The Green touch

Here is a very smart tips from a friend of my mother's.   Source photo © La Fée Crochette Yoghurt is a product widely consumed in France, and sold in individual pots. Instead of just throwing them out after use (those small pots are not reclycled in France), she keeps them in a separate bag and when she has a certain number, she piles them up and then throw them away. By doing so, she saves space and uses fewer waste bags; it's important because in France, or at least where she lives, you have to pay extra taxes above a certain number of bags per month. Even if we don't pay extra taxes here and we can recycle yoghurt pots, it still has a great ecological interest: you can transport more yoghurt waste this way - fewer trucks are needed -, and then save petrol and carbon emissions. It's especially important since plastic collected in blue bags in Tromsø is send to Germany to be recycled ( more info here ). Think about it! *** F...

You have some bread left but it's a bit too dry for your taste. Just save it, and when you have enough you can make "pain perdu", which means "spoiled bread". For about 8 not-too-thick slices of dry bread 2 eggs 2 dl milk 3 tablespoon sugar butter (for the pan) 1 - Mix eggs, milk and sugar 2 - Put the bread slices in this mixture. 3 - When they have soften, melt some butter in the pan, and put the slices in it. When it's brown from both sides, it's ready! Eat them with extra sugar on top, or jam, or whatever you can think of. You can cook the rest of the mixture in the pan, as a sweet omelette. Bon appétit!

Today I made a cauliflower "gratin", with an organic coliflower from France (yeah!). It's not always easy to buy seasonal vegetables ( calendar for Scandinavia ) here, especially in winter so I try to at least buy european veg and fruits (short distance transportation). I used this recipe (French) but used one cauliflower only and ate it by myself. Here is what they say for 6 people: 1 kg cauliflower 30 + 40 g butter 30 g de flour 40 cl de milk 2 yolks 100 g cheese 50 g breadcrumbs nutmeg salt pepper 1 - Cut the cauliflower, wash it and cook them in boiling water (+ salt) for 15 mn. I always cover the pot; then low heat is enough. Drain the cauliflower NB: I should have cut it in smaller pieces or mash it afterwards. 2 - I reused the same pot and made a bechamel sauce: - Melt some butter - Once melted, add some flour until you get this consistency: - Add milk, little by little, until the sauce is homogenous and...

The honey jar is finished and what's left it's too sticky to collect (or even to wash). Why not pouring boiling water and infuse some tea in it? It will solve both these problems, and you won't waste a drop of honey!

When cooking fish sticks in a pan, no need to add oil or butter. There is already some fat in the breadscrumbs, so if you cook the sticks at low heat (4 maxi) and cover it, it won't burn in the pan. When I see my rice is almost ready, I turn the sticks, and turn the heat off. I have a vitroceramic cooktop so with the residual heat it slowly finishes cooking.

Initially published on 12/02/2012 Valentine's day coming soon. Whether you celebrate Lovers' day on February 14th or not, the best gift ever to your loved one is quality time togheter. Here are some ideas of "time" you can offer: - a massage! with oil (organic kitchen oil can do the trick, provided it does smell too strong) or without, sensual or not - a dinner for two, you cooked yourself with love - anything you know your loved one would love you to do You can either offer - and put into practise - those present on the D-day, or choose to offer a kind of voucher book, useable later in the month or year. For example: - a kiss after a fight - a massage, again - a strip tease, why not - the right for your boy/girlfriend to have you tried on the piece of cloth he/she wants in the shop he/she wants. Can be both fun and exciting - anything you can come up with This kind of gift is based on mutual trust and respect and that's ...

Initially published on 6/02/2012 This is the perfect week to use the tips I am going to give you today, wherever you live in Europe: France too for example is experiencing very low temperature, below zero, at least at night. Put a bottle of water outside. When it's frozen put it in the fridge.The electricity required to keep it cold inside will be reduced. I'm pretty sure it's worth it doing it all winter long here (and god knows the winter is long in Norway ;) ). Source: untrucparjour.org

Palm oil has very severe consequences on the environment. Since it's mainly produced in Asia it has quite a carbon footprint, but more than that it is an important cause of deforestation. Huge parts of the rainforest are destroyed to make way to palm plantations. And this has a strong impact on global warming; deforestation is indeed the second main cause to global warming . Destroying the forest  means also the destruction of one of the richest habitats on earth regarding living species . And if that was not enough, palm oil is unhealthy and can increase cholesterol. The problem is that it is present in many food products and until now it was not possible to know which product was palm oil free or not (even if "vegetal oil" was suspicious enough). The new palmoil guide launched  - in Norway - by Regnskogfondet og Grønn Hverdag makes it easier: http://gronnhverdag.no/nor/Palmeoljeguiden To go further, you can also sign their petition , so t...

EDIT November 30th, 2022: Hi there! I published a newer version of this article on my new blog, thegreentouch.net . Check it out!     Bonne année! Godt nytt år! A good resolution for 2012 would be to write more on this blog (and find a job, but that's another question), especially because I have many things in mind. A topic I should definitely develop is home made soap. Remember? I started in June because I was looking for laundry soap, ecological and palm oil free and I didn't find any in Norway; that's why I started to make my owns. And I liked it so much that I decided to make more, to use in the shower and to offer. Here are some of the soaps I gave away for Christmas. And speaking about, I whish I had had time in December to tell you about my Christmas philosophy. I know it's a bit late but it somehow applies to birthdays too. What I don't like about Christmas is that it is so materialistic! It's like you're forced t...

Initially published on 2/10/2011 For a few weeks I've had some time to cook desserts in the afternoon, especially egg creams with vanilla taste.  After trying our French version of custard (we call it "English cream"), I made a " crème brûlée " yesterday. I did not use any vanilla bean, imported from over the ocean, neither artificial vanilla sugar. I replaced all the sugar of the recipe by my vanilla-perfumed sugar I mentioned here , and I must say I am pretty satisfied with the taste, almost like real vanilla! I also made meringues, not that it required a vanilla taste, but it was just a way to not waste the egg whites. The good part about it, is that both recipes cooked at the same temperature and almost at the same time (what an optimal use of energy!) And now the recipes, in the order you should make them! Crème brûlée (original recipe from marmiton.org) - 3 eggyolks - 1 dl (full-fat) milk --> I actually put 0,2 dl (see ...

Initially published on 30/09/2011 Yesterday, I made a delicious potato gratin (yes it was!). It was totally worth it, but then, having to wash this (see picture) is a bit less nice. Especially because I know it will make my dishwashing brush greasy, and with many residues stuck in it. And I will have to waste a lot of water to get it clean again. But I found the trick (thanks again untrucparjour ! You see this special material, like a net, used to wrap potatoes, lemon, onions? If you use it as a sponge it will easily prewash the dirtiest dish without harming them.And if it (the net) is really too dirty to use it again, just throw it away!

Initially published on 21/09/2011 Have you ever seen the movie Recipes for disaster ? This is about a finnish family who tries to live without petroleum and products made of it: no more gasolin, plastic package (probably the hardest part), etc. The problem is that petroleum is a very small part of the picture and some efforts they make, like using biofuel or buying some kind of carbon offset to compensate their carbon-emitting electricity, are counterproductive. The worse to me is still the father's conclusion: "it's impossible to live without petroleum because you cannot replace toothpaste"... WRONG!! And maybe he thought he was only talking about plastic but the paste itself contains petrochemicals. Another good reason to prove him wrong. Our current toothpastes did not exist a century ago. They actually appeared at the same time as dietary excesses and food with a high rate of sugar. Extra fluor toothpastes were made to compensate ...

Initially published on 23/08/2011 You're concerned about environnment, lucky you, dishwashers use less water and electricity than hand washing: hand washing with open tap can make you spend up to 100 liters water! To sum up dishwashers are more ecological... depending on what you use as a cleaning powder, which necessarily has to be strong enough to compensate mechanic action. These chemical products that replace the movement on your arm can be very polluting and end up in the environment. That is why it is important to choose your powder carefully. You can find "svanemerket" products but as many ecological products, this has a cost. Here is a solution, based on this kind of powder, but that you will need in less important quantities. It is a recipe I found on the French blog http://untrucparjour.blogspot.com/ : - 30% krystall soda (supermarket) - 30% sodium bicarbonate (natron) ; if someone knows where to find it at a reasonable price... ...

Initially published on 24/06/11 In my previous article I explained what my favorite ecological washing liquid was (soap) and how difficult it was to find it (soap). That is why I decided to make my own soap, but you can use any soap for this recipe. It is a good way to use soap leftovers, which are too small to be used easily, but you need a certain quantity. The soap (if you have one already, skip this paragraph) Making soap requires some precaution as it is made with sodium hydroxide (same as for lutefisk, NaOH). You can use alreaydy made soap for the laundry liquid. I may have the occasion to speak further about the process as I'll have more soaps to show within the next months :) I made mine with olive (75%) and rapeseed (25%) oil. It might be interesting to use other cheap food oil but I don't know about their efficiency. I heard that lard (spekk) was even more efficient to wash clothes. If you make your own soap for the body, and ...

Initially published on 22/06/11 Why make your own washing liquid?  Conventionnal washing liquid, even with eco labels, are not judged satisfactory: - you don't know exactly where all the ingredients come from, maybe all from differents place. The more ingredients you have, greater the chance is at the cumulative carbon foot-print of all the transport of ingredients is heavy - if you buy a washing liquid, even ecological, you also buy plastic with it (which makes the footprint heavier) - Do you know the criterias of the label you chose? Is it strict enough? Is your vaskemiddel really biodragradable in water? © Dailyllusion When it comes to ecological (clothes)vaskemiddel, there are two schools: soapnuts and  Marseille soap . They both contain surfactants and are biodegradable in water. Surfactants acts as detergents - they pull fat out of clothes or skin -  and are also contained in ordinary washing liquid. If you want to understand how, wiki...

Initially published on 14/06/2011 Use soap! I mean soap in bar. Contrary to shower gel, soap often comes unpacked or with very few plastic or paper. So right from the start, soap produces less waste. And also, soap lasts much longer: one single soap is equivalent to at least 4 shower gel bottles! Not surprisingly, shower gels generates tons of waste a year! And soap is also cheaper in this regard. It is a bit harder to replace shampoo so I recommend The Body shop shampoo and gel since the try to produce package with as less plastic as possible. Their Rainforest label products are also biodegradable in water, which is not the case for most gels, contrary to soap. Think also about big bottles: in proportion it uses less plastic than small bottles. Drop throwable q-tips This kind of Q-tips is more about pushing the dirt further, according to me. That is why I rather use something to remove it. With this kind of thing you can (gently) scrape the inside of...

Initially published on 8/06/2011 Today I wanted to tell you about what helped me to reduce (or suppress) my biggest source of waste.  Each woman uses about 10 000 tampon or sanitary towels in her life. It's a lot of waste, of money but also of pollution if you include the production of those sanitary protections.  A menstrual cup or "menskopp" in Norwegian is a feminine protection that you place in your vagina so that it collect the menstruation blood. You just have to empty it -  which is not as disgusting as one could think - twice a day and reuse it again and again. Environmental-friendly  When I first heard about the menstrual cup, it was completely - accidentally - on a forum that was not even dedicated to it. I already cared about environment at the time but I had never really thought about this, or neither knew there were other solutions. I immediately liked the concept, especially because there was no waste anymore, at all! ...

Initially published on 24/05/2011 I usually bring food from home at work (not in matpakke paper which is a waste but in a plastic box). Not something I prepared on purpose but leftovers from the day before's dinner. Yep, inFrance, every meal is "middag", as I understood it meant "warm meal". I think I just found where I would buy my lunch in case of "no leftovers": Coop and Ica in Tromsø sentrum offer "salad bar". You take a (throwable plastic) box, fill it with whatever you like and then pay the price per (kilo)gram. The more you fill, the more you pay. It's 129 kr per kilo at Coop (the one by Stortorget) and 119 at Ica. Cheaper then, but not that different. The food is basically the same: paprika, pasta salad, corn, cucumber, ham cubes, feta (Oh yeah!!:)) and so on. The advantage when you are not a big eater is that you really eat what you want. I paid 30 kr which I think is quite cheap (I don't ...

Initially published on 22/05/2011 I felt like showing you these documents. I found the first one on vegetarisme.ch For each type of diet, it gives you the equivalent in driven kilometers, for a year. Bio = organic food Conv.--> conventionnel = ordinary. First diet is without meat and dairy products, second is without meat and last one, with meat and dairy products. This one was published by ADEME (French environment & energy agency) and is about the quantity of carbon dioxyde produced for each kilo of meat. I guess that methan is not taken into acount here. However livestock and especially beef are responsible for a very important part of the methan emissions by mankind in the world. The good point with this document is that it makes me feel good to be fond of bacon rather than beef. But let's not hold out too much hope: concentration of animals has serious consequences on environment, at least because of the excrements and what they c...