Watch this and stop scratching

For those of you into self medicating -and I mean throat lozenges and acne gel- the BBC are showing you how to grow, harvest and prepare your own herbal remedies. 

The show is called Grow Your Own Drugs and features James Wong. He  is an  ethnobotanist and not, and he was very clear about this,  a hippy – despite the bare feet and the beads. Hey far be it from me to stereo type.

Any way the boy mixed up some remedies from flowers and weeds and seemed to know what he was talking about. Moreover he  is an all time sweetie  even though he is a SCIENTIST and not a hippy. Got a very nice kitchen too.

So why is Pam so interested … well as you know from my own creamy exploits making your own cosmetics is a great way to cut down dramatically on your plastic – making your own remedies will obviously do the same.
It will also save you money and you are not rubbing - chemicals, preservatives and a hundred other yucky ingredients on your skin.
Here are my favourite home made cosmetics.

Want to cut down on your plastic rubbish? – you can find other plastic free products with the >>>A-Z<<< plastic free index

Margerine free buns

I gave up margerine in tubs but then got caught out baking a cake. All ready to go – eek no marge. I had to go the corner shop to purchase some and of course it came in a nasty plastic pot.

Since then I have discovered that you can bake cakes using vegetable oil – better than butter in bad fat terms, better than marge in a tub in plastic waste terms.

Heres the recipie I like best

lavender muffins from recipie bazaar - NB instead of butter use sunflower oil.

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1 tablespoon lavender flowers
• 1/2 cup butter, melted and cooled
• 1 large egg, beaten
• 1 cup apple, peeled and diced, divided use

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
2. Coat 12 muffin tins with cooking spray or line with muffin cups.
3. In large bowl, sift together flour; sugar; baking powder and salt. Make a well in center.
4. In separate bowl, whisk together milk, lavender; butter and egg. Add milk mixture to flour mixture and stir by hand just until batter is evenly moistened. Fold in 1/2 cup of the apples.
5. Fill prepared muffin tins about three-quarters full. Gently tap filled tins to release any air bubbles.
6. Sprinkle remaining diced apple over muffins. Bake until skewer inserted into center of a muffin comes our clean, 25 to 30 minutes. Cool muffins in pan about 10 minutes, then transfer to cooling rack.

Plastic free fry up

Plastic free bacon and sausages – vegetarians look away.

How did I do it ?

Got some greaseproof paper bags

Got some biobags – compostable vegetable starch waterproof bags.

Went to my butchers and asked him to use them instead of the plastic wrappings he uses.

Result – completely biodegradable packaging for my meat.

Vegies from the green grocer in paper bags which I reuse and eventually compot and his egg box which is returnable and reusable.

With my plastic free teabags and milk in a glass returnable bottle my breakfast leaves no footprints.