Sustainable shopping - buying in bulk

Grocery shopping - like it or not, it's something most of us have to do.  But rather than thinking of it as being a bit of a drag, there is a positive way to look at it. Grocery shopping is one way that we as customers (we hate the word consumer) can use our purchasing power to help bring about changes that we want to see in the world.  We can exert our influence by shopping mindfully. No company or store is going to stock products that don't sell.  By buying a particular product we are sending a message to the manufacturer to produce more of it. The rise and rise of cage-free eggs in Australian supermarkets is one such example. That means what we spend our money on counts!   Over-packaged products full of hard to decipher ingredients and way too much fat or sugar - is that really what we want to see more of?  Um....no, I don't think so.   Organic, environmentally friendly goods that support our health and that of local businesses - well, yeah.  So let's get voting with our dollars 😊

There are lots of ways we can use our purchasing power for the good of our health and the environment and buying in bulk is one of them.

Buying in bulk can take different forms. One way is for a group of people to put money in to purchase a large quantity of an item and then portion it out amongst the group. Many people will have heard of Community Supported Agriculture schemes that supply boxes of fruit and veggies straight from the farmer to customers. Our permaculture group has done this with biodynamic spelt, as well as other things. This can be a great way to access quality products direct from producers who don't deal in small quantities. And the producer doesn't have to pay a cut to any middleman. Win win.

Another way is to shop at a bulk store. Bulk food stores, relatively common overseas are now catching on in Australia. These stores stock food in large unpackaged quantities, allowing customers to purchase as little or as much as they like of any item.  

One such store opened up a few years ago not far from where we live. It's called The Source Bulk Foods and it's where we buy our dry goods such as grains, beans, lentils, pasta, spices, seeds etc. 

Our local bulk foods store

Bulk food stores can benefit the environment in multiple ways.

Firstly the food and other goods are completely unpackaged - this is waste free grocery shopping.  The Source encourages zero waste shopping and I bring my own recycled glass jars, mesh bags and homemade cotton bags when I shop. Zero waste living, a concept popularised by Bea Johnson in her terrific book  Zero Waste Home, aims to eliminate trash from all aspects of life by following a simple guideline she calls the 5Rs: Refuse, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle and Rot (and only in that order). Any steps we can take toward zero waste living is a way of helping us to live more sustainably.

The second benefit of shopping at a bulk store is that you have access to a carefully considered range of products. Previously we had sourced organic products from a variety of places, making shopping more time consuming. Now I can find local/organic/biodynamic options all in the one store, which also focuses on supporting Australian producers and growers.

Then there's the range of options available. The list at The Source is extensive, carrying many hard to find items. 

Finally, while you are buying quality products, because they are free from packaging, the price you pay can work out cheaper than what you'd be paying for a similar item in the supermarket. I have certainly found this to be the case with some of the things I buy. We make our own muesli from a combination of rolled oats, quinoa flakes, sunflower seeds, linseeds, sesame seeds and cinnamon. I buy all of these organic items at the bulk store and save money. 

Below are a few more photos taken at my local store. As you can see, the store is well laid out, with all items clearly labelled and easily accessible.

Rice, beans, spelt and other goodies in barrels

seeds and spices along the top shelves

the brown rice I purchased

freshly ground coffee bean (left) and fresh nut butter (right)

Top row: black tahini, hulled tahini, unhulled tahini, tamari. Middle row: 2 kinds of extra virgin olive oil, macadamia oil, sunflower oil, sesame oil

Top row: blackstrap molasses, coconut syrup, maple syrup, rice malt syrup, dark agave syrup. Middle row: 2 types of honey, balsamic vinegar, apple cider vinegar

So how does bulk store shopping work? It's pretty easy really. I take my empty jars to the counter to be weighed and the sales staff mark the weight on the jar. Then it's off to fill the jars with whatever I need. Back at the counter the jars are re-weighed and the weight of the jar is deducted from the total - so I'm only paying for the contents. Same deal with my homemade cotton bags - I write the weight of each bag in pen on the bag and this weight is deducted at the checkout.

Some of my purchases at the counter

Customers using the paper bags supplied by the store use a pen to write the item number on the bag before filling it, for easy identification at the checkout. There are scales available to check your quantities.

the friendly staff

This seems like such a sensible way to shop - it would be great to see bulk stores become as common as supermarkets.  

Have you ever shopped at a bulk store?

Homemade Yoghurt

As part of becoming more self-reliant, we've been enjoying making some of the food and other products we use at home. Foods like honey, preserves such as olives, jam, sauces and fruit, and products such as soap, dishcloths, laundry detergent and home cleaners.

With an interest in fermented foods from a health perspective, I had been wanting to make our own yoghurt for some time. Well I finally got around to it, and now that I've made several batches, I don't know why I put it off for so long!  

Breakfast - homemade yoghurt and homemade muesli

The basic process involves adding yoghurt culture to milk at 37C, whereby the culture consumes the lactose (or any other sugar) in the milk.  After a minimum of 8 hours at this temperature the milk becomes yoghurt.  

There are all sorts of nifty ways to keep yoghurt warm while it ferments.  Some of these include:

• put it on top of hot water heaters (unfortunately our HWS is located outside in the open air so the option is not really suitable for us) 
• on top of coffee machines (we don't have one) 
• in a warm oven (we didn't want to wait for the oven to have been used in order to make our yoghurt) 
• wrapped in blankets 
• in an esky (cooler) with hot water.  

After considering our options I took the easy way out and bought an EasiYo yoghurt thermos ($23.50 from BigW) to incubate the yogurt in.  I'd heard that this system worked well so I thought I'd give it a try.  It consists of a thermos and a jar that sits inside the thermos to hold the yoghurt. Yeah, it's plastic, but it works well and makes the process simple ........... which means I'm far more likely to make yoghurt than if I had to fuss around with blankets. But that's just me.

EasiYo thermos

Boiling water is poured into the hole to fill the space below the red shelf

For my first batch I used some live yoghurt culture bought from Green Living Australia.  I bought the Tangy Yoghurt Culture ($16.95) and the Non-Dairy Yoghurt culture ($17.95). Each sachet contains enough culture for 100 litres of yoghurt (you only use a very, very tiny amount to make 1 litre) and you can make this stretch even further by using some of the previous batch of yoghurt as the starter for the next. The culture will keep for 2-5 years in the freezer. I liked the idea of purchasing the culture as it means I don't always have to have a previous batch on hand if I decide I want to make yoghurt.

We have a thermomix so that is perfect for mixing and heating.  However you could easily do it on the stove using a thermometer.  

The method I followed was from the Thermomix Everyday Cookbook but I have played around with quantities and use slightly less than the recipe in the book:

Ingredients: (makes 1kg yoghurt)

• 800g full cream organic milk
• 50g milk powder (the addition of milk powder makes a thicker yoghurt - I used 20g or none)
• 3 tablespoons yoghurt containing live culture (I used the Tangy culture for my first batch and 2 dessert spoons of homemade yoghurt for subsequent batches)

Method:

1. Combine milk & powdered milk in Thermomix bowl for 10 seconds, speed 7.
2. Cook for 30 minutes at 90 degrees, speed 1. (This kills any bacteria in the milk, preparing it for the addition of the live yoghurt culture)
3. Cool mix to 37 degrees. The mix must cool to this temperature before adding your starter or you will kill the live culture. It may take up to 60 minutes but you can speed this up by putting the bowl in the fridge.
4. Once at 37 degrees add your starter (the yoghurt or the purchased live culture), mix to combine for 4 seconds, speed 4.
5. Then heat for 10 minutes, 37 degrees, speed 1.

It's very important that the utensils you use to make your yoghurt are clean and sterilised. While the yoghurt is cooling to 37C I wash the yoghurt jar and lid in hot soapy water and then rinse them. Then while the yoghurt mix is heating in the final step I fill the clean yoghurt jar with boiling water and let it sit until the yoghurt is ready to add. I also pour boiling water over the underside of the clean lid, let it sit for a little while then put the lid, underside down on a clean tea towel. 

Once step 5 is complete, pour boiling water into the EasiYo thermos up to the correct level. As shown in the photo above, the yogurt jar sits on a shelf above the level of the boiling water in the EasiYo thermos. (You don't want the container holding the yoghurt to come in contact with the boiling water).  Empty out the boiling water sitting in the yoghurt jar and pour in the yoghurt mixture.  Screw the lid on and put the jar inside the thermos. Leave the thermos somewhere where it won't be disturbed for at least 8 hours, and longer for a thicker yoghurt. Once done, you can  transfer the yoghurt into another jar to free up the yoghurt jar for making another batch.

Two batches of yoghurt in the fridge - some from the batch on the left was used to make the batch on the right

As you can see, yoghurt made in this way is super easy. The organic full cream milk we used was purchased on special (50% reduction) so that made the yoghurt even cheaper to make.  I've yet to try making the non-dairy yoghurt but as I only drink soy milk I'll have the ingredients on hand. 

The Green Living Australia website has recipes for dairy, soy, almond and coconut yoghurts so there are plenty of yoghurt making options available.  Making your own yoghurt is not only easy, it will save you money while at the same time, give you control over what goes into the yoghurt you eat. I won't have to make many batches before I've covered the cost of buying the cultures and the thermos.  What's not to like about that?

Making use of waste

We like finding opportunities to turn waste into something useful.  Why buy something when you can find a suitable free resource? We've talked about how we make compost from the collection of workplace kitchen scraps here, but that's not all we collect for free to use in the garden.

Mulch. All gardeners know the value of mulch in helping to prevent water loss from the soil, suppressing weed growth, and as it breaks down, adding nutrients to the soil.  We have a reasonably sized productive garden and would be spending plenty of money on mulch....if we had to buy it.  But we don't.

A suburb or two away from us is an arborist business. These kind folk leave piles of woody mulch on the naturestrip in front of the business for people to cart away for use in their own gardens.  

We pull up in the car with a bunch of bags and a spade and fill the car with bags of mulch. The bags we use are also recycled from a friend's factory who would otherwise have to throw them out.

Fully loaded car

This woody mulch gets used in the garden to make pathways and suppress weeds.   Before spreading it we mow/pull out most of the main weeds and then cover the ground with thick overlapping layers of newspaper.  The newspapers have been recycled from my workplace for use under the hay bedding in our guinea pig hutch before being used again with the mulch. Double recycling in action!  

Once the layer of newspaper has gone down the mulch goes on top in a nice thick layer. Eventually this woody mulch breaks down and then we move it onto the garden beds....and make another trip to the arborist to load up on some more. 

Woody mulch pathway between garden beds
(bamboo leaf mulch on left bed, grass clippings mulch on right bed)

Suppressing weeds around the beehives 

Weed suppression around the water tanks

 By taking this mulch we are helping the business to deal with what would otherwise be a waste product they'd have to dispose of some other way. In the process we are getting a free source of something that we'd otherwise have to pay for. Everyone wins.

Sometimes we've even done a deal with a local arborist to get a truckload delivered if they happen to be working in our neighbourhood. Bartering some home produce for a truckload of mulch. Seems like a good deal to us 😊

Sustainable Living weekend workshop at Hazelcombe farm

A few months back we headed up to the Totnes Valley to attend the Sustainable Living Weekend Workshop at Hazelcombe Farm, run by Dan Power and Nicole Schmid Power.  The Totnes Valley is 40 km north east of Mudgee - all in all a 950 km drive from our home in Melbourne.  At times we didn't think we'd get there - torrential rain and flooded roads meant we had to take an alternative route, so when we finally arrived at the farm we were pretty happy!

Hazelcombe Farm holds sustainable weekend workshops a couple of times a year.  Experienced people with a wide range of skills come to share their knowledge - from blacksmithing, green woodworking, scything, horse-drawn ploughing to food related workshops on bread making, fermenting, cheese making and sessions on biodynamics, soil health and beekeeping - the list of things on offer over the course of the weekend is a good one. We'd been wanting to go for some time.  

The shed, which housed the kitchen, dining area and many of the talks and workshops

Dan and Nicole are the people behind Sycthes Australia and, as we have a scythe, getting some hands-on experience in the correct scything technique was definitely on our list of things to do. First thing in the morning I joined Dan's scything group and after some expert instruction, spent an enjoyable time practising my technique in the orchard.  I can't say I'm a very fast scyther (is that a word?)  but at least I now have a better idea of how to go about it.

Another highlight on the schedule were the fermented food workshops held by Christine Corner of Crave Natural. As someone with fructose malabsorption, my interest in fermented foods stemmed primarily from their reputed health benefits and I was keen to learn the basics from an expert.  Christine and her family grow the organic produce used in her products on the family farm, Broombee in Mudgee.  In the sessions we covered the making of saukerkraut, kombucha and keffir.  According to organicfacts.net, "Sauerkraut contains high levels of dietary fibre, as well as significant levels of vitamin A, vitamin C, vitamin K, and various B vitamins.  Furthermore it is a good source of iron, manganese, copper, sodium, magnesium and calcium, in addition to contributing a moderate amount of protein to your diet"  Sounds pretty good, huh? Hearing Christine talk about how she got into making fermented foods and the health benefits she experienced was really interesting. I was inspired to have a go and purchased a ceramic crockpot from Dan and Nicole to take home with me to make my own sauerkraut.

Christine making sauerkraut

One of the traditional skills that really fascinates both Mr PragSust and I is green woodworking. Roy Davi, the Leura Bodger, had set up his bush pole lathe at the farm and was at work, turning out sauerkraut mashers, honey drizzlers and other items during the course of the weekend.
 

Roy at his pole lathe

Turning out a sauerkraut masher

He was very happy to let people have a go on his shave horse and pole lathe and I spent a very enjoyable couple of hours learning the basics of green wood turning with him. Roy is a lovely bloke and a very patient teacher - I could have spent the whole day watching and learning from him.

On the shave horse

Learning to use the pole lathe

While we enjoyed fine weather over the weekend, due to all the torrential rain in the weeks leading up to the workshop, as the weekend progressed things got more than a little muddy at the farm. Muddy enough for the original campsite to be under water and a second option sorted quickly before the guests started arriving on the Friday. Muddy enough for cars to get bogged in the driveway and in the paddocks. One of the real highlights of the weekend was Queenie the draught horse - star of the horse-drawn ploughing sessions - and her owner Donnie pulling a bogged 4wd truck out of the mud with what appeared to be a great deal of ease. Accompanied by small children chanting "Go Queenie go!", everybody stopped what they were doing as we all watched Donnie and Queenie calmly pulling the truck out of the mud. Lots of cheering ensued and Queenie became the well-deserved hero of the day.

The food provided throughout the course of the weekend was terrific. Nicole, Christine and their helpers did an amazing job of feeding a big group of people, many of which were vegetarians like me. The food was absolutely delicious.

Food preparation underway in the kitchen

Full details regarding Hazelcombe Farm and the sustainable workshop we attended can be found here. Big thanks to Dan and Nicole for hosting such an enjoyable event!

It all adds up

Being interested in sustainability, simple living and permaculture, we read a lot of blogs on those subjects. It's both inspiring and instructive to read about the different things that people do to in order to live more sustainably. There is so much helpful information out there.

We've made many sustainable changes to our home - including adding solar hot water, PVs for electricity generation, water tanks, switching to efficient wood heating (using waste wood) and creating an organic fruit and veggie garden. Alongside all of this, we've also been making continual small changes to how we live, and learning new skills along the way.  

When you're working towards living more sustainably I think that sometimes the smaller steps you've made towards that goal can be forgotten.  Probably because doing these things just becomes part of normal life.  However the other day I had a little reminder.  I was putting together a few homemade things as a gift for a friend. When I stopped and looked at what I'd gathered I realised that these items were the result of some of the smaller steps we have taken to live a more sustainable life.  

Here's what it contained:

• Honey from our backyard hive. You can read about how we extract our honey here, here and here.

• 100% cotton reusable knitted dishcloths (or face washers). I've been having fun making these using cotton yarn from my stash.

• Preserved olives collected from our backyard trees. See the recipe here.

• Homemade Tamatar Kasaundi (Tomato oil pickle). From "The Complete Asian Cookbook" by Charmaine Solomon. This is absolutely fabulous stuff - very spicy!  I'll post the recipe soon.

• Homemade laundry liquid.  From the book "Down to Earth" by Rhonda Hertzel.

That little lineup of home produce made me stop and think. Those little things do make a difference - we are a more sustainable, resilient and healthy household as a result of being able to produce more of what we eat and use at home.  

It would be great to have more free time to tackle lots more sustainable projects. There are lots of things we'd like to do.  Right now though, life is busy with full-time work, after-work activities, volunteering, and time spent planting trees on our country block.   Given the time that we have, continuing to make small changes in order to live more sustainably is something that works for us.

I think little things do add up and small changes can make a difference.

What do you think?