Bailee Bee! – Page 7 – A Sustainable Family Blog

Preserving Local Culture

I’m originally from New Mexico. If you should know one thing about New Mexicans, it’s that we take great pride in our chile products. In fact, the state question is “Red or Green?” referring to whether people prefer red or green chile on their food.

An Essential Warm Weather Treat

Spring is here!

Now that the weather is getting warmer, I’d like to share my kids’ favorite warm weather treat, and how I make it low waste. This treat reduces food waste in our home. It also helps me to feed my kids more whole, plant based foods while limiting single use plastic packaging. And the treat is: smoothie pops!

Running the Dishwasher Half Full

Last week my family came down with a nasty tummy bug. It was bad. My husband says he doesn’t think he’s been that sick in over twenty years.

Food resilience

I’ve heard for years that more people should be supporting local farms, but it just never made much sense to me. People claim that we should do this because getting food locally reduces emissions from transportation, but the truth is that transportation of food only accounts for 4% of the total emissions from the food industry. So buying local to reduce the impact of my food by less than 4% was not a motivating factor.

Preparing for the Future

I mentioned in a previous post that I saved some money on my groceries in January and February of this year. Now it’s time to reveal how I spent that money. We used it in two ways:

Hand Pies and Getting Creative in the Kitchen

There’s an amazing group in my community that works to reduce food waste. We gift unwanted food for free to other members so that that food will be used and not wasted. I picked up a box of food from one of these offerings and inside was a container of berry pie filling. It’s not something I would typically buy, and it was far too sweet to use in most dishes. Being determined to use the food and not waste it, I decided to make hand pies.

Pantry Challenge

This year I participated in the #threeriverschallenge that Three Rivers Homestead organizes over on YouTube. It’s a challenge to use up odds and ends in your fridge, freezer, and pantry, and make sure to eat the food in your home rather than let it go to waste. There are no definite rules for this endeavor, but it’s a way for people to challenge themselves in a way that makes sense for them. The challenge organizer is a homesteading mother of 7, and she doesn’t go to the grocery store at all for the months of January and February. I, on the other hand, went to the grocery store several times but only purchased fresh fruits, vegetables, and milk for my children.

Some Tips I Helped Put Together

The more I blog the more I realize I have to say. It’s an amazing development. But before I wrote on this blog I helped Emma from The Simple Environmentalist put together this selection of tips for new or expectant parents/caregivers. Enjoy!

Let’s talk about food

I envision this blog being about many things, but my primary focus will be food. Why? Because while swapping to something like a bamboo toothbrush is a great way to cut back on waste when it’s replaced 2-4 times per year, food is a choice we make several times per day, every day. Meals, drinks, snacks, desserts… they all have an impact, and we have the ability to make that impact smaller while still eating healthy and delicious food.

My Why

I’m not a very public person, but I am a very thoughtful person. I think a lot about the world, its problems, possible solutions, etc. but I struggle to share my thoughts openly with others. The problem in this is that I have a lot of valuable information I would love to share with people who are interested that goes unshared. I’ve struggled in the past with feeling like I need to do things perfectly, but as a recovering perfectionist, I’m doing my best to accept that imperfect can be better than perfect; I’m working on embracing the fact that trying and failing is an important step in the process of growth and change. It’s because of all this that I would like to take you along with me on my journey as an imperfect environmentalist with a low waste family.