Not again! Avoiding post-vacation fridge squidge

You’re taking your kids to the in-laws. You’re staying at your boyfriends for the first time. Girls trip to Cabo?! Either way, you’re leaving your fridge at home. What do you do? If you’re anything like me, you forget the food is in there. Or you didn’t have time to clean everything out as you were rushing out the door. Perhaps you think that fruit will last an extra week.... Good luck! If you have slightly more time, you regretfully throw it away. You’ve probably had a bad experience leaving things in the fridge already, and no one wants to go through that experience again!But who likes throwing delicious, hard-earned food in the bin? Before you head out next time, read our handy tips to empty your fridge and make magic out of your leftovers.

Get into the mindset of emptying your fridge before you start packing your suitcase. That means making a note of what you already have in your fridge and not stopping by the store on your way home from work a day before! Then, start by eating what can’t be frozen first –eggs, cream cheeses, yogurt, watery vegetables, etc.

Don’t feel like eating the same thing twice? Try transforming them into something completely unrecognizable! It’ll save food waste, money, and the time it’d take to make something from scratch. Enjoy your next fridge clean-out with these suggestions:

Baked beans? Make a Cajun Bean Stew for dinner, or a Shakshuka for breakfast on your final morning at home.

Leftover beef ragu? Make a burrito bowl with some cheese and veg that’s also got to go. Or a cottage pie for your roommate (who doesn’t love a leaving gift?)

Too much salmon fillet left over from yesterday? Use it in a refined Pesto salmon pasta bake, or smash it into a fresh summer salad.

A bunch of half-used veggies? These are super easy to put with anything else you’ve got. Roast them up, blend for a soup, or dice into a salad, sandwich or stir fry. You get the idea. But if our excellent suggestions aren’t hitting the spot, Hellmann’s have got you covered with recipe suggestions here

https://www.hellmanns.com/uk/cook-clever-waste-less.html

If you have done the first two steps and you have tried to finish your food, a massive set of kudos to you. This is what we like to hear. But we know it’s not always possible to find combinations for everything. On your last day at home, pop whatever you didn’t get around to eating in the freezer! Almost all fruit can go in there, so get them in and look forward to using them in your smoothie when you get home. Freeze grated cheese (in a bag ideally) so you can work them into your next pizza night or cheese melt! Future you will thank you, and so will the planet. Don’t forget to download Hellmann’s FOOD WASTE HACKS HANDBOOK here 

https://www.hellmanns.com/ca/en/secure/signup.html

 to continue reading about hacks to make taste, not waste, and to discover delicious recipes.

Hellmann’s - Not again! Avoiding post-vacation fridge squidge

Do you eat the same meals over and over again? We all do it. You’re hungry, want to make something quickly, and you can’t be bothered to run to the store. So you go for potatoes, beef and overboiled broccoli with a splash of sauce. Easy. Did you know that 75% of the global food supply comes from only 12 plant and five animal species?!* The reality is, your bowls of boring just aren’t great for the planet. Lots of people eat the same thing, which puts a lot of pressure on the environment to provide that for us. This includes the minerals in the soil and the animals (moo). That’s why diverse diets are so important to keep the planet in balance for the long term. Diverse diets are also important for your belly. Think about that long list of unrememberable vitamins and minerals that you supposedly need. Chances are, you’re probably not ticking them all off with 12 plants and five animals in your diet. So yeah. Get creative. In fact, we know you aren’t.So yeah. Get creative. We’ve got 5 decent twists you could apply to your meals, starting today:

In a wild mood? Swap your white rice for wild rice. It’s full of valuable minerals, and it’s actually the seed of a semi-aquatic grass (yeah, mention that at your dinner party). Boil it in water or stock, or pop it like it’s hot to make some serious popcorn!

Be lentil: Try a lentil burger – lentils don’t need much water to grow, and they have a gentle carbon footprint, 43x lower than those pesky cows. Bonus, there are lots of varieties – from earthy to peppery to sweet – it’s a real winner

Orange you glad you tried it? Orange tomatoes are actually super sweet! They also contain up to twice as much vitamin A and folate (B vitamin) than red or green tomatoes. Chuck them in literally any meal and add those numbers to your check list.

Brain food: Yeah it’swalnuts. Your mom might eat them already, but this “brain food” is high in omega-3 fatty acids and vitamin E, so put them in your blender right now. They’re pretty cool, and pretty ancient. People have been eating them for 10,000 years... something must be right!

Un-BEET-able Greens: Beetroots are fun. But the leafy green bit never gets into the spotlight, and often ends up in the trash. Newsflash: it’s the most nutritious part! Get them in your diet. Stews and salads galore could benefit from avoiding a little food waste.

The Future 50 Foods Report is a collaboration between Knorr and WWF, in partnership with Dr. Adam Drewnowski, Director of The Center for Public Health Nutrition at the University of Washington. They want to provide people with more food choices to empower positive change (that’s you!). So, they have identified 50 foods we should eat more of. Ones that are nutritious, have a lower impact on our planet than animal-based foods, can be affordable, accessible and taste good. You can check out the report and more tips at: 

https://www.knorr.com/ca/en/future-50.html

Referenced in: Knorr Future Foods Report, 2019:

Original source: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. What is agrobiodiversity? Fact sheet [in English].[ONLINE] Available at:

https://www.fao.org/3/y5609e/y5609e01.htm#bm1

 [Last accessed November 2018]. FAOSTAT data available at:

Knorr Future Foods

Delicious and repetitious: daring you to reduce food waste once a week

Food waste. Isn’t it just the worst?! Ever found a forgotten bag of salad at the back of your fridge then ordered takeout? Probably because that leftover pepper is just not going to bring you joy on a Friday. Or maybe you sometimes feel like you spend lots of money on exciting ingredients but still end up throwing them away?

As you might be able to tell, you’re not alone.

Too many of us end up with spare food that we chuck in the trash. So many of us, that if food waste was a country, it would be the THIRD BIGGEST contributor of greenhouse gases after China and the USA. Pretty big, and not very pretty. No one likes wasting food, but we know that you've done it on occasion. So, we're giving you a chore hack. A fun one. Because we want to help your pocket and the planet. Legit disclaimer: This hack is so simple that it has already helped people like you save 10 tonnes of food, about $67,100 CAD, and 43.7 tonnes of CO2* How, you ask? Great question.

The Mission: One night a week where you use up all the left-behind food looking sad in your kitchen.

Choose a night of the week that works for you (most Fridge nights happen on Thursdays, although just before the garbage day works too)! Every Fridge night, use the hyper mega simple approach: 3+1.

Pick a base, like a soft wrap, bread or rice.

Grab some veggies – use up what you have at hand. The sadder, the better. Chop it up. Put them in the oven, a pan or a wok, or just a bowl for a tasty salad.

Select a protein, such as chicken or beans to add some thickness.

+1 Add a magic touch with your favorite sauce (our go-to is Hellmann’s mayo and flavored sauces)

To help you in your weekly mission/chore hack, we’ve put together a few tips:

Do you tend to forget about your ingredients? Follow the ‘first-in-first-out' rule, by eating the oldest products first. So when you’re stocking up, put the freshest at the back! They’ll get to the front row eventually.

Need an extra bit of motivation? Download the Hellmann’s Fridge Night app and e-book here to discover flexible recipe ideas based on the ingredients you already have.

Finally, set reminders for yourself, on your phone or on your magnet-filled fridge. By adopting 1 Fridge Night a week over 5 weeks, and using our flexible recipes, you could rescue up to 33% of your food waste*. That's also 1/3 of your budget! Bon Appetit!

https://www.hellmanns.com/ca/en/fridgenight.html

(accessed January 2023. Canadian value conversion conducted January  2023)Hellmann’s Fridge night E-Book:

Hellmann's - Fridge night

In the kitchen, you’ve got your glass containers, your food compost box, and your regularly full recycling bin (shoutout to 90% of kitchen packaging getting recycled*). Everyone’s heard of reduce, reuse, recycle, so why is it stopping when we get to the bathroom door? There are many theories – mainly revolving around how bottles collect so much grime they don’t look recyclable. Plus, once they’ve been shaken around in your travel bag too many times... Either way, here’s a few tips to help make that 50% double:

A clean, green sustainable nighttime routine starts with the products you pick to make yourself feel fabulous. Look for plastic-free, naked or solid products, or packaging that can be recycled.

Look for refillable packaging and products, to spend your money on the product, not on extra packaging. And reuse those sturdy cosmetics containers! For example, keep your small hairwash bottles for that quick trip to NYC, or store your bobby pins in an old lip balm container.

Your shining recycling bin in the kitchen does a great job, because it’s a visual reminder. So why not buck the trend and place a second bin in your bathroom too? If space is an issue, consider a bin with split compartments. Repurposing a nice box or hanging a bag will also do the trick! Most cosmetic bottles (shampoo, moisturizer, conditioner and soap) are recyclable. So look out for the recycling symbol, give them a rinse, and pop them in that box or bag! Cosmetic brands have an important responsibility to reduce their plastic waste and to make it easier for people like you to reduce theirs. Dove is committed to using less plastic, better plastic, or no plastic at all to reduce the manufacture of more than 20,500 tonnes of virgin plastic per year by:

Making the iconic Beauty Bar packaging plastic-free globally,

Trialling a new refillable deodorant format that radically reduces plastic use,

Launching new 100% recycled plastic bottles! Click here

https://www.dove.com/uk/stories/about-dove/plastics-commitment.html

 to learn more about Dove’s tips and commitments on sustainable beauty.

Source: Dominic Lees-Bell, (2019) Bathroom waste legacy, Bathroom Waste Legacy | Tap Warehouse. Available at:

https://www.tapwarehouse.com/blog/latest-news/bathroom-waste-legacy

Data point: Whilst 90% of packaging is recycled in our kitchens, only 50% is being recycled in the bathroom. Market: UK, Year: 2019.

What’s going on in the bathroom?

Is laundry the coolest thing you could do?

Doing laundry can be really dull. It’s so uninteresting that I often only remember to do it when I’ve run out of socks. But the thing is, it’s actually a really valuable skill to get right. Whether you’ve committed your basement space to washing machines for 5 of you, or a little washer dryer in the kitchen, doing it right (or wrong!) can impact two very important things:

Your pocket. You may have already bought the machine, and the detergent, so what else is there?! Energy. Laundry can use a whole load of energy unnecessarily, which can cost you.

The planet! With every load of washing, you could be creating a fair bti of CO2 emissions. The hotter the wash, the hotter the planet. Stressful, I know. BUT. Luckily, we’re here to help.

Roughly 90% of a washing machine’s energy goes towards heating the water. So turn it down! If you switched the temperature of your wash from 40°C to 30°C, it could reduce the energy you’re paying for by 38%. And if you can bear it, going down to 20°C can save 62%!1 By lowering the temperature, it’s not going to make your clothes less clean most of the time. If each household used cold water for four in every five wash loads, they would reduce their annual CO2 emissions by 864 pounds of carbon – that’s the equivalent of planting more than one-third of an acre of forest. All these benefits, at the touch of a button! So reserve the hot water for the oily, stubborn stains, or if someone is sick. Everything else, keep it cool.

It’s an obvious win-win: By combining your small loads into one bigger load, you’ll spend less time and effort doing laundry and use less water and energy! And less time chasing your teenagers around the house to bring their dirty clothes downstairs. If you really need to wash a small load, try to use the lowest water-level setting necessary.

How do you measure your detergent? If it’s by eyeballing it, you might be adding too much. In fact, only 28% of people follow laundry dosing instructions precisely. This hack is more pocket saving – use the measurement lines found in scoops or caps. To make it even easier for yourself, Seventh Generation EasyDose Ultra-Concentrated Laundry Detergent has a self-dosing mechanism that measures the right amount every time. Just flip the bottle fully upside down, give a FIRM squeeze, and the bottle stops for you. 1 squeeze = 1 load. Easy! Click here 

 to learn more about Seventh Generation laundry detergents and how you can reduce your energy footprint on the earth.

https://www.which.co.uk/news/article/change-this-laundry-habit-and-help-cut-co2-pollution-by-400000-cars-aVQXA7B7HxFx

https://www.seventhgeneration.com/blog/tips-to-make-products-last

https://www.cleaninginstitute.org/Sustainability2019-2019

https://www.seventhgeneration.com/blog/small-dose-big-clean-all-about-easydose

Seventh Generation - Is laundry the coolest thing you could do?

Because steak smells delicious. You have five pairs of jeans, but you just want that latest pair you saw on TikTok. The recycling collection never turns up. We get it. But we’ve got to keep going! We should all be setting sustainable ambitions, and trying to get into better habits. And no, you don’t have to be 100% vegan to start with. It could be 2 days a week! (In fact, we should actually try to start small – we all know those New Year’s Resolutions fail when we go from 0 to100%.) But even if that is a struggle (and let’s be honest, the third week of January hits different), we have a hack for you!

Oh yeah, a green buddy. An eco pal. A sustainable stud. You know who we mean. The one person in your life that never quits on the planet. It could be your roommate. That colleague you hate to love. The friend that texts you just the right amount. Your partner. Even your parent. One of the keys to staying committed to your goals is accountability – and who better to keep you on track than a green buddy who isn’t afraid to say what you need to hear. Just like that Gym Buddy that pulls you from the sofa before Love Island comes on, a Green Buddy can turn sustainability from a chore to a fun challenge.

Step 1: Find an achievable goal that inspires you. Keep it short term. You can always extend it later if you’re feeling motivated to do more.

Step 2: Ask your Green Buddy to join you in your new challenge; create an elaborate invitation – it might involve proposing to them with a houseplant, or providing matching sweatbands.

Step 3: Don’t just wait for their text to keep you on track. Hold them to account too! Send them a text when they’re on a date to remind them about how good salad looks. Then celebrate when you hit that first month... by eating more plants.

Even some of the brands you use every day rely on their friends to help them be more sustainable. Seventh Generation, which has been passionate about the planet since day 1, invited some of their community to create the Seventh Generation Social Mission Board in 2017. They meet twice a year and have helped make the team more ambitious with positive impact. For instance, they encouraged Seventh Generation to double their internal carbon tax (from $6 to $12 per ton of carbon) to hold the company to account. You can read more about the impact Seventh Generation’s friends have had on their impact here:

https://www.seventhgeneration.com/blog/meet-seventh-generation-social-mission-board

Struggling to care

Find simple tips or solutions to make some small changes in your daily life.

Eco-essentials