Ways to Minimize Trash

We have our kitchen trash bag use down to once per week, due in no small part to the variety of items that can be recycled in our area. But less trash is better than recycled trash so I have been finding ways to minimize overall.

Food packaging is the biggest category of trash in many families, mine included. The more prepared, processed food I buy, the more trash I produce. Pretty simple. Almost all the cooking I do is from scratch , so to speak. After taking a look at my "from scratch" I decided to see what ingredients I commonly purchased that would be simple for me to prepare myself, thus saving on packaging. (Is it really THAT obvious I don't have a job and thus have plenty of time for these ruminations?)

All the summergarden canned items will have to wait for a few months. But what about things like croutons, bread crumbs, granola cereal, pasta, ice cream, dried fruit, cookies, frozen pretzels dough, all varieties of canned beans, salsa, yoghurt, soft cheese, sour cream...... ad infinitum. So many, so little time. Many of these aforementioned items are things that were not even available for purchase at a grocers two generations ago or less. Self sufficiency in the kitchen is almost a lost art, you might say. I've been working on this quite diligently of late. I will blog about the results at some later point but for now I am just having fun with it and spending an awful lot of time in my kitchen.

.....................days later................................

I was going to write about how bloody cold it has been since our return from Idaho and about the trials and tribulations of keepings one's feet warm while riding a bike with a wind chill factor of minus 10. But I waited too long and now it is in the low 60s and I have almost forget the pain; so whats the point? I complain bitterly about missing out on all the fantastic, fluffy, snow-white bounty going on in I-dee-ho but running in shirt-sleeves in January ain't so bad either. I am one of those grass is always greener gals. Can you tell? It's one of my many character defects. My husband will tell you all about it.