Joined Up Thinking

Are you still struggling with food going out of date in your fridge? Do you buy food on the way home just in case & find you already had more than enough already?

Here is a way of keeping control of your perishable foods with your phone.

There are now a number of apps that will track what is in your fridge and give you a count down of what needs using up first. They do vary in quality & some are quite pricey for apps, but compared to what they can save you in wasted food it’s a no brainer.

Some come with bar code scanners, date opened (for long life products) and all sorts of other bells and whistles.

In no particular order of merit here are some to check out:

Food Expiration Date Alarm

Fridge Police

Best Before

So now you will know what is in your fridge , about to go past eating, so what do you do with it?

Here is a useful website that takes your list of ingredients and suggests recipes that best incorporate them - Super Cook. Simply add each ingredient and the website will ask you what else you have available and what your options are. So, just check this out on the commute home, pick up any last minute ingredients and you are all set for a delicious home cooked meal when you get back.

And if all your good intentions go by the wayside and you are still faced with a fridge load of out of date food check out Still Tasty  which lets you know what is still safe to eat or freeze, and what needs to be binned.

So, no more excuses for turning your fridge into a gruesome science experiment.

Surviving A Fuel Strike

Driving smarter can greatly reduce your fuel use, saves money and reduces your carbon footprint. Faced with a fuel strike it will also help you last longer between top ups.

For someone spending roughly £50 a week on fuel, an equivalent 20% efficiency increase would save around £500 a year. So how much was your pay rise this year?

It is possible to drive the same distance in the same time, yet use considerably less fuel, chopping up to 30% OFF your fuel costs without cutting your top speed. It's simply about driving more smoothly to boost your fuel efficiency. Driving smoothly will also significantly cut your CO2 emissions.

·         Accelerate gradually without over-revving.

Speed up smoothly. When you press harder on the pedal more fuel flows, but you could get to the same speed using much less power. A good rule is to stay under 3,000 revs.

·         Drive in the correct gear.

Always drive in the highest gear possible without labouring the engine.

·         Slow naturally.

Rather than brake all the time, let your car slow naturally and use its stored momentum.

·         Think about your road position.

To do all this takes road awareness. The more alert you are, the better you can plan ahead and move gradually. Keep an eye on brake lights beyond the first car in front of you and decelerate before you have to apply the brake yourself.

Every time you put your foot on the accelerator, remember the harder you press, the more fuel you are burning. Braking is reducing the momentum that you have just burned fuel to achieve.

Just being conscious of this, and your road position, should massively increase how far you can drive on a tank of petrol. It's estimated someone who averages 35 miles per gallon could reach 40 mpg by driving better.

Generally, the faster you accelerate, the quicker you come to the next stop, and everyone else then catches you up. Fuel consumption shoots up when you travel above 55mph. An increase to 75mph raises fuel consumption by 20%.

If you are at a standstill for more than 30 seconds it is more efficient to turn your engine off and re-start it.

Additional savings can be made by addressing the following:

·         Keep your tyres inflated.

Lower tyre pressure increases the drag on a car, meaning you need more fuel, so regularly check the pressures are correct and your car needs less oomph to keep it moving.

·         De-Clutter your car.

The lighter your car is, the less effort it needs to accelerate. By de-cluttering, clearing out junk from the boot, and not carrying unnecessary weight, you can make extra savings.

·         Take your roof rack off.

A roof rack, even unused, adds massive wind resistance to a car, increasing drag and making the engine work harder. So if you don't need it, take it and anything else that's inefficient off. Even closing the windows will make the car run slightly more efficiently. If you have a bike rack on top you might as well be dragging a small parachute.

·         Don't fill it up.

In an ideal world you would run your tank to a safe minimum and top up regularly in small amounts. Fuel is heavy, so by filling the car up you're adding quite a weight. The less fuel your car has in it, the more efficiently it drives. As your fuel level decreases you get the benefits. Here’s hoping you can outlast the strike.

·         Keep your car tuned regularly.

A poorly tuned engine can use up to 50% more fuel.

And finally, do you need to drive?

Save 100% on your fuel costs by walking or cycling



Tweet your way off marketing lists

Slightly off message, but here we go.....

Tweet your way off marketing lists

As Google gets all the more pervasive & what we put online gets sold to the highest bidder here are some suggestions to tweet/facebook/blog to get you off the marketing lists:

Called to God, joining a silent order.

My power of attorney goes to (email of someone that deserves your spam)

My committal hearing is not going well, I may not be available for a while.

Farewell cruel world.

Won Euromillions, please contact me only via my lawyer .

My penis is too big, I need a reduction.

Doctor gave me three weeks to live, 20 days ago. Not feeling so good.

Didn’t realise that jury nobbling actually added to your sentence. Might be away for a while.

Hacked into Twitter/Google/FaceBook accounts, News of the World thought they had problems!!!!

If anyone else tries to sell something to my dead husband/wife I will accept the product as a gift in their memory.

My brother the dodgy pharmacologist, supplies all my needs.

Please deal direct with my relative Mr V Big, The President, Government Representative, Mucho Money Bank, Abuja, Nigeria. Who has access to all my bank account details.

Sueing Twitter/Google/FaceBook for invasion of privacy is even better than PPI, you didn’t even have to pay the money up-front.

My spam filter finds your ‘freepost’ address and is connected to my waste disposal.

My account automatically replies to spam with a copy of suggested terrorist targets & bomb making diagrams which will bury itself in your hard drive & any portable drives & will then email them to your client list.

I didn’t realise you cared, I’ve been watching you for weeks, I’ll upload my photos of you, might take a while.

Congratulations, you are the 9 billionth person to access these details.  

Please feel free to add.



Climate Change Threat to Oldest Living Organism

Ancient patches of a giant seagrass in the Mediterranean Sea are now considered to be the oldest living organism on Earth after scientists dated them at up to 200,000 years old.

Australian scientists sequenced the DNA of samples of the giant seagrass, Posidonia oceanic, from 40 underwater meadows in an area spanning more than 2,000 miles, from Spain to Cyprus.
The analysis, published in the journal PLos ONE, found the seagrass was between 12,000 and 200,000 years old and was most likely to be at least 100,000 years old. This is far older than the current known oldest species, a Tasmanian plant that is believed to be 43,000 years old.
Prof Carlos Duarte, from the University of Western Australia, said the seagrass has been able to reach such old age because it can reproduce asexually and generate clones of itself. Organisms that can only reproduce sexually are inevitably lost at each generation, he added.
But Prof Duarte said that while the seagrass is one of the world's most resilient organisms, it has begun to decline due to coastal development and global warming.
"The seagrass in the Mediterranean is already in clear decline due to shoreline construction and declining water quality and this decline has been exacerbated by climate change. As the water warms, the organisms move slowly to higher altitudes. The Mediterranean is locked to the north by the European continent. They cannot move. The outlook is very bad."

So, humans are in danger of destroying an organism that has survived for over 100,000 years with our actions over the past 100 years.

Freeze, Step away from the bin

Another victory for common sense has just been announced.

Long-standing ‘freeze on the day of purchase’ food guidelines are being changed by Sainsbury’s as they relax their rules in a bid to reduce food wastage. The supermarket discovered that 800,000 tonnes of perfectly good food could be saved if a new food labeling system was brought into place.

The new initiative, in conjunction with WRAP, will involve changing food labels advising consumers to freeze food at any point prior to the use-by date, rather than immediately after purchase. The move comes after research by WRAP revealed that 60% of people believe the current reinforced labeling ‘rule’ that food has to be frozen on the day they buy it.

However, only 21% had frozen food that was nearing its use-by date and many admitting that they throw food away when it approaches the use-by date because they weren’t aware whether it was safe to freeze it.

"The 'freeze on day of purchase' advice needs to be changed as there is no food safety reason why it cannot be frozen at any point prior to the use by date," Beth Hart, Sainsbury’s head of product, said in a statement.

Food experts are hoping that this initiative could save up to £2bn worth of good food every year.
What the advice should read is that you can freeze the item (if suitable for freezing) up until the use by date. Then defrost and use immediately.

As one customer pointed out while giving feedback on previous labeling, 'How does the product know which day I purchased it on?'



Taking the Pizza out of the Queen’s Jubilee

I’m sure that there will be a lot of bad taste trying to cash in on the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee but M&S have already lowered the bar significantly. As part of a range of products to celebrate the occasion with a Best of British theme they are launching ‘The Great British Breakfast Pizza.’

Apart from being as British & authentic as Chicken Tikka Masala, pizza must be one of the most abused foodstuffs on the planet. Just because it is conveniently shaped to have all manner of ingredients heaped upon it does not mean doing so at a whim is a good idea.

My ideal pizza has a light crispy base with a few, distinct ingredients on top. As the ingredients become more complicated and heavier the base has to become more robust and stodgier to hold up. The resultant ‘brick’ loses all appeal unless you are someone who is looking to consume the highest number of calories in a sitting. If that is what you are after then why not just go the Scottish route and deep fry the thing.

Jamie Oliver is a prime offender with his Union Jack’s restaurant where wood fired flatbreads meet great Britsh flavours -Fish Pie Pizza anyone?

Other countries have also added their own slant to the classic Italian dish:

·         India - pickled ginger, minced mutton, and paneer

·         Russia - mockba (a combination of sardines, tuna, mackerel, salmon, and onions),

·         Brazil - green peas

·         Australia - shrimp, pineapple, barbecue sauce

·         Japan - eel, squid, and Mayo Jaga (mayonnaise with potato & bacon)

Widely available already in Britain are pizzas with Chinese, Mexican and Indian toppings but Iceland’s (the chain, not the country) Donner Kebab pizza cannot be aimed at either a sane or sober audience.

Finally, back to the M&S tribute to her Majesty. The icing on the cake, as it were, must be the sachet of brown sauce that comes with it.



Does Vertical Farming Stack Up?

Since 1970 population growth has halved the amount of arable land per person to half an acre. By 2050 there will be an extra 3 billion people on the planet. Just providing their drinking water will reduce what is available for agriculture by 18%. Soil based farming will no longer be sustainable.

The future may well look something like the pilot project run by Valcent Products at Paignton Zoo. The farm  grows red chard, mizuna, mixed leaves, and a variety of herbs as well as edible flowers and fodder crops such as wheat grass and barley. Currently the farm imports a wide variety of veggies for their animal feed, so this provides a local, sustainable alternative for the zoo's residents. (click here for video)

The ‘farm’ requires just 5% of the water for field crops, produces 20 times the yield per acre, and can be built almost anywhere.

The growing operation works on a conveyor system, with automated loading of plant trays for harvesting and replanting. The whole set up has been designed for minimum maintenance, with computerized controls to regulate irrigation and water supply and the environment within the polytunnel. Valcent claim the farm will require one staff member working approximately two hours a day to keep it running, and could cut the zoo's feed bill by as much as £100,000.

Another benefit of this system is the fact that it can produce food very close to where it will be consumed. This means that food miles are minimised, that the food is fresher and loss through damage & spoilage during transport will be cut out. Better still, the use of pesticides, herbicides and fungicides can be kept to a bare minimum by growing plants indoors in a controlled environment. Soil erosion will not be a problem because the food will be grown hydroponically, recycling techniques will ensure that only a fraction of the amount of water and nutrients will be needed compared with conventional farming, and there will no problem with agricultural run-off.

Initially it is predicted that units with large catering operations like hospitals will all have their own vertical farm and supermarkets may well take up the idea if it is commercially (& politically) a success. Then, according to the UN’s Population Division, by 2050 around 70% of the world’s population will be living in urban areas. So it makes sense to move farms closer to where everyone will be living.

As technology progresses, skyscrapers with different floors of fruit and vegetables will be common place with a shop on the ground floor and crops harvested to order. Our current practice of shipping produce around the country (if not the World,) growing crop varieties for their longevity when picked rather than their taste & vitamin content, and washing & coating them in chemicals may one day seem totally bizarre.



Dig For Victory - Part 1



A bit of home gardening is an ideal way to reduce your food carbon footprint.

Any produce that you grow at home will save on transport. Then, if it goes straight from garden to plate you are cutting out packaging and storage.

If you are composting your kitchen and garden waste then you are definitely on to a winner. Even if your council provides a recycling service for this waste you are cutting down on the fuel required to transport it to the recycling facility.

If you have a large garden and plenty of spare time then it is relatively easy to grow your own vegetables and fruit. In reality, you can get started even with a window box.

The following list will fit into window boxes, pots, grow bags, containers or in the garden and require just 1.5 m². It’s amazing how much food you can harvest from such a small space.

Dwarf French Green Beans x 3, Mixed lettuces x 10, Rocket x 10, Mizuna x 10, Spinach x 10, Golden Streak mustard x 10, Spring Onions x 10, Beetroot x 10, Basil x 1 pot, Parsley x 1 pot, Chives x 1 pot



Recycling your food waste need not take too much space either. Wormeries are ideal for compact areas.

-          Worms can eat and digest up to half their own body weight each day.

-          The casts they produce contain top quality compost and a concentrated liquid feed.

-          Ideal for those with a small outdoor/garden space or for those looking for an alternative to a compost bin.

-          Can provide a useful backup for those who want small quantities of very rich compost

Worms are not too fussy and will happily munch on items that might otherwise go into landfill:

waste from vegetable juicers ,  soaked and ripped pizza boxes, paper, tissues, dirt , leaves , hair, cardboard fast food packaging, egg shells, potato peelings , apple cores & pea pods.



Food Packaging Conundrum

OK, so we are doing our best to reduce food waste, but what about the packaging it comes in?

It would be nice to think that we can do without packaging that goes into the bin & then landfill, but there is a trade off. If it takes more resources to produce food that would otherwise be wasted than the packaging required extending its life, then there is an arguable case.

According to Incpen (Industry Council for Packaging and the Environment), more resources go into producing food than into the packaging which protects it and without the protection of packaging there would be much more food wasted.
“The government’s own Waste Policy Review 2011 acknowledges that packaging fulfils an important role in avoiding spoilage in the supply system and in the home,” said Incpen director Jane Bickerstaffe. “It also says that the carbon footprint of packaging is dwarfed by that of the products it contains. Both industry and government need to help consumers understand that.”
Typical examples are:

-           plastic wrapped cucumbers (stops them rotting so they last 5 times longer)

-          Pre-packed meat & fish (contains an artificial atmosphere that prevents bacterial growth)

-          Trays or bags have reduced in-store waste of grapes by 20%.

-           In-store wastage of new potatoes reduced from 3% when sold loose to less than 1% after specially designed bags were introduced.

Without packaging no liquids, gels or powders would be available; fruit and vegetables would not be available out of season; consumers would have to grow their own food or shop daily for it.

Without packaging the environmental damage from broken goods and spoiled food would be enormous. Food waste has at least ten times the environmental impact of packaging waste and that’s before taking account of the impact of methane from decayed food.

Meanwhile, of the total energy used in the food chain, 50% is used in food production, 10% on transport to the shops and retailing, 10% to make the packaging and the remaining 30% is used by shoppers to drive to the shops and store and cook food.

Food producers and retailers are now taking the packaging issue seriously. As the cost of oil based products and transport increase dramatically it makes economic sense to look at cutting costs. They can then boast that they are getting greener, but we all know what the real driving factor is. The major Supermarkets have dedicated departments that look at food production from start to delivery in store with the aim of reducing costs at all stages. Having identified the savings, they then deduct that amount from what they pay the supplier!!

As consumers we can do the following to lessen our environmental impact. Never dispose of packaged food into your regular bin. That goes into landfill where the packaging will result in anaerobic rotting which produces greenhouse gasses. The packaging will then take decades to degrade afterwards.

Dispose of food waste separately and where possible clean and put recyclable materials out for your council collection. Not cleaning the packaging will result in the whole bag being classed as contaminated & it being sent to landfill.

Global Warming – the Nuclear Option

Apparently, all is not lost in the war against global warming. Scientists from NASA and a number of other institutions have recently been modeling the effects of a war involving a hundred Hiroshima-level bombs, or 0.03 percent of the world's current nuclear arsenal, according to National Geographic. The research suggests five million metric tons of black carbon would be swept up into the lowest portion of the atmosphere.

The result, according to NASA climate models, could actually be global cooling.

While the global cooling caused by superpower-on-superpower war could be catastrophic (hence the term "nuclear winter") a small scale, planned detonation, could have an impact on the world climate. Models suggest that though the world is currently in a warming trend, small detonations could lower global temperatures by 2.25 degrees C for two-to-three years following war.

In more tropical areas temperatures could fall 5.4 to 7.2 degrees C.

Then we would just need to decide which 1300Km2 of the planet we are happy to sacrifice to this holocaust.

The calculations would have to be finely tuned as an over ‘correction’ would tip the planet into a nuclear winter which would have devastating effects on the planet’s weather and crop production.

Let’s hope we are not forced into taking such desperate measures.



It won’t get any better than this

Thank you to John who added a link to a previous posting on Global Warming Warning.

In short, New Scientist has recently had a short article on the "Limits to Growth", revisiting the 1972 book by Meadows et al.  The book gives an account of a computer model of how the world's population, resources and economy would function over the coming 130 years.  It predicted a disaster in the twenty first century if nothing were changed.  At first the book created a stir and world leaders all agreed that action was needed.  It then attracted ferocious attacks on ideological grounds; the media carried uniform condemnation and declared the predictions to be incorrect.

Guess what, the models are now proving to be an accurate representation of what is occurring in the World today.

Unfortunately, the World’s population will not experience the full force of the depletion of resources until just before they run out (see Margaret Atwood’s Amoeba’s Tale) We have a few more years ahead of us where living in denial will still be possible.

So from here on in, as the population rises and developing nations catch up with developed society in their rate per capita that finite resources are being used up, we are racing towards crunch time. Things will not be getting better than they are today.

The full article in all it’s gory detail can be found here.



Sewer Abuse & Fatburgs

Sewer abuse is a big problem for water companies. It is also the hidden side of food waste.

Thames Valley has called on its customers to avoid 'sewer abuse' in a bid to limit the number of blockages it has to deal with. It advises people not to dispose of waste such as oil & fat into the sewage system. The disposable of fats down drains can lead to a build up of 'fatbergs', which block sewers and can in severe cases lead to sewage flooding. Sewer flooding of people's properties is a truly miserable experience.

The rise in popularity of domestic food macerators (sink waste disposals) are not helping the situation. Although macerators provide an easy and convenient means of disposing of food or sanitary waste into drains and sewers, water companies advise that this increases the risk of sewer blockages, sewer flooding, environmental pollution, odours and rodent infestations. There are also further associated risks to screening plants, the sewage treatment process, disposal of bio-solids and energy costs.

The main cause of problems are oils & fats, these can form build ups which then break off into ‘burgs’and cause a blockage further down the system.

Fat that will solidify as it cools, like pork, beef, lamb or chicken, can be reused for cooking, instead of oil. People pay good money for goose fat or dripping so put yours to good use. Alternatively, leave it to go cold and place it in your food recycling bin.

You can extend the use of vegetable oils by straining them after each use and avoiding contamination with salt which will cause them to degrade more quickly. If the oil does become rancid and unusable then you should be able to dispose of it at your local recycling centre where it can be turned into bio-diesel..

Out of site may be out of mind for a while but blocked sewers will eventually come back to haunt you. Avoid waste in the first place but if you do have to get rid of grease & fat do so responsibly.