If you become acquainted with the "clean 15" and the "dirty dozen", those of you on a budget can make sure you get fewer pesticides in your diet while still spending less money. Of course, the nutritional benefits are far superior when it comes to organic fruit and veg and there is less impact on the environment as well, but just making this little change will already make a big difference to your own health. The list below will tell you what's cleaner and what's dirtier.

• Start collecting bones after meals, store them in a container in your freezer and, when you have enough, use them to make some bone broth. You can use this to cook EVERYTHING with in place of store bought stock. Bone broth is unbelievably nutritious, and so necessary for your health and yet it is so cheap to make. Find out how to make it here.
• Start buying only fruit and veg that are in season. You may notice that some grocery stores will stock all types of fruit and veg all year round. The problem with that is that, different fruits and veg grow in certain seasons and you can be pretty sure that, if they're being sold at a shop out of season, they have either been grown unnaturally OR they have been imported from somewhere creating a huge carbon footprint. Wait it out for a few months and rather get the proper nutritional and environmental value for your money.

What about things you can do, for the environment, around the house, and in your garden?

• Did you know that while you are running your hot tap, waiting for it to get hot, you waste at least 3 litres of water? I actually tried it one day just out of curiosity and I filled up three one litre jugs before the water even got warm. The same applies if you want a glass of cold water and need to run the hot tap for a while to get it cool, especially on a hot summer's day! (You definitely don't want to risk actually drinking the hot water, no matter how cool it might be, because hot water will have a higher lead content due to the heat of the water leeching the lead out of the pipes. NOT good for you.) I decided to put a big bucket next to my sink and, if I needed to run water for any reason that didn't involve me plugging the sink, I would run that water into the bucket instead and use it to water my plants and my garden or even to fill my steamer or boil eggs. At least it's being put back into the environment, or being used to cook vegetables instead of all that clean water just going down a drain. Something small like that will make a huge difference in the longterm.

• Switch off lights in rooms you aren't using. We only ever have lights on in the rooms we are actually in. If we walk out of a room, the light goes off. It's such a habit for us now that I barely notice I'm doing it. I thought EVERYONE actually did that but, now and then, we have guests stay at our house and I am always surprised at how often I have to go into a room after they have vacated it, to switch off the lights! It's a great habit to get into and Eskom will thank you. Perhaps we can avoid the dreaded load-shedding if everyone starts doing it;)
• If you MUST leave on any lights, make sure the globes are energy saving globes. I can't actually understand why anyone would buy a normal globe these days. They last for such a short amount of time, they raise your electricity bill, and they are dangerous, especially if a child should try and play with a bedside lamp. Energy saving globes are far more hardy, they last for AGES, actually saving you money on globes and they also lower your electricity bill.
• Make a compost heap. Words can't describe how easy this is to do and how much difference it makes to the amount of rubbish your family generates, and to your garden. I had a flat piece of wood in my garage so we dug a hole that was the same size as the wood, and about a metre deep. The wood made a great lid! You're thinking that it probably smells right? WRONG! It doesn't smell AT ALL and that is because there is nothing in there TO smell. It's just fruit and veg cut offs, the occasional pieces of newspaper and tissue, grass cuttings and egg shells (rinsed of raw egg) The way to keep it smelling sweet, is to make sure you don't load your compost heap with all of one thing and not the other thing. A compost heap needs carbon and nitrogen to function properly, and to smell sweet. Carbon comes from dry things like dried plants and grass and cardboard and newspaper and tissues. Nitrogen comes from all the ripe, juicy things like banana peels and apple cores and other fruit and veg cut offs. As long as you throw in some of both, your compost heap will not have a smell. Visit this page to get an idea of what you can throw in your compost heap. Don't make things too complicated for yourself though. I may not be getting it 100% right because I don't calculate the ratios but, the good thing is, I am still getting lovely compost for my garden AND my rubbish bin is hardly being used because of that which means I am saving space in the landfills:) What I do, to make things easier for us is, I saved an old 5kg protein-shake container and I keep it next to the bins in the kitchen. I just put all our fruit and veg cut offs, teabags, etc in there until it's full and then I empty it into the compost heap once every few days. It saves me having to go out to the garden every time I want to throw away some stuff. I promise you that container does not smell at all. I keep a lid on it but that's just to stop the cats from messing with it. Get the kids involved in collecting the compost and emptying it into the heap. It'll teach them some good habits and small kids love to help!

That's the little compost container at the bottom!

• Buy yourself a BIG bottle of white vinegar. 

You may not know it but vinegar has MANY uses around the house and it's natural as well. It's GREAT for cleaning surfaces and stubborn dirt off of pots. It's also great at killing germs. You can use it to clean all your fruit and veg knowing that you are not adding further chemicals to your body because it's just vinegar, but you ARE getting rid of bugs. It's good for getting rid of dirt and insects and other creepy crawlies in your lettuce leaves and other leafy greens. I eat A LOT of those so I keep vinegar next to my sink all the time. What I do is fill a big bowl with warm water and about 2 tablespoons of vinegar. Then I throw in all the leaves, stir it around a bit and walk away, leaving them to soak for a good 10-15mins. Wipe off any excess sand and rinse well in clean water and you're good to go.

Another use for vinegar, oddly enough, is as a laundry softener! It works wonders and it's all natural. Hang your clothes out in the sun or tumble dry them and there is NO vinegar smell at all on your clothes. They are just lovely and soft:)

There are LOADS more tips I can give you but I think that's enough for now. More to come later but I think that's more than enough to get you started;)

Real Food Friday Feast - Butternut Soup!

One of my favourite foods to eat, during winter, is soup. I love all kinds of soups and I experiment with all sorts of different types, but top of my list has got to be butternut soup. It has such a unique, sweet flavour and  it's also so thick and wholesome that it is a whole meal all on its own. The only problem I have with butternut soup, is when it's someone ELSE'S butternut soup. And that is because it is almost always made with cream, as well as some kind of stock that is store bought and loaded with all sorts of rubbish. One bowl of THAT soup and my stomach is saying, "Howzit!" So, of course, I had to play around with my own recipe and I think it comes out pretty well if I say so myself;)

The KEY ingredient to ANY soup is good quality stock. So where do you get it if EVERYTHING you buy at the stores is full of rubbish? Because, unless it says organic, it IS full of rubbish, I promise. Given that soup is supposed to be so nourishing and healthy, why would you want to sully it with chemicals? I'll tell you my secret ingredient. It's called Bone Broth.

Broth used to be considered a poor man's food because it's pretty cheap to make. All you need are bones and you get a very nutritious, cheap meal out of those. What people don't realise is how nutritious it actually is. Just a few things that broth will improve are: digestion, allergies, immune health, brain health, and there is a lot more. Broth is very high in amino acids called proline and glycine which are vital for healthy connective tissue (ligaments, joints, around organs, etc) What a lot of people DON'T know is that broth can help reduce cellulite because it improves connective tissue, increase hair growth/strength, improve digestive issues and remineralize teeth. I think I may have had you at cellulite;)

The Paleo Mom has a great explanation of the importance of these two amino acids:

“In addition, glycine is required for synthesis of DNA, RNA and many proteins in the body. As such, it plays extensive roles in digestive health, proper functioning of the nervous system and in wound healing. Glycine aids digestion by helping to regulate the synthesis and of bile salts and secretion of gastric acid. It is involved in detoxification and is required for production of glutathione, an important antioxidant. Glycine helps regulate blood sugar levels by controlling gluconeogenesis (the manufacture of glucose from proteins in the liver). Glycine also enhances muscle repair/growth by increasing levels of creatine and regulating Human Growth Hormone secretion from the pituitary gland. This wonderful amino acid is also critical for healthy functioning of the central nervous system. In the brain, it inhibits excitatory neurotransmitters, thus producing a calming effect. Glycine is also converted into the neurotransmitter serine, which promotes mental alertness, improves memory, boosts mood, and reduces stress.

Proline has an additional role in reversing atherosclerotic deposits. It enables the blood vessel walls to release cholesterol buildups into your blood stream, decreasing the size of potential blockages in your heart and the surrounding blood vessels. Proline also helps your body break down proteins for use in creating new, healthy muscle cells.”

Sounding like something you'd like in your diet? Well, it's SO cheap and easy to make you'll wonder what took you so long! All you need is a big pot filled with water, some vinegar and a pile of bones! Let's get a bit more specific!

You will need: 

A large pot

Water

Approx. 1kg bones

2 tablespoons of vinegar (preferably apple cider vinegar)

Method:

• Throw all the bones into the pot
• Fill the pot with water stopping about 4 or 5 centimetres from the top
• Add the vinegar
• Bring the water to boil and then turn down to a simmer
• Leave for approx. 8-24hrs
• Pour liquid through colander into large container and freeze or use as needed

This all works even better if you have a slow cooker. I throw everything into my slow cooker and go about my day and night and forget about it. My slow cooker is second only to my dishwasher in terms of the love and devotion my kitchen appliances receive from me;) Most women might look askance at their spouse for buying them a slow cooker for christmas but not THIS woman! I was too excited for words when my gorgeous GLM bought me mine;)

Why the vinegar? Well, it helps to coax all the minerals out of the bones a bit better than if you were just to leave the bones to boil on their own. If you don't have vinegar, you can also use lemon juice. In case you're wondering where I get the bones from, well, this part is really easy. I save them over the course of a few weeks. Every time we have chicken, we put all the leftover bones into a container in the freezer. Once I have enough, it's time to make broth. I also order a bag of free range mutton bones from my meat supplier and I add one or two of those to the chicken mix. The more variety you have, the better. Even fish bones will work but it's not my favourite. The quality of the bones is important though. It MUST be from free range, grassfed, healthy animals because the quality of your bone broth is only going to be as good as the quality of the bones.

The recipe above is just for your basic bone broth, but I get a little more adventurous with mine and you can too if you want. You will use this mostly as stock for soups, stews and curries, so it's nice if it has a little flavour to it aside from the bones. I add about a teaspoon of mixed herbs, as well as a few fresh herbs if I have them and I also add about half a teaspoon of himalayan rock salt. (If you only have normal table salt in your cupboards, please banish it NOW and get some sea salt or himalayan rock salt. It's sold at Pick n Pay's, Spars, Dischems etc so there is no excuse and it's so much better for you. I will do a blog post on this alone at some point!)

As far as timing goes, I prefer to leave mine for about 24hrs. Reason being that it REALLY gets everything out of the bones. You will see the bones start to turn whiter the longer they simmer and that's how you know it's working. The longer you leave them, the more nutritious it is going to be. Once it's done, I drain it and then, using a soup ladle, I fill up several containers and freeze them. I save ALL the containers I get when I buy anything and I recycle them by using them for storage. GLM gets a little frustrated when she opens the scullery cupboard and sees a million containers of different shapes and sizes taking up all the space;) But I really DO use them, especially when I make broth. I'd say I end up with about 8x500ml containers by the time I'm done, so about 4 litres of stock.

I just froze 4 litres of it this morning and, tomorrow, I'll take out a few of them to make my butternut soup for our guests tomorrow night. The weather has suddenly turned really nasty in Johannesburg and it's chilly and overcast which is PERFECT soup weather:) Speaking of which, here is your recipe for today!

Butternut Soup

4 or 5 medium sized butternuts

1 medium size sweet potato (optional!)

1 1/2 litres of bone broth

1/2 cup coconut milk

1 teaspoon cumin

1/2 teaspoon ginger

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1 - 2 teaspoons masala (curry powder)

Salt (I usually add about 1/2 teaspoon but my slow cooker is HUGE)

Method:

• Scrub all the butternuts and the sweet potato and chop and de-seed them (I save my seeds to plant in my veggie garden) You don't need to peel them (My wise mother suggested this to me and she was absolutely right! I used to peel them but it's such a mission and the skin adds more fibre! Just make sure they're clean. (I scrub them with white vinegar, NOT a chemical cleaner)
• Place all the chunks in the pot (or slow cooker)
• In a bowl or jug, add the stock, cumin, ginger, cinnamon, masala and salt and stir
• Pour the mixture over the chopped veggies and add either a bit of water, or more stock, to cover the veggies
• Bring to the boil and then let simmer for about an hour (If using a slow cooker, turn to auto and walk away!)
• Once veggies are soft enough, use a hand blender to blend all the chunks until the mixture is nice and smooth and creamy
• Add coconut milk and stir in
• Serves 2 for about a week!

The masala is optional but we love curry in our house, so my soup always has a bit of a bite to it. I think I may love curry more because GLM often diplomatically says, "It's got quite a bite hey?" as her nose streams and her eyes water;) I actually haven't added coconut milk for a while now because I find it's creamy enough but that's entirely your choice. You can even add cream, but make sure it's organic or free range.

Now, people have asked me how you can go organic when you are on a budget. Well, it's a lot easier than you think because you are cutting out all that stuff in boxes that costs a bomb. So all you need to buy is meat and fruits and veggies. This soup is a really cheap, nutritious meal that will feed you for days and it's delicious. I was at Pick n Pay earlier today buying butternuts. They have organic butternuts and sweet potatoes in store right now:) The organic butternuts are R11.99 for two or three in a bag and the sweet potatoes are R16.99 for a bag.

So I had a look at the "normal" butternuts just out of interest. They were R8.99 for a bag of 2 and, I'm not just saying this, they looked really bad. They were much smaller than the organic ones and they were full of black marks and holes that looked like something had chewed on them. I didn't check the potato prices because they looked even worse. So, although the normal butternuts were R3 cheaper, they were smaller which means you'd have to buy more anyway and you'd probably end up chopping away the bad bits which would leave you with even less. SO, we are looking at 4-5 medium size butternuts. That'll cost you at the most, about R59.95, but most of the bags had 2 butternuts in so it'll be more like R35.97. The bone broth is pretty much free because they're bones you've collected at home and water out of your tap. Just add a few spices to that and possibly the meal costs R70 at most but, more likely, R50. This recipe makes about 5 litres of butternut soup. When I make it, it lasts us over a week, even with one, or both of us, having 2 bowls each a day! I end up freezing some eventually. If you buy a box of fish fillets, you get about 6 in the box. That is only 3 meals and I bet that box is over R40? Do you see how you can do this? 

This is just one way and there will be many more suggestions and ideas over the months so keep an eye out. I always look for the bargains and I try to save while still keeping it real and it IS do-able.

That's it! Enjoy your butternut soup and have a beautifully green, organic weekend:)