Here’s a quick, no mess way to dice up an avocado

1. Cut the avocado in half lengthwise and twist the two halves slightly to loosen one half from the pit

2. Remove pit by carefully inserting knife and gently twisting

3. Cut the avocado flesh diagonally in one direction, then cut it again diagonally in the other direction

4. Use a spoon to scoop out the pieces

Here’s an ingenious way to turn trash into something useful. Guess where this beautiful pond is located?

Yup … this beautiful pond is in the trunk of an old car.

Last year this same neighbour grew a productive garden in the back of an old truck.

Happy Friday!

I call this recipe a ‘super salad’ because it’s a super way to make a quick meal out of whatever is in your fridge. Simply start with a base of cooked brown rice or quinoa and then add whatever is on hand … the possibilities are endless and changeable.

Don’t worry if there is no salad dressing on hand nor time to whip one up … a simple splash of olive oil and balsamic vinegar always works. And sometimes you won’t need a dressing at all because the blend of flavours from your ingredients happens to work perfectly … so don’t forget to taste your super salad before adding dressing.

Super salad will keep in the fridge for several days.

Suggested Ingredients

Base: cooked brown rice or quinoa

Vegetables: whatever you have on hand or feel like eating. Here are some suggestions: alfalfa sprouts, arugula, asparagus, avocado, basil , beet greens, bell pepper, broccoli, cabbage, carrot, cauliflower, celery, chives, corn kernels, cucumber, daikon radish, dandelion greens, fennel, fresh herbs, green beans, green onion, hot peppers, leafy greens, lettuce, mushrooms, parsley, pea greens, peas, radish, red onion, spinach, sprouts, tomato

Protein: quinoa and brown rice are both good sources of protein, but if you want your super salad to be more substantial, here are a few suggestions: almonds, black beans, brazil nuts, cashews, cheese, chick peas, feta cheese, grilled chicken, hard boiled eggs, kidney beans, pine nuts, walnuts

Extras: add flavour, texture, colour and interest with a few extras such as: apple, berries, currents, edible flowers, kiwi, nasturtium flowers, olives, peach, pear, raisons

Dressing: use whatever premade dressing you have on hand, or try this suggestion: splash of a good quality oil such as olive or hemp and a splash of either balsamic vinegar, apple cider vinegar, lemon or lime juice

… told you the possibilities are endless. Of course this is a non-exhaustive list of possible ingredients for your super salad. Let me know what your favourite super salad ingredients are.

Directions
1. Chop whatever needs chopping
2. Toss everything together into a bowl
3. Enjoy

To help get you started, here’s a picture of what I found to use for my super salad today. Most of the ingredients came from my fridge, but I also found some in the container garden on the patio. The picture at the top of this post is the finished salad just before I ate it.

Don’t be afraid to experiment … as long as you like all the ingredients you are putting in the super salad, you won’t go wrong.

I still have a couple of weeks to go before I finish my 30 day No-Food-Purchased-In-Plastic experiment and I’m in a pretty good rhythm with my purchasing habits. There are a couple of products that I have run out of and not replaced because it isn’t convenient. Its really just a matter of getting myself organized with some clean empty jars kept handy with my cloth bags. That will be my project for this week.

I’m only doing this experiment for 30 days and it only applies to the food that I purchase.

Can you imagine going a whole year without purchasing anything except the absolute necessities? Well, believe it or not, Jen, Grant and Rhyannon did just that http://cleanbinproject.com/theproject/and the great part is they documented their year and are in the process of packaging it into a film. You can see the trailer here: http://cleanbinproject.com/the-film/

And over across the ‘pond’, Mrs Green and family have been “making our world a cleaner place” by reducing their household waste and blogging about it at MyZeroWaste.com. Each week they weigh how much garbage they send to the land fill and over the course of a year have compiled an awesome repository of information about reducing, reusing and recycling.

These are just two examples of wonderful people taking responsibility for their personal consumption by embracing a low crap lifestyle.

Low Crap Diet is about so much more than just what you eat. When you get real about what you eat, you begin to truly understand how everything affects everything else. The only way to create change in this world is to challenge our own habits, assumptions and “normalized behaviours”.

So whether you want to lose weight, heal disease, live longer or run a marathon, embracing a low crap diet is a great place to start.

I’ve gone six days of my no-food-purchased-in-plastic experiment and I survived the weekend quite well, thanks in part to the fact that my fridge was well stocked when I started the experiment … and I ate a couple of meals at friend’s homes.

The only money I spent on food this weekend was to support my whole-milk-latte habit … neither organic nor particularly healthy … but always in a reusable mug.

I’m beginning to quite like that expensive mug I purchased a few days ago.

I did run into a plastic dilemma at a party Saturday night. There was tons of amazing home made food served on paper plates and only plastic forks available for use. I thought I had put a fork into my purse earlier in the day, but when I went to look for it, it was no where to be found. So I stuck to the finger food … actually I pretended everything was finger food and nobody seemed to care.

The week ahead should be interesting because I am almost out of a few ingredients that I like to have on hand that I have never seen sold in non-plastic containers. I’ll let you know how that goes.

And before I go, I’d like to tell you about something very cool that is happening in my kitchen as I type.

Earlier today I decided I would make hummus dip from scratch and started soaking the garbanzo beans (aka chickpeas) in water in a large pot. The beans had been soaking several hours when I returned home from running an errand. I sat down at my desk to write this post and kept hearing a popping sound coming from the kitchen. Puzzled, I went to investigate and sure enough it was the garbanzo beans popping away as they absorbed the water. They have swelled up so much that the pot is almost too small. Some of the beans have even started to sprout and they taste delicious … like fresh pea sprouts.

Right now the thought of cooking those popping beauties and turning them into hummus seems downright cruel. I think I’ll be having sprouted garbanzos for breakfast.

I’ve had more than one person tell me that they don’t use reusable cloth bags for their groceries because they like to receive the ‘free’ plastic grocery bags to line their kitchen garbage can.

They say it saves them having to purchase plastic garbage bags.

I used to do the same thing, and when I started using reusable cloth bags regularly, I had a supply of plastic grocery bags for my garbage that lasted me for almost a year.

At first when I realized I was running out of the bags I was perplexed. How was I going to take out my garbage? Those plastic grocery bags were perfect for the kitchen garbage because they are just the right size, and you can tie the handles neatly together to make a tidy little bundle that gets thrown into the bigger garbage bin that the big noisy truck conveniently takes away for me every week.

Out of sight … out of … hmmmm

So I set about rethinking this age old habit. And let me tell you it was a bit of a challenge. Finding a new way to deal with the garbage was easy. Establishing a new habit took a bit more work.

I started by examining what I wasn’t throwing away … anything reusable, recyclable, or returnable.

Then I examined what I was throwing away: all those little bits of plastic food wrapping that are virtually impossible to avoid; the plastic strip security thingys that wrap around bottle and jar lids; the odd miscellaneous wrapper; meat wrappers and trays; food gone bad that is non-compostable and too big to flush; used tissue and paper towels (these would be composted if I had a bigger composting system); other ubiquitous bits and pieces of single use stuff.

Those things add up to about the equivalent of one plastic grocery bag full every week. Not much in the grand scheme of things, but still I am just one person on a planet of almost 7 billion who are also throwing away a bag or two each week.

Most of what I am throwing out is dry, so why do I need the plastic bag to hold it all? The bag does make it more convenient, but its really not necessary. So I bravely tried my first week with no plastic garbage bag liner.

The first hurdle came after I had finished washing the dishes. I drained the sink and automatically scooped the yucky stuff out of the sink drain and almost put it into the unlined garbage basket. I stopped myself in time, thinking what a mess that would have made.

Then I stood there with the guck in my hand wondering what to do now? I decided to throw it into the composter. Hopefully a little environmentally safe dish soap won’t harm the worms.

Phew … that’s one habit confronted.

The next challenge came after I purchased chicken breasts sold on a Styrofoam tray, with a plastic absorbent pad. (I know … that was breaking my own rule about packaging, and one of these days I’m going to confront the meat manager at my local supermarket.) But … back to my garbage story … I knew that if the raw chicken juice/blood soaked packaging sat unwrapped under my sink for more than a few hours the smell would be impossible to live with. So as soon as I had the chicken safely sizzling away on the bbq, I ran the container straight outside to the big giant garbage bin.

Inconvenient? Yes. But then change always is.

I pressed on.

I was now in the habit of running out to the bin and upturning the wicker basket every two or three days, usually as part of my cleaning up the dishes chore.

But there inevitably came the day when I was in a hurry and I was confronted with rethinking the “taking out the garbage on my way to work” habit. What was I to do with the empty wicker basket? I didn’t have time to run it back up stairs. I was walking to work and didn’t want to carry the basket with me all over town. So out of desperation I put the empty basket in my car and retrieved it when I got home. That worked perfectly and it has become a new habit.

Its been over a month since I stopped lining my kitchen garbage basket with plastic and so far it has been working very well.

Perhaps one day the kitchen garbage can itself will be ancient history.

Remember that pineapple I bought last week. It wasn’t ripe when I bought it, so I let it sit on the counter for a few days. On Friday I realized that it was ready to eat, but I wasn’t ready for it, so I put it in the fridge to slow down the ripening process.

Today was a hot sunny day in Calgary and I spent some of the afternoon helping friends plant their garden and the rest of the day trying to catch up on the little chores that didn’t get done last week.

Late in the afternoon I started to get hungry so I did what most people do …. opened the fridge and stared … hoping that something quick, tasty and nutritious would appear to eat.

That’s when I saw the pineapple … patiently waiting to be chosen … knowing its days were numbered before it would be too ripe to eat and end up whole in the composter. What low crap food wants that fate?

“Perfect!” I said. “Fresh juicy pineapple for dinner. What could be better?” I contemplated making it into a shake with some nuts for protein; or mixing it into yogurt; or putting it on a salad.

But by the time all those thoughts went through my head I had already cut off the bottom and was enjoying the first piece … heaven … low crap food at its peek of perfection!

According to Low Crap Diet’s mission: I need to question everything; take nothing for granted; eat sacred cows (poetically); compost century old habits; seed revolutionary idea; and grow action from within.

So tonight I challenge the centuries old habit and sacred cow of Sunday Night Dinner. Who says Sunday Night Dinner has to have a certain amount of this or that or be covered in sauces or fussed over all day?

Go ahead … eat a pineapple or any other fruit this Sunday night for dinner … it will only take seconds to prepare (just wash and cut) and seconds to clean up.

My grandmother may be turning over in her grave at the very thought of Sunday night dinner without roast beef, mashed potatoes and cherry pie. Sorry Grandma … change happens … and there will be another Sunday next week …

Do you ever really think about how organic fruit begins?

You might have visions of a peaceful serene orchard brimming over with picture perfect produce.

Well I have a treat for you … a rare peak into just how much love really goes into your food.

Take a look at this video of apricot trees being pruned at Abbott Acres in Cawston, British Columbia. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzswr8n_ysA

Unfortunately YouTube has censored the music that was playing on the satellite radio that was sitting beside the camera. So you have to imagine Mick Jagger crooning through the first half of the video in the classic version of “Miss You”

“I’ve been holding out so long; I’ve been sleeping all alone; Lord I miss you; I’ve been hanging on the phone; I’ve been sleeping all alone; I want to kiss you … “ 

The second half of the video is another classic, “Once in a Lifetime” by Talking Heads.

“And you may find yourself living in a shotgun shack; And you may find yourself in another part of the world; And you may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile; And you may find yourself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful wife; And you may ask yourself-well…how did I get here? …”

Who says you have to be a Zen master to be a farmer. This video shows that farming might just be the hippest job around … and I can guarantee that those ‘cots are going to be the grooviest ‘cots you have ever tasted. Yako has promised to keep us updated with juicy shots as those apricots get ready for harvest later this summer.

Sending out a special hi-five to Tammi, Ted and Yako, and all the other organic farmers, for doing what you do.

I’ll be checking in with Tammi and other organic farmers over the summer to help us all get back in touch with low crap food.

For a month this past winter I lived out of a suitcase while touring through the Yucatan and Belize. I loved the simplicity of it all. I only had a few outfits to choose from: two pairs of shoes, one pair of pants, one pair of capris, a few t-shirts, a dress, a couple of skirts, one sweater, and of course a bathing suit.

The weather didn’t change much from one day to the next, and since I was on vacation my clothing decisions were pretty easy to make. Every item of clothing worked with each other and all of the items were well suited for life in hot, humid climates.

I arrived home in early January to sub-zero temperatures and lots of snow, which one could expect in Calgary in January. But what I didn’t expect was the confusion I faced when trying to decide what to wear. Out of habit I went to my still unpacked suitcase and realized that none of those clothes were appropriate. So I opened up my closet and stared blankly at its contents. So much to choose from … oodles of pants, shirts, blouses, sweaters, dresses, skirts, scarves and … socks … remember socks?

It was all too much. I grabbed a blanket and lay down on the couch hoping that the sound of waves breaking on the beach would awaken me from the nightmare. Unfortunately it was the itching of a day old mosquito bite that brought me back to reality. 

I forced myself back to the closet and began trying on item after item after item; carelessly tossing the rejects on the floor. Eventually I made it outside that day, appropriately dressed in my most fashionable ‘holy crap its really cold outside’ clothes.

So what does all this have to do with a low crap diet? Well, when I came back home that night the pile of clothes was still on the floor and I noticed for the first time that my closet was spilling over with items that I would probably never wear yet for some reason I allowed them to live with me, taking up valuable space and wasting my time. I had a high crap wardrobe!

Right then and there I decided to turn my closet into a suitcase … metaphorically of course. I wanted to feel that same confidence when I opened my closet as I did when I opened my suitcase: every item appropriate, comfortable and gets along with each other … I wanted a low crap wardrobe!

The exercise of clearing all the high crap clothing out of my closet has me thinking that I will apply the ‘pretend you’re living out of a suitcase’ technique to every aspect of my life.

I’ll keep you posted on how that works for me.