Eco Lifestyle in and around Birmingham

Quiz: How eco conscious are you?

chrissysculturaldiary — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 21:07:13 +0000

Take this little quiz to find out just how green your lifestyle is. Do remember, however, that this is only intended to be fun and by no means an accurate depiction of your life.

how_eco_conscious_are_you?

Save Food Miles: June

chrissysculturaldiary — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 14:56:41 +0000

A huge variety of veg is at its very best this month. Perfect for those hot summer days when you don’t feel like anything too heavy for dinner.

Fruit:

apples
apricots
blueberries
cherries (high season)
gooseberries (high season)
grapes
peaches / nectarines
plums
raspberries (high season)
rhubarb (high season)
strawberries (high season)
watermelon

Vegetables

asparagus (high season)
aubergines
broccoli (high season)
cabbage (high season)
carrots (high season)
cauliflower (high season)
celery
courgette (high season)
cucumber (high season)
green beans (high season)
leek
lettuce (high season)
mushrooms (high season)
onions (high season)
peas (high season)
peppers
potatoes (high season)
radish (high season)
spinach (high season)
tomatoes
turnips (high season)

Save Food Miles: May

chrissysculturaldiary — Sat, 01 May 2010 08:47:08 +0000

Apologies for leaving out April – I was on holiday in Germany most of the time, which then turned into being stuck in Germany for the remainder. Click on the following link to find out where you can buy this month’s freshest seasonal fruit and vegetables: http://birminghamecolifestyle.wordpress.com/2010/04/30/make-the-best-of-spring/

Fruit:

apples
apricots
blueberries
cherries
gooseberries
grapes
peaches
pears
raspberries
redcurrant
rhubarb (high season)
strawberries (high season)

Vegetables:

asparagus (high season)
aubergines
beetroot
broccoli
carrots
cauliflower
celeriac
celery
chicory
courgette
cucumber
fennel
green beans
kale
lettuce (high season)
leeks
mushrooms (high season)
onions
parsnip
peas
peppers
potatoes
radish (high season)
red cabbage
spinach
tomatoes
turnips (high season)

Make the best of spring

chrissysculturaldiary — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 11:17:33 +0000

With everything around us in full bloom local produce is beginning to get richer and tastier now. Why not enjoy the outdoors with a nice spring picnic in the park? It’s not just a cliche for romantic couples, so why not get some of your mates together and enjoy a day in the sun with some home made sarnies and fresh fruit and veg? (Look out for tomorrow’s post to find out what’s in season right now!)

You won’t get it any fresher than from your local farmer’s market, so head right to Upper New Street on 5 May where local farmers are selling their own fresh and tasty produce and if you want to be the greenest shade of green you’ll be pleased to hear that the range of organic products is steadily on the rise! Busy that day? The market is open from 10am to 4pm, but if you cannot make it, then don’t despair as it takes place the first and third Wednesday of every month, so another one is coming on May 19.

Maybe that’s a little bit far for you? Next Saturday to Bromsgrove High Street or The Green in Kings Norton, whereas Moseley will be hosting its own market in the city centre on Saturday May 22. For more local market news see http://www.farmersmarkets.net/calendar.htm which shows all certified farmers’ markets and has a handy search tool that will let you sort through all the ones near you.

Eco Lifestyle Challenges – an update

chrissysculturaldiary — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 21:49:07 +0000

I put those bags in the car. Point for me. I also found something incredibly amazing at Paperchase which I absolutely have to share. Long gone are the days of carrying around boring eco bags just in case you have to do some minor shopping and want to forgo the plastic epidemic. In its new “Happy Noodle” range they have come up with three adorable fold-out bags you can be proud of flashing in your handbags. Any male readers might be staring at the screen in a mixture of disbelief and sugary disgust, but I’m afraid that’s something you’ll just have to live with.

You can look at them here: http://www.paperchase.co.uk/p/469331/panda-purse-happy-noodle-design.html and here: http://www.paperchase.co.uk/p/469312/folding-bag-panda-happy-noodle-design.html. There is also another strawberry shaped bag which is unfortunately untraceable online, but believe me, it’s there. Granted, they’re not made out of organic fair trade jute, but they’re durable and undeniably cute.

Takeaway abstinence is a tough one, as I already predicted. It is particularly hard if you try to schedule a big grocery shop, but just can’t manage to because somebody’s work is always in the way (And yes, me and my cohabitant boyfriend absolutely have to do the grocery shopping together. It saves me from buying unjustifiable amounts of chocolate and him from buying unjustifiable amounts of junk food). Gaping into an empty fridge is somehow disheartening and the problem would be solved only too easily by ringing one of our beloved takeaways. Trust me, though: being a VIP customer at Dominos is not really something to be proud of. My purse is thanking me and I have also become a lot more creative in the kitchen (Creamy carbonara without eggs or cream, anyone? I managed.). The next focus would be the large organic and local challenge, but there is another priority first, to which I shall come later.

My energy saving challenge is going surprisingly smooth and those little new changes have quickly turned into habits. In all honesty I have had a couple of “UGH” moments when I was laying in bed, ready to happily drift off into sleep and then remembered that I didn’t pull the TV plug out. Though unpleasant, those moments do not differ much from suddenly realising that you need a drink, or that you didn’t lock the back door. It happens, it doesn’t kill you, get over it.

I’m preparing a new challenge, but that one needs a bit of research first. I’ve come down with the flu this week and staring in disgust at my paracetamol tablets this morning it struck me that there must be other ways of healing minor ailments – what have our grandmothers been teaching us all those years? We should have listened! I am becoming fed up of pumping my body full with chemicals and though some of them are life savers and cannot be replaced I am sure that there are other – much more eco friendly – ways of keeping your health on top. Any suggestions or pointers in the right direction are more than welcome.

Save Food Miles: March

chrissysculturaldiary — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 23:50:32 +0000

Better late than never – here’s your lowdown on this month’s seasonal fruit and veg:

Fruit:

apples
chestnuts
grapes
pears
rhubarb
strawberries
watermelon

Vegetables:

beetroot
carrots
cauliflower
celeriac
celery
chicory (high season)
leeks
mushrooms (high season)
onions
potatoes
radish
red cabbage
spinach (high season)

Lifestyle Challenge #3: Out of energy?

chrissysculturaldiary — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 12:04:54 +0000

I need a public kick in the behind, please. I have planned on putting some reusable bags in the new car for more than a week and I keep forgetting, resulting in awkward balancing acts during shopping trips or -yes, I am ashamed to admit it- the use of those naughty, naughty plastic bags I had already waved goodbye to. Today those bags are going in the car and if I manage to forget again I will agree to any kind of punishment that is deemed necessary.

I also had a takeaway. But to add to my credentials it was pizza and cardboard boxes are nowhere near as bad as those endless tin boxes and plastic overload you get with curries and Chinese takeaways. It’s a good job I don’t really like them anyway, but I will definitely focus more on cooking with local ingredients in the future (watch out for another lifestyle challenge!)

So, after publicly humiliating myself by admitting to my failures I believe it’s time to pick myself up and look ahead again. Lifestyle changes take a bit of practice after all and some getting used to. We’re all allowed to fail as long as we manage to get up and carry on regardless.

Therefore it is time for another challenge! One that is so obvious, yet so often neglected: energy saving. When you leave the room, turn the light off. Pull the plug from electronic devices so they don’t use up energy on standby mode. The radiators don’t need to be working at 500 degrees in March.

I’m already using rechargeable batteries in most places, but this challenge will see me switch to these on everything I use. Turning the light off almost seems like a banality, but my lovely cohabitants manage to forget about it on a regular basis. Start to feel sorry for them. Pulling the plug is something most of us know we should do, but one major thing gets in the way: laziness. Come on, let’s face it: how incredibly annoying is it to pop your behind on the sofa, grab the remote and realise the TV isn’t doing anything, because it’s not plugged in. Think about it that way, however: your behind and your wallet will thank you for getting up.

The major reason why saving energy should be so appealing is that it saves us money. We’re trying to save our pennies wherever we can nowadays due to the economic climate, so why not get off that sofa and pull the plug? Why not put a jumper on instead of creating a subtropical climate in your house? Why not charge your batteries instead of huffing and puffing because you have to go to the shop to get new ones? Surely, this “challenge” can’t be too hard?

Lifestyle Challenge #2: Takeaway Breakaway

chrissysculturaldiary — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 14:47:17 +0000

My last challenge was turned out to be almost too easy. I’m still getting a bit of wear out of my old plastic bags, but they’re slowly giving up on me now, so I’m slowly restocking on reusable bags instead. Long gone are the days of the slightly weird eco-hippie as absolutely nobody’s giving me strange looks when I say that I’ve brought my own bag. Perhaps that just means that we’re all turning into slightly weird eco-hippies.

So, this time I’m looking for something more challenging. Two days ago, sat in front of the TV with a curry it struck me painfully what can be done to reduce rubbish further. A little takeaway treat resulted in a monstrous pile of rubbish which was unnecessary to say the least.

With one crying and one smiling eye I am waving goodbye to takeaways. It’s much better for you to cook your own food anyway. No more bins bulging with empty pizza boxes and chippy papers. Wish me luck.

Lifestyle Challenge #1: Goodbye, plastic bags!

chrissysculturaldiary — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 11:24:24 +0000

What are lifestyle challenges?

Just as with any lifestyle change you can’t just revamp your life to be eco-friendly from one day to another, just like you can’t suddenly get up and run a marathon if you’ve always been taking the car to the corner shop down the road. It takes patience and lots of little changes that will hopefully soon turn into natural habits.

To prove that it is possible to change your life, however, I will regularly challenge myself to those little changes and keep you posted about how I’m doing on this blog. Feel free to join me, challenge yourself and let me know how you’re doing – it’s always a lot easier together!

Goodbye, plastic bags!

In my first challenge I bid farewell to plastic bags in an attempt to reduce waste. The amount of bags a single person can get through in as much as a week is enormous, as anyone who hoards them like me will know. I will not throw away all those bags I still have, but try to reuse them until they completely give up on me. Furthermore I’ll be carrying reusable totes with me and politely say “No thank you”, every time an eager shop assistant gets out the plastic.

Think about it: Reusable bags have the huge benefit of not cutting into your hands when you load them. Additionally, they are a lot stronger and therefore less likely to break and spill your groceries all over the street. At Tesco you can even get bonus club card points if you bring your own bags.

Now, there’s a little problem that any male readers might find completely incomprehensible: shopping sprees. There’s something about wandering around the Bullring with a load of shopping bags that just scream, “Look at me, I’ve got lots and lots of shiny new things”. It’s just not the same to load a brand new dress into a jute bag. Some shops give you recycled paper bags, which are obviously a lot better than plastic, but what if you don’t want to limit yourself to Urban Outfitters and Primark? Well, there is hope, ladies. Anya Hindmarch has launched a gorgeous range of reusable designer bags that not only wow on the eco credentials, but also on the fashion stakes. Take a look yourself at http://www.net-a-porter.com/Shop/Designers/Anya_Hindmarch/Bags.

Save food miles: February

chrissysculturaldiary — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 19:19:52 +0000

With supermarket fruit and vegetable counters overflowing with luscious looking products it is easy to forget that it is anything but natural to eat strawberries in the middle of winter. As they don’t grow here, they are flown in from other countries. Not only are they nutritionally much poorer and therefore nowhere near as healthy as local produce, all those air miles they clock up pollute the environment. Not to forget, they also cost quite a bit more.

Just to show that there is enough local produce that you can choose from at any time of the year, I have started a series called “Save food miles”. Each month I will list a number of fruit and vegetables that are currently in season so that you can get them from local sources and help your health, your wallet and the environment. And yes, even in winter there are good choices to be made.

Fruit:

apples
chestnuts
cranberries
hazelnuts
pears
quince
rhubarb
walnuts

Vegetables:

beetroot
broccoli
brussel sprouts
carrots
celeriac
celery
cauliflower
endives (high season)
kale (high season)
lamb’s lettuce (high season)
leeks
mushrooms (high season)
onions
parsnip
peppers
potatoes
pumpkin
radish
red cabbage