Added on October 20th, 2009
Found in Guides, environmental
1. Refill your washing up etc – you can get your old wasing-up bottle, fabric conditioner, shampoo, conditioner, hand soap in fact almost all liquid household consumables refilled. Among the makes on offer are Ecover, Ecoleaf, and Faith in Nature. Refilling is cheaper and makes environmental sense. At Naturally Good Food last year we filled on average 125 x 1 litre washing-up liquid bottles each week, as each bottle weight the equivalent of 8 plastic carrier bags in a year that is over 50,000 plastic bags worth saved to the environment.
2. Soup your tired veg - Veg past its best and left overs can make a great soup, then you can freeze the soup you don’t eat today giving you a cheap and handy tea. Don’t forget the old Bubble and Squek as an option to use up old spuds and cabbage.
3. Use a sandwich box that can be reused not a plastic bag for packed lunches.
4. Ink Refills - For home and office equipment you can usually get refills for printer, fax and photocopier cartridges.
5. Avoid aerosols – aerosols can’t be filled, instead opt for environmentally more benign solution such as Pitrok, no spray just roll on
6. Don’t bin your cardboard boxes - Can someone use your old cardboard boxes, Naturally Good Food we can use good quality cardboard boxes for our mail order customers.
7. Buy products produced using recycled materials or produced with green credentials – There are a number of green household products now available including the “If you Care” range of baking parchment, foil and muffin cups, Green Tips gloves the first FS and soon to be Fairtrade wasing up gloves, Bleach free toilet paper made with recycled paper.
8. Nappies – if you’ve got small kids think of switching to real nappies, The Leicestershire Real Nappy Network was set up by Leicestershire County Council in September 2008, so give them a go.
9. Create note pads from once used paper, we’ve all got paper written on one side, try making scrap pads to use the other side. In an office environment this can save a reasonable amount in the year.
10. Use your old fruit juice cartons in the freezer, you can get at least one extra use from them.
Added on October 20th, 2009
Found in Guides, environmental
1. Don’t waste food - The average household wastes over £400 worth of food each year. In energy terms this is roughly the same as taking 1 in 4 cars off the road.
2. Eat locally and seasonally – This is cheaper and is much more sustainable, also you enjoy food at its best. Seasonal foods often go best together. Avoid air freighted fruit and veg.
3. Plan your meals to use leftovers- Check your fridge for dates and use those with the shortest date first, if you can’t use them now can they be frozen
4. Reduce your consumption of meat – The production of 1 kg beef causes about 13.3 kg of CO2. The same quantity of CO2 is released when you burn about 6 liters of petrol, a 1kg of apples typically produces 0.55 kg of CO2. Use lentils to bulk out mince with the added advantage it counts as an extra vegetable and is much cheaper, with the savings you could use really good quality organic mince in all your cooking.
5. Buy your beans and pulses dried not in tins - This is much cheaper and you are not using any tins, its better to avoid using something rather than having to recycle. The other advantage with using dried beans is you can avoid any added salt that is sometimes present in canned beans.
6. Buy loose fruit and veg- It’s cheaper and get what you want and you can reduce to a minimum the packaging you use. If you take your own bags you may not need any packaging.
7. Buy what you want - Use a shopping list, don’t buy on impulse, if you plan your meals a little in advance you can avoid lots of waste.
8. Buy in bulk for sugar, porridge, flour etc with a long shelf life. This reduces packaging and can be much cheaper, 1kg of organic Porridge Oats is around £2.50 Kg in your Supermarket, but buy it as 5kg pack from a specialist company and the price per kg is £1.65, buy a 25kg sack and the price falls to £1.15. Can you divide a large bag with your neighbours or family.
9. Cook your veg in a steamer over your pasta or potatoes, this will cut your energy bills and give you great veg.
10. Turn your heating down, this will also help you loose weight. The International Journal of Obesity, considers our over heated houses and cars as one of the 10 overlooked causes of over weight. We spend more and more of our lives in temperature-controlled environments, this means we need to burn fewer calories to regulate our body’s thermostat.
Added on October 19th, 2009
Found in Gluten free, News, bulk purchase
At Naturally Good Food we have been getting many requests for sacks and large quantities of many of our favourite wholefoods. As buying in bulk offers a major saving we are starting a new section on our site devoted to buying in bulk, this section we will expand over time.
Currently, we have individual sections on :
- Nuts - in this section we can offer nuts in 10kg sacks, if you use for example you use alot of ground Almonds a 10kg sack can save you over 80% of the price compared with buying in 250g bags.
- Seeds - with buying seeds in bulk you just need to take care when storing them.
- Dried Fruit - a great way to get into serious baking
- Wholefoods - sharing a sack or large bag with friends and family is a great way to keep the cost down and ensure the best quality possible.
- Grains Flour and Muesli - a great saving.
- Household - for items with almost an unlimited shelf life why would you not buy in bulk.
- Hair and Bath Products - if you buy your shampoo, conditioner of shower gel in large bottles not only do you save a great deal of money you are also helping the environment as you use significantly less packaging, so what’s good for your pocket is also good for the environment.
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Added on October 12th, 2009
Found in Cotesbach Estate, News, organic
On Saturday 10th October we had a new addition to the Stable Yard at Cotesbach. Jasons Organic Butcher opened after much work by Tom, Jason and his family.
Jason has moved to Cotesbach following the sale of Elmhurst Organic Farm. At Elmhurst Jason ran the butchers shop and much of the farm. The long-term plan is that more of the Cotesbach Estate will be converted to organic production and the estate will produce organic meat as well as the fruit and veg that comes from the kitchen garden.
With the addition of Jason the Stable Yard can now forfill all your organic food needs.
Added on October 11th, 2009
Found in Cotesbach Estate, Events, News
The Cotesbach Educational Trust had its launch meeting and presentation on Friday 9th October.
Jackie Strong the Chair outlined the vision for the future, bringing the old school house back to life as an Educational resource. It was really good to see such a full turn out, and the village church was packed. After the presentation all the visitors were able to view the school house and discuss the project. For more details you can visit the cotesbachschoolhouse.org,uk site that is now up and running.
Added on October 7th, 2009
Found in Gluten free, Products, gluten free
This month there are some further new exciting additions to the Orgran gluten free range in the UK, there are two new crispbreads and two new high fibre pastas.
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