Plastic-Free Cake

July 21, 2020

You know how frustrating it is when you’re doing your best to avoid plastic but even the glass bottle of organic vegetable oil has a plastic insert, plastic lid and sometimes even a plastic neck-sleeve? Well, after spending half an hour trying to cut off this evil neck sleeve the other day I decided, I’m putting my foot down! I am not buying bottles like this ever again! “But what about cake?” argued my alter ego, “how will you make cake without vegetable oil?”

This is how:

All you need is

four very ripe bananas,
a mug and a half of self-raising flour,
and half a mug of sugar.

The sugar is plastic-free too if you get it from a zero-waste filling station or buy Silver Spoon British Sugar (made from home grown sugar beet) which is always wrapped in paper.

First mash the bananas with a fork

Then preheat the oven to 160° C

Then add half a mug of sugar to the bananas and mix well. This will magically make the bananas very runny.

When the sugar and bananas are thoroughly combined, add one and a half mugs full of self raising flour and mix well.

(NB there’s a lot of mixture in that bowl because I doubled the ingredients to make two cakes)

Now you should have a thick, moist cake mixture, ready to put in the tin.

(If You Care parchment paper is unbleached and totally chlorine-free (TCF) greaseproof paper which can be found at most good health food shops)

Line a loaf tin with some eco-friendly greaseproof paper and fill it with your cake mixture.

Put it in the middle of the oven and bake for one and a quarter hours (75 minutes). Carefully remove and insert a sharp knife to test. If the knife comes out clean, it’s done, if it has wet mixture on it, put the cake back in the oven for a few more minutes.

When it’s ready, take it out of the tin and cool it on a wire rack.

Use a serrated knife to cut it as it’ll be crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside.

Absolutely scrumptious 😀

No plastic required 😉

Source: I got this recipe years ago from a brilliant homemade book called Grime and Nourishment, (NB this book is not suitable for children).

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vegan, vegan cake, cake recipe, plastic-free, zero waste, nutrition, health, environment,

We interrupt this story to bring you …. frozen greens!

December 2, 2019

By Violet's Vegan Comics

I’m thrilled to tell you that you can now get quality, organic, frozen veg packaged in nothing but a cardboard box!

It’s really hard to get enough greens when you’re trying to avoid plastic – unless you can grow your own.

But now that I’ve found these we can have our organic greens every day!

And they’re so easy to add to any meal. No washing or chopping. Just put some of these in a saucepan to gently warm – I put them in with my baked beans.

I bought them from the brilliant Sunny Foods Health Food shop in South Street, Eastbourne, but I’ve seen them in the Health Food Shop in Rye and the one in Hastings so hopefully you’ll be able to find them near you.

One thing’s for sure – I’m going to make sure my freezer is always stocked up with healthy, organic, plastic-free veg from the Natural Cool range – check it out! 😀

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vegan, vegetarian, healthy, plastic-free, plastic pollution, plastic packaging, zero waste, organic, organic vegetables,

Homemade Raw Bars

June 6, 2019

By Violet's Vegan Comics

After giving up refined sugar I got hooked on these things. They are an absolutely delicious, feel-good treat (Pulsin is on the ethical chocolate list) which is almost guilt-free. Almost. Unfortunately they’re wrapped in plastic. So, to avoid that, I decided to make my own – and they are equally yummy, if I do say so myself 😀

I ordered my supplies from the Zero Waste Club – a wonderful new company from whom you can order all sorts of healthy staples without plastic wrapping. The following is my first attempt and it made a lot of bars. In future I’ll halve these measurements 🙂

Ingredients:

Almost 3 mugs full (500g) of organic pitted dates
About 2 mugs full (about 350g) of organic cashews
About 1 mug full of organic raisins
About half a mug full of organic cocoa powder (to be truly raw, substitute raw cacao)
About a mug full of organic cacao nibs
Some organic oats (to be truly raw, omit these)

First soak the dates and the cashews in water (separately) in the fridge for a couple of hours to soften. Afterwards, drain and rinse the cashews in a colander.

I don’t have a food processor (I used to have one but it broke and I refuse to buy another one which will also break at some point and add more plastic to landfill) so I used my beloved manual juicer to process these ingredients. This is a simple, hand-crank machine made of stainless steel which I believe will last me a life time. I highly recommend it 😀 (BL-30 Manual Stainless Steel Wheat Grass and Vegetable Juicer)

Process the softened dates into mush and put them in a large mixing bowl.2. Process the softened cashews into mush and add them to the bowl with the dates.3. Mix the stiff mixture of dates and cashews until thoroughly combined.4. Process the raisins into mush and mix them into the mixture.5. Add the cocoa and the cacao nibs and mix until everything is fully combined into a lovely chocolatey mixture.6. If you don’t want to add the oats, you’re finished so you can spread the mixture into a tin or onto a plate or container. It is delicious now but you won’t be able to pick it up with your fingers to eat it, like a shop-bought bar. You’ll need a plate and a fork coz it’s mushy. So, I added a few oats to stiffen it up. Just add a few at a time and mix them in until you’ve got the consistency you want.7. When the mixture is the right consistency, spread it onto a lined cookie sheet (I lined it with eco-friendly grease proof paper from If You Care) Flatten it with the back of a wet spoon.8. Then cut it into bars and chill in the fridge. Easy 😀 Yum 😀

More Plastic-Free Easter Eggs!

March 20, 2018

By Violet's Vegan Comics

This time it’s from good ole Plamil – and they’re shouting from the rooftops about its plastic-freeness 😀

Of course we wouldn’t be recommending it if it wasn’t also vegan, organic and fair trade, but it is, so we are 😀

We also wouldn’t be recommending it if it wasn’t absolutely scrummy. And it is 🙂 so we are!

Mmmmmm, this won’t last long 😉

Get some from your local health food shop now 😀

Plastic Free Easter Eggs

March 14, 2018

By Violet's Vegan Comics

Here is a scrummy Easter Egg which ticks all the right boxes:

VEGAN

ORGANIC

FAIR TRADE

And it’s not wrapped in plastic!!! 😀

Just a cardboard box with a delicious, foil-wrapped, chocolate egg inside. Remember when they were all like that? Not so long ago.

It just goes to show, there’s no need to contaminate the planet, milk a cow or enslave a child to enjoy a yummy Easter egg 😀

Get over to Holland & Barrett for yours! 😀

Yum 😀

Plastic Free Crisps!!!

February 28, 2018

By Violet's Vegan Comics

For anyone determined to avoid plastic, non-essentials like crisps are the first to go. But now thanks to Walkers, they don’t have to be!

Walkers have brought out cardboard tubes of crisps without even a plastic lid! The top is cardboard which is easy to peel off, so absolutely no plastic required.

So, when you’re feeling snackish and want something crunchy and savoury, grab yourself a tube of Walkers Stax 😀

[ DISCLAIMER: These are not a health food 😉 ]

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Click here for the rest of our PLASTIC AVOIDANCE TACTICS 😀

Plastic Avoidance: Part 7

February 23, 2018

By Violet's Vegan Comics

Zero Waste Club

Remember I wrote in my earlier plastic avoidance posts that it was impossible, in my experience, to get organic stuff (like sugar, lentils, dried fruit, nuts, pasta etc etc) that wasn’t wrapped in plastic? Remember I said that we’d decided we had to prioritise plastic avoidance even if that meant having to buy non-organic? Well, I’m absolutely delighted to tell you I was wrong!!!

Thanks to the Zero Waste Club (a new mail-order company in London) you can now buy all those wonderful staples organic and plastic-free 😀

In my first order I got sugar, salt, muesli and banana chips. In my second order I got popping corn, pitted dates, raisins, cashews, pasta, lentils and cinnamon, but they’ve got so much more! Nuts, pulses, dried fruit, muesli, oats, flour, cocoa, herbs and spices, seeds: check it out! They told me they’re going to get tea soon too!!!

The Zero Waste Club was set up by a couple of lads, Pawan Saunya & Rishi Gupta, who got so upset when they watched a documentary about plastic pollution in their A’level World Development lesson that they determined to do something about it. You can read their inspirational story here. Thanks to Pawan and Rishi, the rest of us ZERO WASTE WANNA BEs don’t have to miss out on pasta and dried fruit and nuts and salt etc etc in our efforts to boycott plastic, and we don’t have to compromise our organic principles either.

You can order by weight through their website and they will package up your goodies in tough, recycled paper bags (see picture at top) which you can in turn re-use, recycle and/or compost. I’m keeping mine for filling with fruit and veg peelings in the kitchen and then the whole lot can go in the compost bin. They despatch every Wednesday for a flat rate of £3.99 per order. I cannot recommend this site highly enough. It’s just so exciting when your goodies arrive!

Pop over to Pawan and Rishi’s and place your order now! 😀

2021 update:

The Zero Waste Club has stopped selling unpackaged food items and is instead concentrating on plastic-free, sustainable products like toothbrushes, razors, utensils, compostable bin liners and dog poo bags, toilet rolls, …. all sorts of things you need. They are completely transparent and show you how the items were made and by whom. Next time you need a new comb, hair band, coffee filter, tea strainer or who knows what – pop over to The Zero Waste Club and see if they’ve got one. If they haven’t, ask them to stock it in future – they’ll be eager to help you 😀

As for your zero waste food cupboard staples, I’m very glad to say that there are more and more zero waste shops springing up all over the place. Chances are there’s one near you. Google it! 😀

Click for PLASTIC AVOIDANCE parts two, three, four, five and six

Plastic Avoidance: Part 6

January 17, 2018

By Violet's Vegan Comics

Toiletries

Update 23.11.21:

You can get vegan plastic-free toothpaste, mouthwash, floss, toothbrushes – everything your teeth could ever need from Georganics, including cardboard-packaged tooth soap and refills. Check it out! 😀

Toothbrushes

According to the Australian Environmental Toothbrush website, over 30 million toothbrushes are used and disposed of by Australians annually, amounting to approximately 1000 tonnes of landfill each year. The plastic they’re made of won’t break down in our lifetime. Nor within the lifetime of our children. Imagine that on a global scale. This is what inspired a Brisbane dentist to invent the wonderful Environmental toothbrush.

Thankfully they are easy to get hold of in this country too and you may well find them in your local health food store. If not you can get them from Living Naturally (the soapnut people) and of course they sell them on Amazon 🙂 I recommend ordering a few from Living Naturally when you get your soapnuts 😉

These toothbrushes are lovely and they come wrapped in nothing but a little cardboard box. Being made of bamboo they are safely compostable if you remove the bristles – they haven’t been able to find natural bristles yet so they’re made of a BPA-free polymer, as they explain here, but still this toothbrush is far superior to one made entirely of plastic.

We use our toothbrushes for cleaning the bathroom when our teeth have finished with them.

Toothpaste

Toothpaste is very difficult to find without plastic, so let us know if you find any. We’ve just discovered Remineralizing Tooth Salve, haven’t tried it yet but it looks very promising. It’s made by Ophir Naturals and we came across it at Living Naturally. These little tabs come in a glass jar (unfortunately it does have a plastic lid) and according to the manufacturer, they enable the teeth to re-propogate enamel through the process of remineralization (you can read the scientific details here). They’re vegan, sustainable and fair trade; and their customer testimonials are very impressive. It’s quite expensive but if it does as it claims it’ll be worth every penny for what you’ll save on dental work. I’m really looking forward to trying these – I’ll let you know how we get on 🙂

post script: 10.42pm – we’ve now tried them and, well, the soapy taste is gonna take some getting used to – Miranda ate a cake afterwards to get rid of the taste 😉 – but I’m so encouraged by the testimonials on their website that I have high-hopes for their effect on my teeth and I will continue using them 😀

pps: Just wanted to add that I’m now really enjoying Ophir Remineralizing tooth salve – it’s so soft on my teeth and I got used to the taste very quickly. Unlike conventional toothpaste, this tooth salve is not abrasive. It cleans your teeth like you clean the rest of your body – with soap. And it is genuinely effective at getting your teeth back to their natural pearly colour! It’s worth noting that it’s not actually a good idea to use abrasives on your teeth too often because if you grind down the enamel you’ll be able to see through to the dentine underneath which is yellow 😀

Update:

For those who prefer the more conventional minty white toothpaste, you can buy Denttabs!

According to their website, DENTTABS Toothpaste Tablets are THE sustainable alternative to toothpaste. They are 100% plastic-free, ecological and free from preservatives, artificial stabilizers and any other unnecessary ingredients! They do a lovely job polishing your teeth once a week (if you’re using the Ophir Naturals the rest of the time) or for every day use if you prefer. They’re available with fluoride or without. Find a zero waste shop near you and ask them to stock them, or google them to find out where you can buy them online. They come in a glass jar, with refills in paper bags.

Plastic-free VEGAN floss

Georganics Charcoal Dental Floss is a natural floss made with bamboo charcoal fibre, candelilla wax and peppermint essential oil. This 30 metres floss clew is packed in a zero-waste and plastic-free glass container with a metal dispensing lid to allow you to easily cut the floss. When you’ve used up all the dental floss you buy refills to put in your little glass dispenser. We found this in Infinity Foods health food shop in Brighton so check out your local health food store and if you can’t find it there you can order it online 😀

Deodorant

We use natural volcanic alum stone instead of packaged deodorant and we get on very well with it. After washing and drying your skin, you just wet the stone, rub it under your arms and leave your skin to air dry. Rinse the stone, dry it and put it somewhere safe for next time. One stone will last for months. This really works!

Admittedly I don’t often do activities that make me sweat but when I occasionally do get hot and sweaty and have been a bit worried that I’m starting to smell, I notice a few minutes later that the smell has completely gone. It’s like the alum, which inhibits the growth of the microbes which cause the smell, takes a couple of minutes to neutralise them. So even if you get sweaty and start to notice an unwelcome odour, you’ll find that it disappears after a few minutes 😀 When this has happened to me I check my skin again at the end of the day and find it smells lovely and clean, not a suggestion of anything unpleasant. The only thing to be aware of is that your clothes may start to smell if they are in close contact with your armpits, so it’s best to wear things that are loose under your arms so that they don’t become contaminated if you do sweat. The stone will only keep your skin smelling sweet, not the fabric that sticks to it 😉

You can get the potassium alum stone from Natural Spa Supplies – and you’ll find a lot of other gorgeous stuff in their shop too. “Alum stone can also be used as a fantastic natural aftershave, ideal for sensitive skin, which reduces the appearance of shaving burn, and can help stem bleeding from nicks. Alum styptic have long been used by traditional barbers. In addition, Alum stone can also be used to relieve insect bites.” They send it to you wrapped in paper and an eco-friendly paper padded envelope 😀

For those who feel they need a little more protection, Miranda uses this in the summer when she’s cycling. She gets really sweaty and says this works brilliantly. It’s a lovely cream which goes a long way because you only need a very thin layer on your skin. Packaged in a glass jar with a metal lid, it is provided by the lovely people at Living Naturally. It comes in Rose & Lavender, Citrus & Ylang, or fragrance-free.

The curse

There’s no longer any need to use disposable products for your monthly curse – go to Earthwise Girls to get everything you need in terms of washable, reusable, organic, natural, eco-friendly alternatives 😀

Hand Creams and Moisturisers

This cream is gorgeous. It’s organic, it’s vegan and it’s the best moisturising cream I’ve found. It’s perfect for making dry skin (hands and body) silky smooth (I used it on my tattoo and it was perfect for the job), and it says on the tin you can also use it on your face. It smells heavenly and comes in a tin with a foil seal over the top. No plastic at all. You can get it from Holland & Barrett 😀

Alternatively, you can get a selection of soapnut moisturisers in glass jars from Living Naturally 🙂

Soap

For those who don’t want to wash their hair and bodies with soapnut water, Living Naturally provides lovely soap and shampoo bars. You can buy all sorts of varieties, singly or 5 at a time. If you buy one singly, it comes it a little drawstring linen bag; if you buy 5 for a little discount, they come wrapped together in a single sheet of paper.

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Click for PLASTIC AVOIDANCE parts two, three, four, five and seven 😀

Plastic Avoidance: Part 4

January 15, 2018

By Violet's Vegan Comics

Personal and domestic hygiene

Soapnuts are fantastic!

You can find out all about soapnuts here 🙂 We love ’em and have used them for years. We started using them as a laundry detergent, as directed by the vendors at Living Naturally (soapnuts.co.uk) but soon found they could serve all our soap needs. We now use them to wash the dishes, to wash ourselves, and to wash our hair.

Living Naturally Soapnuts (dried fruit shells which contain natural saponin) are a natural, non-polluting, compostable, alternative to conventional laundry detergents and synthetic soaps. No fillers, foaming agents, bleach, phthlates, phosphates or parabens.

For the laundry:

Put about 6 soapnut shells (or 12 half shells) into the little linen bag provided when you order your soapnuts from Living Naturally, and bung it into the machine with your wash. That’s it. Oh, if you’re doing a cold wash, or a quick wash, it’s probably a good idea to put the little bag of shells into a glass of warm water and let them soak for twenty minutes first. Then put the bag and the soaking water into the machine and start the cycle. When the cycle is finished take the bag of shells out and use them again for your next load. You can usually use the same shells two or three times, unless you do a boil wash. I’ve found that if I do a boil wash it uses them up. Anyway, you can tell when they’re used up when they go soft and beige, and when that happens, just bung them in your compost bin. Oh, by the way, if you don’t have a little linen bag, you can put the shells in a sock and tie a knot in the open end.

For the washing up:

Put 4 soapnut shells in a clean jar and cover them with water. Leave to soak for at least an hour, but preferably several hours. Then tip the whole jar (water and shells) into your washing up bowl and add fast flowing hot water. Look what happens:

Do the washing up 🙂 Don’t worry if the bubbles disappear while you’re doing it because you know the soap is in the water. Artificial detergents add foaming agents to make it seem soapier – don’t let them fool you. You only need as much as the soapnuts provide. We’ve even found they’re great with greasy things. You shouldn’t put anything oily or greasy directly into your water for obvious reasons, but if you wipe off as much as you can with kitchen roll, then vigorously rub a single soapnut all over the greasy surface, it will cut through the remaining grease and will be lovely and clean when you rinse it with clean water. You can put that particular soapnut into the compost, but the others in your bowl can be put back into the soaking jar and covered with water to be used again tomorrow. You should be able to use them two or three times before they need composting and replacing.

For washing hands, bodies and hair:

For this you need a plastic bottle but you don’t have to buy one – just walk down any street and before long you’ll find a discarded plastic bottle (we found these on the beach). Bring them home, wash them and stab a few holes in the lid (you can use a sewing needle for this but it’s difficult and potentially painful. The most effective tool we found was a stitch ripper).

Now, you might be thinking that the lid on the bottle in the photo looks rather dirty and unpleasant. It isn’t, it’s just a bit brown from the soapnut liquid. You can see from the bottle on the left that the shells will turn the water brown. It’s not dirty, just soapy.

Okay, once you’ve got your clean bottle with holes in the lid, put a few shells in it. For these bottles (600ml) we put 4 to 6 whole shells in. Fill it with water and leave it to stand for at least 24 hours.

When they have soaked for at least a day they should be ready to use. Put your hand over the lid and turn the bottle upside down to mix the clear water with the brown and there you have it. Tip some of the soapnut liquid into your hand, rub your hands together, rinse and repeat. You’ll probably notice it’s a bit lathery when you rub your hands together the second time. Rinse and dry. Put some more shells to soak in another bottle so that you’ve got some ready when you’ve used up the first one. If you find your skin starts to become dry after washing with soapnut liquid, just put less shells in your bottle. Adjust to the right concentration for you.

We also use our soapnut liquid for showering and washing our hair. I used to wash my hair every day but now I only do it twice a week. Be aware it might take your hair a couple of weeks to get shampoo out of its system (those products make your hair very needy) and you might have to put up with it being a bit greasier than you’re used to at first, but after a couple of weeks of using soapnut water you’ll find your hair looks and feels as soft and clean as it ever did with shampoo and you might find, like me, that you don’t need to wash it so often. Oh, I should mention that your hair won’t lather up when you use soapnut water, but that doesn’t matter. Just massage it in like you would shampoo, leave it in for a couple of minutes while you continue with your shower, rinse and repeat. After the second rinse you’ll notice that your hair squeaks when you rub it, – it’s squeaky clean.

WARNING: WHEN WASHING YOUR HAIR WITH SOAPNUT WATER, TILT YOUR HEAD BACK AND KEEP YOUR EYES CLOSED. IF YOU GET IT IN YOUR EYES IT WILL STING!!!

Don’t worry, we’ve got it in our eyes more than once and the stinging subsides after a couple of hours and vision goes completely back to normal, but still, for your own comfort, it’s best avoided 😀

So there you have it – not only plastic-free, but completely compostable when finished with. It doesn’t get any greener than that.

We’ve bought soapnuts from a couple of places but Living Naturally are the best because they don’t use any plastic in their packaging. Well, if you do get plastic outer packaging in the post from them it’s only because they’ve re-used plastic that they’ve been sent, and they do give you the option to request no plastic when you order 🙂

Check them out, they’re brilliant 😀

Multi-surface cleaner

Vinegar makes a great multi-surface cleaner – for bathrooms, toilets, sinks, windows and paintwork, we’ve used it for years. Plus, if you’ve got any black mould trying to tattoo your walls and ceilings this winter, zap it with vinegar and scrub it off. Vinegar is mild acid which can kill 82% of mold species.

It’s easy to get organic vinegar in a glass bottle with metal lid, and if you’ve got an old plastic spray bottle from a previously-bought multi-surface cleaner, then you can just wash it out, fill it with vinegar and you’re all set. Cider vinegar is just as good, but we switched to white wine vinegar because cider vinegar can leave a yellowish discolouration on white paintwork 🙂

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Click for PLASTIC AVOIDANCE parts two, three, five, six and seven 😀

Plastic Avoidance: Part One

January 9, 2018

By Violet's Vegan Comics

We have for many years tried to keep our plastic consumption to a minimum but have found it very difficult when also trying to incorporate other ethics into our shopping habits. For example – it’s pretty easy to buy loose, unpackaged fruit and vegetables if you take your own bags to the market with you, but if you want organic produce, it’s usually wrapped in plastic.

We always recycled it of course but we know that a plastic food container, because of its low melting point, cannot be recycled into another plastic food container. It can really only be downcycled into things like plastic lumber which cannot be recycled again. Glass, paper and tin cans on the other hand, can be recycled ad infinitum. Bottles will become bottles again and again; drinks cans and baked beans tins will become cans and tins again and again; paper can be recycled again and again, and eventually composted.

So, even though we were recycling, we felt very bad about the plastic in our bins. Add to that the worry that maybe the plastic being collected by the council recycling lorry wasn’t even being recycled and … well, let me explain:

I had an email a couple of weeks ago from Avaaz campaigning group saying that studies had shown that most (about 80%) of the plastic in the ocean gyres was coming from rivers in Asia and Africa. Finding it very hard to believe that people in Asia and Africa consume more plastic than people in Europe and America, I was reminded of an email conversation I’d had with someone at Waitrose supermarket. They told me that there was no facility to recycle their plastic bags in this country so they sent them to Asia for recycling.

Well – if Waitrose does it, you can bet a lot of other companies do it too, maybe even councils? And if the UK sends plastic to Asia for recycling, you can bet other countries do too. If the same is happening in Africa that would explain why 80% of the plastic in the oceans arrives there from those continents. The plastic that I diligently put out for recycling might be ending up in the ocean!

It’s all speculation but it makes a lot of sense and the only way I can be sure that I’m not part of the problem is to take control of it myself.

We now realise that the good done for the Earth in growing organic, is compromised if they wrap the organic produce in plastic. Plastic not only litters and pollutes when it’s disposed of, the very production of it is toxic since it is (usually) made from oil.

So we’re not going to pay in to that any more.

We have to prioritise plastic avoidance and hopefully these ethical companies will respond with ethical packaging. In the meantime, we’ll show you our plastic avoidance tactics.

Starting tomorrow 😀

See all our Plastic Avoidance Tactics here