Almanac for Homemakers

Does Your Kitchen Have Two Cutting Boards? "There's a very good reason for having two cutting boards in a kitchen. That reason is one that can't be emphasized too often - the matter of cleanliness." Contamination This is a serious issue. It can happen in more ways than one. Biological Contamination This is when bacteria contaminates food. It can happen from improper hand washing or in our topic today, using a dirty cutting board. This is a good reason to have more than just one cutting board. If you cut raw chicken on a board and not property sanitize it before cutting fresh veggies, you have just contaminated your food. Chemical Contamination Kitchen cleaners are usually the culprit in the case. This is why it is very important to store all cleaning products in their own space away from any thing you may use for food. That includes pots and pans, cutting boards, plastic storage bins, etc.   Cross Contamination Let's say yo...

Why Not Make Your Own Plastic Bags? "Plastic bags are a great convenience for the homemaker these days." Plastics are great right?! You can freeze food in plastic zip bags. Put books in plastic bags on rainy days. Pack a picnic lunch. Put away leftover food. But, let us get to the title of this almanac post which suggests that we can just simply make our own plastic bags. May I introduce to you the Vintage Bagmaker & Sealer! Make a plastic bag any size and seal up plastic bags to store and protect your stuffs. Now I guess we moved away from sealers as the popularity of other plastics came about. What convenience! What innovation!  Stop the presses! For 1970 this was a big deal. However, as we matured as a civilization, we became a little more eco-conscious. We started to see how badly trash, especially from plastics, harm our environment. Just refresh your memory on the impacts of this from my Marc...

Buy Food, Not Packaging "When you set out to shop for food or home supplies, resolve to bring home as little packaging as possible." Even in the 1970's people knew that reducing packaging saves money and waste. I found an article from Zero Waste Nerd on ways to reduce your food packaging. Really it makes sense to reduce our packaging especially if you have the option to. If you can't then take advantage of recycling programs. Recently, BBC came out with article about micro-plastics in bottled water. Plastic trash is found all over the world. The bad part is that plastic takes a long long time to decompose. So all the plastic that we put in the environment is now coming back to us. Plastic found its way into our bottled water because it is in our natural water sources. It has been for a long time! Ocean, river, and lake clean up efforts have been underway since the 60's when we started seeing how plastics were effecting the envi...