I’m honestly absolutely loving the challenge of reducing our household waste and being responsible and accountable for what we buy and how we use it. I thought I’d write a quick blog about how our thinking has changed in such a short space of time and a practical example which we hope you find encouraging!
We eat meat about once a week to once a fortnight these days for several reasons (the meat industry has a huge impact on our environment, animal welfare is important to us, meat is hard to find without packaging, a healthy diet shouldn’t rely on meat as a source of protein and we often don’t have money in the budget to afford it).
We had a beautiful friend over for lunch the other day and chose to use that meal as our meat meal for the week. We went to the local butcher with our glass container aiming to buy chicken. There was not a single piece of chicken in sight that wasn’t covered in plastic (yuck from a health and waste perspective).
We were short on time and had to make a purchase so we thought through our options as mindfully as possible. We decided to buy a whole chicken which is not something I usually would have done! Ordinarily, I would have bought a pack of 6 trimmed chicken thighs or beasts. We decided that buying the whole chicken was actually the option with the least packaging and allowed us to respect the whole bird (although it was cleaned out so we didn’t have any organs to use). Several chickens would have been killed to make a tray of thighs and I probably would have cooked them all up and just used them for one meal. The whole bird option was also cheaper. So I roasted up a whole chook for lunch which was easy and delicious with waste free herbs, lemon and garlic from the markets. We served it with a large salad and the whole meal was totally satisfying and nutritious. We ate some left over meat off the bone for lunch the next day and the doggies got some bits that had gone a bit dry the day after.
We then cut up the carcass and made our first chicken and vegie stock from scratch! I saved vegie scraps (herb roots/ends of vegies/skins) from a vegie meal I made and simmered the chicken carcass and vegie scraps down with water for several hours one night.
I then let the pot sit in the fridge, scooped off the fat in the morning, strained the stock through a sieve and froze it in our ice cube tray (I’d love to purchase a stainless steel one eventually but they are quite the investment).
I was so surprised at how concentrated, thick and delicious the stock was!
We then were able to compost all the left overs from simmering the stock into our Urban Composter. The Urban Composter can accept meat scraps which is amazing as it’s anaerobic system that uses microorganisms to ferment waste rather than having it rot down/eaten by worms. The instructions say not to put in meat bones, however I risked it as the chicken bones had been roasted and then boiled down for over three hours and were really squishy. The Urbancomposter lets off liquid we collect and use as liquid fertiliser in the garden and after a few weeks of fermenting, we transfer our Urbancomposter contents in to our large compost bin outside with all of our worm friends (which is completely sealed so we haven’t had any problems with scavenger animals yet). We only use our large compost bin twice a year when turning our beds, so the stuff in there has a long time to decompose.
We’ve also now saved the need to buy more fresh stock in a TetraPaks which are a recycling nightmare and our stock has no added sugar or salt, so it’s healthier on our bodies and the planet.
I hope this shows how easy it is to be a bit more mindful with our purchases so that we can tread as lightly on the Earth as possible and use our resources as respectfully as we can. Ideally, I would have purchased chicken not wrapped in plastic, but sometimes you have to make the best of what you’ve got and know that the little changes you’re making have life-long impacts.
By making a few mindful decisions, we were able to enjoy a yummy meal with a friend and value relationships. We were able to use the chicken in a multitude of ways to respect its life. We were able to make a nutritious stock and save the possibility of creating more waste another day. We were able to compost all of our scraps so nothing was left over at the end of the day. We strive for improvement not perfection. Remember that ‘zero-waste’ is an ideology and a movement – not a set of rules aimed to weigh you down, overwhelm you or make you feel guilty. Tom and I have known about mindfulness for a long time and at times in my life I have ‘done’ mindfulness really well. Since embarking on this journey to consume less and be kinder on our bodies and home, I’ve found that mindfulness is more than just a buzzword or something you practice for 5 minutes a day. It’s a lifestyle and a way of thinking. It challenges every decision, slows you down and urges you to come back to your values first.
At its core, mindfulness is simply the opposite of mindlessness.
And don’t we all need a little more mindful chicken stock in our life.
#thelittlegreycottage 