Keb Mo' sings a song for Earth Day

I missed posting anything about Earth Day last weekend, though I was very aware of it for a lot of different reasons. Every day should be Earth Day, really, so it's not to late to share our feelings about our wonderful planet in different ways.

Here's Keb Mo's way. If you've never run into him before, I recommend having a listen to his other music. My best pal, Cathy, introduced me to him some years ago through his song, God Trying to Get Your Attention, and I was hooked.

But his Earth Day song this year is something else altogether, backed up with so many images of earth's beauty and her struggle against single-use plastic. I love the images of the kids doing what they can to make a difference, and though we have a long way to go, the song is brimming with hope. Enjoy!

Simple Suggestion #287 -- How to make kefir

Make what?

Kefir (pronounced kee-FEAR) is a yogurt like milk drink, slightly fermented, made with kefir grains and full of probiotics, or so I'm told. I used to make yogurt smoothies, but kefir is actually easier to make than yogurt, and I love how it tastes blended with a banana, some frozen berries from last summer, and a tablespoon of peanut butter. The banana gives it enough sweetness, the berries a bit of tang, and I just love peanut butter for the sake of peanut butter. Kefir smoothies are my daily breakfast, quick, easy, and nutritious, with the bonus of being my daily dose of calcium.

I received my first kefir culture from my L'Arche friend, Honey, in a small jar, and kept it going for probably ten years -- until the day Shadow-dog died, actually, when I used up all of my culture because I was distracted by losing him.

Running out of kefir that way gave me the opportunity to try to make it from a store-bought culture, as Honey no longer uses kefir, and I don't know anyone else who does. So I bought a bottle of it from a grocery store, the least expensive variety, and used some of it to try to make more. And voila, it worked!

Why make my own kefir? Why make my own anything? Because it cuts out packaging that clogs our landfills. If I can grow or bake or somehow make something from scratch, you can bet there will be less garbage left over. And if I'm about living simply and leaving less of a footprint on our planet, weekly plastic kefir jugs are not the way to go. It's also generally much less expensive to make things from scratch. I think I paid $6.99 for less than a litre of kefir in a plastic bottle. I can make it for under half that!

So this is how it works. For my first new batch of kefir, I filled about a quarter of my glass quart jar (pictured above) with store-bought culture and filled it the rest of the way with milk. Then I covered it with a small piece of flannel (in case of little fungus gnats who sometimes live in my house and like to unsuccessfully go for a swim). I set it on a sunless kitchen shelf, and waited for it to thicken. The first time, it took two overnights, and I stirred it to be sure it was activated when it didn't thicken quite as quickly as I expected. (Good trick to remember).

For my second batch, the thickness of the first batch convinced me that I could probably get away with using less culture, but just to be on the safe side, I used the same trick, and it thickened over night. For my third batch, I only used a table spoon of culture. It didn't thicken up over night, so I stirred it (that trick again) and waited a second night. Sometimes thickening can be slow, perhaps because the tablespoon of culture I use doesn't hold enough kefir grains, but I just give it a stir and another night on the shelf. Once it has thickened, I keep it in my fridge.

If you've never tried kefir and live in my neighbourhood, I'm happy to share some culture to save a friend from buying a single-use plastic bottle. For that matter, I'd be delighted to make you a kefir smoothie anytime!

Simple Suggestion #106... Rethink the plastic in your life

Even though Edmonton has state of the art waste management and recycling facilities that ensure that almost everything even remotely useful from our city's waste stream gets reduced, reused, recycled, recovered, repurposed and almost every other R word you can think of, I still hesitate when it comes to buying anything plastic or otherwise petrochemically-related. Plastic is becoming a problem in many places in the world, and honestly, it's not a great solution to much of anything. When something made of plastic breaks, it's pretty much unfixable (without subjecting yourself to fumes or other toxins), and let's face it... most plastic, when it reaches a certain age, tends to break.

Easily.

And often.

And then what do we do with it? In Edmonton, we can recycle most plastics, but there are many places that don't.

Besides that, the making and recycling of plastic (and other petrochemical products) requires a lot of energy (which is linked to emissions that have to do with global climate change)... If we have to live with emissions to create our dishes, storage containers, furnishings, toys, clothing, etc., why not choose more environmentally friendly and biodegradable solutions when we can, and avoid plastic altogether? Why not support our potters, carpenters, artisans, delicatessen owners, etc., who can provide us what we need without plastic getting in the way? We can also use cloth rather than plastic bags to do some of our shopping at garage sales and thrift stores, instead of supporting the consumer markets that push plastics on us whether we need/want them or not. Especially single use plastic, as you'll see in the eight minute video below.

Richard and Judith Lang are a couple of artists who do a lot of beachcombing on Kehoe beach at Point Reyes National Seashore, just north of San Francisco. They have created art that demonstrates some of the more compelling reasons to rethink the role of plastic in our lives. Check it out, and check out of plastic living.

One Plastic Beach from Tess Thackara on Vimeo.

P.S. Looking for more Simple Suggestions? Try here.