If we use and recycle the resources that are already accessible with awareness, sustainable living can start right at home. There are some culinary customs in India that can greatly save waste and encourage a more sustainable way of life. In the end, sustainable living is all about protecting the environment and making wise decisions.
Here are a few easy methods to protect the environment starting in your kitchen!
Cooking with peels
You must have seen your grandmother preserving the peels from raw bananas or bottle gourds and using them to make delicious sabzi and bhajis. Simply preserve the peels, clean them, and cook them to prevent wasting food. Orange and apple peels can actually be saved and used in desserts.
Reuse kitchen peels
Maintaining a bin in which you can use kitchen peels to create compost for your homegrown plants is another wonderful approach to reducing kitchen waste. This can be utilised as plant manure.
Replace plastic containers
With glass jars, steel or metal containers that you can wash and reuse again and time again, you can avoid plastic containers.
Reuse coconut husk
Instead of tossing them away, you can repurpose coconut husk as a cleanser for your abrasive utensils or use the dried banana flowers as a body scrubber.
Save water
You can give the plants the water that was used to soak the rice, beans, or lentils. The nutrients promote greater plant growth.
Grow herbs
Instead of discarding the leftovers, you can grow herbs at home using their seeds or roots. This way you will have your own organic seasonings.
kitchen garden/ unsplash.com
In addition to saving energy, pressure cooking cuts down on the amount of time it takes to prepare meals. In reality, employing steam during pressure cooking helps to cook food from the inside out.
Bulk buying
Fruits and vegetables have a short shelf life, thus buying in bulk results in wastage of these items as well. Thus, buying minimal quantities of fresh vegetables is the greatest method to prevent food waste.
Coffee grounds
If you frequently find yourself tossing away coffee grounds, you can use them as manure this time by simply adding them to your plants. You can use them in your home to eliminate odours or make candles or soaps out of them.