Frugal Living vs Extreme Frugal Living

Frugal living - making beans on the stove top. Extreme frugal living - making beans in a heatless cooker.

One search phrase that leads many readers to this blog is "extreme frugal living". I am not sure that is what I am doing here, but it is alright with me to be associated with such a concept. I am happy to have visitors that are looking to become more efficient in their use of Earth's gifts.

It is not surprising to me - everything has to be "extreme" these days in order to capture people's attention. The unwritten motto is, "Anything worth doing, is worth doing to the extreme". So you get extreme pretty much anything.

I am not sure what the exact difference is between frugal living and extreme frugal living, except the later must somehow be more frugal than the former. Maybe it is an ego/competition thing.

"I am frugaler than you are."

"No way, dude. I am the frugalist."

Frugality kind of seems like being pregnant. Either you are, or you aren't. However, it is hard to fault someone for wanting to continually improve their practice of living more lightly on this planet.

In trying to understand what separates the merely frugal from the more extreme variety, I share a few ideas that came to mind.


Frugal living is cutting your own hair.

Extreme frugal living is cutting your wife's hair.


Frugal living is buying discounted food.

Extreme frugal living is dumpster diving.


Frugal living is biking everywhere.

Extreme frugal living is walking everywhere (or deciding that there is nowhere to go because you are already where you need to be).


Frugal living is sleeping in a van.

Extreme frugal living is sleeping in a box car.


Frugal living is wearing the same clothes for a year.

Extreme frugal living is wearing the same cloths till they are threadbare, then making paper out of them.


Is it frugal living, or extreme frugal living? Or just being sensible? It depends on who you ask. Plus, what used to be the way we did things has become the new frugal as we adopt increasingly luxurious ways of living.

Darning socks? Once common, now frugal. Or even extremely frugal.

Either way, the more careful we are about spending money or using resources when not needed, the better it is for everyone.

Zenful Living

“Knowledge is learning something every day.
Wisdom is letting go of something every day.”
- Zen Proverb

For me, simple living is zenful living. Through it I hear the sound of a quiet life, a quiet mind. It provides me with all the good things that money can not buy. Peace. Enjoyment. Fulfillment.

Zenful living is being fully in the only time frame we have right now - the present. It is allowing each moment to unfold untrammelled by external forces. It leads naturally toward thrift and frugality.

Emulating nature, I am using just what I really need. Not only for basic survival, but also allowing for a satisfying, meaningful life. I am learning to live with an amount of consumption that is socially, environmentally and spiritually responsible. I am learning what is enough for me.

I have time to go for frequent walks in the woods, and while I stroll under the canopy of leaves I am a forest hermit. Listening. Watching. Being.

Simple living is conducive to mindful living, which leads one from bondage to freedom. It is liberating to feel content and whole while living on little.

This is why I will continue to live a simple, Zenful life.

Frugal Heaven or Consumer Hell?

A little slice of heaven close to home.

It's official - planet Earth is done. The only heaven we have ever known has been despoiled. And its angels now have claws where we once had wings.

James Lovelock puts our biosphere's predicament very bluntly in his book The Revenge of Gaia: Why the Earth is Fighting Back – and How we Can Still Save Humanity.

“If we continue business as usual, our species may never again enjoy the lush and verdant world we had only a hundred years ago. What is most in danger is civilization; humans are tough enough for breeding pairs to survive....but if these huge changes do occur it seems likely that few of the teeming billions now alive will survive.”

How bad do things have to get before people will voluntarily adopt lifestyles that the planet can support?

Scientists are letting us know that we are currently in Earth's sixth mass extinction event. They are also telling us that we are the cause. We are wiping out our Eden.

Ultimately, our desire for more and faster everything may lead to the demise of our own species.

The good news (yes, there is still some of that) is that those scientists agree with Lovelock and think that there still might be time to save Gaia. But if there is, they say, that door is quickly closing.

I look forward to the day that we close the door on conspicuous consumption, one of the major culprits in the current extinction event. Eventually it will be as socially unacceptable as other harmful, life-threatening practices, like throwing your feces into the street.

From the sounds of things that day will be coming sooner rather than later. Then we can work together to restore Earth to the divine status that it so richly deserves.

But there must be a sense of urgency.

The choice has to be made now. Part of the solution, or part of the problem. Live simply in a frugal heaven, or consume our way to a somewhat lower, hotter location.

Beautiful Resistance

Beautiful resistance is everywhere because it is the natural response to harmful people and practices.

The capitalist consumer model is a monolith that will not easily be brought down. Over a long enough time frame it will be the author of its own demise, but if we wait that long we are sure to be brought down with it. 

I do not expect the collapse of consumerism in my time. It could take several generations for this behemoth to be overcome, or die a natural death. 

But that does not mean we can't chip away at it a little bit each day with every decision we make. Any time we choose to increase our own freedom and self-reliance can be an act of beautiful resistance. 

For me that means living a frugal, enjoyable lifestyle without most of what others take for granted. 

It means cooking all our food from scratch, and only driving when necessary. It means conserving resources, planting a garden and learning new skills. Boycotts and divestment can be personally satisfying and are powerful agents of change. These moments feel good.

Beautiful resistance happens with each decision that removes our support from a harmful system bent on planetary destruction. It is the natural response to harm, and while it may not topple the whole heap tomorrow, it will make it wobble and lurch closer to its ultimate demise. 

What forms of beautiful resistance do you prefer?

What Not To Buy Today

Do I really need another cutlery organizer? Does the world?

Hmmm. What not to buy today? The possibilities are endless.

I am always coming up with new things not to buy. I derive as much satisfaction from this as more consumer-oriented individuals do in shopping for the same items.

The difference is that they have to pay money for the things, then have to find somewhere for the things to go, then must care for and maintain the things, keep the things safe from theft, and eventually properly dispose of said things.

I like to skip all of that and see what I can do with the resources I have around me. A small example would be not buying a plastic cutlery organizer after our move to the Maritimes. Since I have always had a plastic cutlery organizer in a drawer in my kitchen, it seemed natural to buy one here.

Free cutlery organizers.

So much of what we buy seems natural since it seems like "everyone" has one. But not everyone in the world finds couches, cars, and coffee tables natural. Many do without... and are still happy.

The thing I am doing without today is a plastic cutlery organizer. Instead I am using two glass jars I salvaged after eating the peanut butter inside.

And as I cook I am finding having utensils at hand on the counter is preferable to having them hidden inside a drawer.

Most often the best alternative is to not buy anything.

Save With DIY Foaming Soaps

My home brewed foaming soap refill.

I wash my hands a lot. In order to reduce the impact on my epidermis I have been trying different kinds of soap. Only recently did I try foaming soap for the first time, originally thinking it kind of gimmicky. But I can see that they are on to something with this newfangled foamy fun.

The foaming soap I purchased from the store lasted a long time and was easier on my hands than the bar soap I was using previously. It is also less messy and easier to dispense.

Then I discovered that you can refill a foaming soap dispenser with your own home brewed ingredients. Wanting an inexpensive, gentle and easy refill soap,  I decided to go with a generic baby shampoo.

But even with baby shampoo one must be on the lookout for harmful chemicals. A quick search led me to some of the worst offenders that often hide in soaps and shampoos, even those marketed towards defenceless, innocent little babies.

Potentially Harmful Soap Ingredients to Avoid

- phthalates
- parabens
- fragrance
- PEGs
- Sodium lauryl and laureth sulfate (SLES) and (SLS)
- triclosan
- methylisothiazolinone

Making Foaming Soap For Refill

The most important thing to have first is a foaming soap dispenser. It makes the magic. Just buy a foaming soap you like, then when it runs out use the dispenser for your own home made product.

All I did was fill my empty dispenser one quarter full with baby shampoo. Then I carefully topped it up with water avoiding making bubbles by filling very slowly. After inserting the pump, I gently agitated the liquid until it was fully mixed.

That is it. Ready for use. So simple and frugal. And easy on my manly hands.

Then I found out that using foaming soap can also save a great deal of water. If you don't use water first to work up a lather, but only later to rinse, you can save up to 45% of the water used with bar or liquid soaps.

You can save with DIY foaming soap. Save money, and save water. Plus foamy cleanliness is more fun. Just watch out for those nasty chemicals on the label.

Chipotle Baked Beans

There are few dishes that can be made that are as easy, delicious, nutritious, and frugal as baked beans. And with evenings getting cooler, they are the perfect comfort food.

Linda and I recently had a beautiful afternoon cooking together and adapted a recipe we found here to make a nice spicy, tomatoey baked bean.

In order to make them vegetarian we replaced the bacon with extra smokey chipotle peppers, and the chicken broth with veggie broth.

Ingredients

1 chipotle pepper roughly chopped, more to taste
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 large yellow onion, chopped
1 can tomato paste
1/2 cup light brown sugar
2 tablespoons molasses
1 teaspoon dry mustard
1 tablespoon vinegar
6 cups cooked white beans, or 3 (15-ounce) cans white beans rinsed and drained
1 cup veggie stock
Salt and pepper to taste


Method:

Preheat oven to 325°F.

Cook onions in oil until translucent and soft, 5 to 7 minutes. Stir in tomato paste, sugar, molasses, chipotle pepper, mustard and vinegar until well combined and cook for 1 minute. Add beans, broth, salt and pepper and stir gently to combine.

Cover tightly with a lid or foil and bake for 1 hour. Remove lid, add more broth if needed to moisten beans and continue to bake, uncovered, until top is browned and bubbly, about 30 minutes more.

Nutritional Information:

Beans are good for you and your food budget. High fibre, low on the food chain. Eat with a slice of bread or other grain for full protein benefit.

Free Wi-Fi Security

Free Wi-Fi is becoming more popular, but such networks
can have their drawbacks.

The last time Linda and I lived out of a van about the only place that had free Internet access was the local public library. How things have changed since then.

On this trip I have been able to communicate with friends and do posts for my blogs right out of our van, and for free. Access has never been better. By 2009 North America was already home to nearly 83,000 free Wi-Fi access points. Many points are provided by businesses.

I don't want to do any advertising for the corporations that provide free Wi-Fi to get more customers in the door, but will direct you toward popular fast food establishments or coffee shops. Often the connection can be established in the parking lot, so you don't even need to go in for a glass of water.

Municipalities are also getting into providing free Wi-Fi access, and I will share a link to those, starting with Canadian and American communities. Europe has even more than we do.

Municipal wireless networks for North American and the rest of the world can be found by clicking here.

While free Wi-Fi is nice, it does have its drawbacks. Knowing a bit about security can help. The following tips are from a post on public computers and free networks.

• Don't connect to a public wireless network unless you know who the provider is. Be especially suspicious of "ad hoc" networks (this type may also be labeled as an "Unsecured computer-to-computer network").
• When in doubt, ask someone what the name of the network is before connecting (especially if you see networks with names like "linksys," "hpsetup," "netgear," "tmobile," "default," etc.).
• A wireless network is more secure if it uses encryption, preferably WPA or WPA2 encryption. (To use a "secure" network you will have to enter an encryption key the first time you connect to it.)
• By their very nature, public wireless networks are not secure. There are security risks even if you are using a "security enabled" network that uses encryption.
• Your information is not protected while using wireless networks. Don't use public wireless for business or financial transactions.
• If you see a wireless network named "Free Public Wifi" in your list of available networks, you should never connect to it because of potential security risks.

If used cautiously these Wi-Fi access points can be useful and fun. And free.

Growing Without Buying Monday

I rescued this passionately purple plant from an eroded area down the beach

There is no end to the ways a person could spend money on gardening. Who wouldn't want to buy everything when looking at garden advertising? However, if one is patient and resourceful growing plants can be done without buying anything.

My patio is full of greenery, most of which I have acquired for nothing. Containers, soil, plants, some seeds, soil-enriching compost - all free. Gardens are, by nature, joyfully abundant places and gardeners are usually the type to share the bounty of their green spaces.

It took three years before this plant flowered for the first time this spring

 For me growing things is a form of moving meditation. When I attend to my plants I am completely absorbed by being with my green, growing relations. That I have been able to indulge in this health-promoting activity without buying anything makes it all the more challenging, and satisfying.

Strawberries were left by a previous tenant, and the fall crocus bulbs were a gift from a neighbour

Now I am in a position to pay it forward and I share my greenery with whomever wishes to profit from nature's abundance and do some growing without buying. And what can you expect?

Free, happy flowers, free, frugal food, and a healthier outlook on life.

"Gardening is a labour full of tranquility and satisfaction; natural and instructive, and as such contributes to the most serious contemplation, experience, health and longevity."  

- John Evelyn

Waste Not - Mesh Produce Bag Pot Scrubbers

I sometimes buy oranges in red plastic mesh bags.

Then I eat the oranges. Yum. Tasty sunshine, water, vitamins and minerals from California.

Back in the old days, I would dispose of the empty mesh bags.

Regulation pot scrubber

Then I would go to the store and buy pot scrubbers.

Until, that is, I noticed that the red mesh bags that I was disposing of looked an awful lot like the pot scrubbers for which I was paying good money. All of a sudden it felt like a waste to dispose of red plastic mesh bags, then go and buy red plastic mesh scrubbers.

It was an epiphany, albeit a small one. "Henceforth," I decided in a sudden fit of frugality, "I will make my own pot scrubbers."

I thought I was being quite creative, but now I see that converting plastic mesh produce bags into pot scrubbers is a fairly common project on simple/frugal/green living blogs. Something else I could see is that everyone else ended up with better looking pot scrubbers than I do.

Homemade pot scubbers that look way better than mine

The first time I converted a mesh bag to a pot scrubber I used needle and thread to make a more secured, uniform product that resembled the store bought ones. Lately, in my efforts to simplify further, I just wad up the mesh bag in my hand in total disregard for pot scrubber etiquette.

The dirty dishes don't notice my messy, non-conventional scrubbers, and they get pots just as clean as the proper looking ones.

If you are interested in not buying pot scrubbers ever again, but like the look and feel of the puffy round ones, check this website that gives an excellent explanation of how to do it properly.

If not, wad 'em up and start scrubbing, saving money, and wasting less resources.

Or if you have a dishwasher, think about using old produce mesh bags as handy reusable produce bags at the grocery store instead of using the film plastic bags for your fruit and veggies.

Do it yourself reusable produce bag

Comfortably Contained In An Alternative Home

Shipping Containers, Chris Jordan, 2007. Detail of picture representing the 38,000 containers  
 processed through American ports every twelve hours.

Shipping containers carry everything from shoes to wheat. 10,000 of them are lost at sea every year. They are the strongest modular structures in the world, and they make great homes.

Shipping containers revolutionized the freight industry in the 1950s. They standardized the loading, transportation, and storage of goods, and slashed the price of shipping by 90%. Global trade was revolutionized as the ease and efficiency of containers moved goods cheaper and quicker than ever before.

It is no coincidence that consumerism rose in prominence along with the shipping container. It is unlikely that the shopping frenzy for cheap goods could continue without them. Big box stores would become little box stores in no time.

Often it is cheaper for shippers to buy new containers than pay to return the empty ones. Now containers are available across the globe making them an accessible, low cost raw material for building alternative, affordable, and attractive housing.

In recent years a new form of architecture has emerged that uses containers as the basis for designing structures of all kinds. One useful site is the Residential Shipping Container Primer. It describes itself as:

"A do it yourself reference and architectural design service for converting recycled intermodal cargo shipping containers into green homes, buildings and architecture. Includes built project examples, details, plans, techniques, videos, and more."

Altering containers for habitation can be done easily, and previously used standard sizes can be bought for about $1,200 dollars or less. Since they are designed to fit together, connecting containers to build larger spaces is simple.

Example of Container Home

Many people are doing innovative things, converting containers to homes. I came across a nice set of photos showing the complete process of converting two containers into a sensible, snug little home.

Plan using two 40 X 8 containers

Containers joined and set on site, with awning and ready for conversion

A well-stocked pantry is essential...

... as is a place to cook and eat good food.

A repurposed bureau made into the bathroom vanity

The finished container house makes use of an earth berm along the back side

To see the full photo set of this project check here. 

Give A Dr. Seuss-Approved Gift: A Library Card

If you are giving gifts this holiday season, consider one of the most valuable (and often free) gifts one can possibly give - a Public Library card.

A library card is the perfect gift for all ages. Introduce someone you know to the magic of libraries, and the magic of books and life-long learning.

You will be making sure they have unlimited access to reading, knowing, learning, and growing.

Author Penelope Rowlands shares her thoughts on the importance of libraries, librarians, and books.

"Like every author I know, I became a writer through reading. I spent my childhood supine — on the floor of my room or under a tree in country summers — endlessly absorbed by words on a page. I think it's safe to say that I wouldn't have become a writer without free access to a library, whether at school or in the neighborhood. To enter one was to arrive at a feast. I hauled bags of books home in triumph. To this day, I patronize — and treasure — my local library. I think of it as a sanctuary, a respite from isolation, and I value the easy access to librarians, with all their perspective and advice."

Give the gift of libraries, books, and reading to someone you love. Oh, the places they will go.

Cold Water Flats

New York Cold water flats, Will Eisner

"I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked,
dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix,
angel-headed hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night,
who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high sat up smoking in the supernatural darkness of cold-water flats..."

So begins Allen Ginsberg's epic poem Howl, his wild poetic record of the military/industrial complex steamrolling over everyone, and everything in its path. But it is also an ode to freedom and happiness, and the sacrifices that must be made to realize them. Sacrifices like going without toilet paper, or new shoes, or living in a flat without unlimited running hot water.

Ever since reading Howl I have been taken by the idea of cold-water flats. It is difficult for most of us in developed nations to imagine living in a home that does not have full time running hot water, and where the bathroom is a small closet with just a toilet in it. Not only do today's huge homes have ample supplies of hot, running water, but they also often have a separate full bathroom for every person in the family.

In most industrialized countries, cold water flats are (officially) illegal. Along with their passing went a whole way of living frugally and appreciating the little things in life. I am not romanticizing the 'good old days' - life in a cold water flat would be challenging at times. However, it is entirely possible to live in such simple surroundings and still be happy.

An ex-tenant of a cold water flat remembered his experience fondly:

"My mom bathed us once a week whether we needed it or not. Because we were small kids, my two sisters would bathe at the same time, and then I would be bathed in the same water because it was still warm. We tried to use as little gas as possible with the water heater....anyway, my sisters didn't get very dirty in those days.

We had an ice box and bought ice from the ice man for 15 cents or so.  The ice lasted a couple of days.  When we got holes in our shoes my mom would line the inside of our shoe with cardboard to cover the hole until she saved enough money from her tight budget to buy a new pair for us. We never considered ourselves poor." - source

Perhaps we were happier in cold water flats than we are today in 3500 sq. ft. designer homes. Back then 'sacrifice' was not necessarily seen as a bad thing. It was good, character-building stuff to "give up, abandon, relinquish, let go, do without, renounce, forfeit, and forgo" certain decadent luxuries. How things have changed.

People no longer have an appreciation for the simple things. That has been replaced with high expectations, pampered entitlements, and an acquisitiveness formerly only seen in insane monarchs with delusions of grandeur.

Only a few decades ago we experienced more happiness with less stuff. We must achieve that state again, and soon. Currently it is a race between epidemic levels of depression and environmental/financial/social collapse, as to what our ultimate demise will be.

We need to get our bloated expectations in check, and relearn the lean-living, frugal ways of our grandparents and great-grandparents. We may find we are happier in the end.

Give me a cold water flat over a mini-mansion any day.

Peas Be With You

Perfect peas in my patio container garden

When Buffy Sainte-Marie wrote, "God is alive, magic is afoot", she was probably thinking about a vegetable garden. If she was thinking about a particular vegetable, I am sure it was peas. No vegetable more exemplifies a garden for me than peas picked right off the plant, whether they are shelling, snap, sugar or snow peas. Pick them - eat them - magic.

This year we planted snap peas in our patio container garden. There was at least one good thing about our late summer - the long, cool, wet spring weather provided ideal conditions for growing peas.

After an early trimming by foraging Sitka deer, the peas flowered prolifically with economical, small white flowers. Soon mini-pods were poking out, and before long dangling green shells of perfection were hiding among the vines, each one a happy discovery of deliciousness.

After a couple of harvests, and with the promise of several more, I looked at the snap peas in the grocery store. They were in sad cellophane packages squished flat, and the pods looked lifeless. When I picked them up, instead of hard and crispy, they were rubbery and limp.

It looked like the long voyage from a field in China had taken its toll. Now the snap peas were nutrient-deficient, drained of magic, and expensive. "God is dead here", I thought as I put them down.

Growing a garden over the years, whether large or small, has provided some of the best evidence that "God is alive, and magic afoot". This year's crop of sweet, crunchy, nutritious (and darned near free) snap peas reconnected me with the miracle of growing my own food, and the satisfaction of picking peas off the vine instead of off the boat from the other side of the world.

Peas be with you.

I Cut My Own Hair

Do you cut yours?

I cut my own hair again. Most people would consider that in the category of frugal living, or more than likely, just plain crazy. But for me it is fun, free, liberating and empowering.

I did the deed on a day I had a headache, and I think that helped. I felt like cutting out some of that negative energy, and my lengthening hair was the perfect target. It had been wanting cutting for some time.

I was not attached to a particular outcome as I stood in the bathroom with the scissors poised and threatening. I just wanted to have shorter, neater hair, without making an appointment, going for the haircut, then paying precious dollars for it. I looked in the mirror and started hacking.

This is the third time I have self-coiffed. All I do is pull my dry hair up away from the scalp between two fingers, then cut a few centimeters off right above the fingers and hope for the best. I repeat this around my head, trim around the ears and bangs, then clean up my neck with electric clippers. It was all over in about 10 minutes and it felt great.

So how did I make out? Well, my partner in simple living tells me I did a fine job (I think she is being sincere). She said that the back was cut straight across, that I had used the clippers effectively to clean up, and that the overall effect was 'acceptable'. That seems hard for me to believe, but she has since gone out in public with me so she might actually be telling me the truth.

This is not completely surprising since before we started doing our own hair cutting we did research at the public library. We borrowed some resources that covered basic hair care to get us started, and discovered that we already owned everything we needed as far as tools were concerned (sharp scissors, comb, spray bottle to wet hair, electric clippers, sheet).

We also discovered that it is fun to thumb our noses at fashion and take charge of our own 'look', if you can call it that. It might also be fun to one day get proficient enough to be able to cut other victims people's hair. It would be a great skill to have as one could use it to barter for things. I wonder if I would need malpractice insurance?

"Will cut hair for food." Any takers out there?

Alternatives To Coffee: Indian Chai Tea

A Delhi Chai Wallah serves up India's favourite hot beverage

As competition for increasingly scarce resources grows, and we continue to gorge on what is left of our ravaged planet, commodity prices are spiraling off their graphs. This includes the price of the world's favorite caffeine delivery system - coffee.

The price of coffee, although dropping a bit recently, is up 52% for the year. It is set to increase another 50% over the next 365 days. What is a thrifty hot beverage lover to do? How about an exotic, less expensive alternative?

Coffee price change over the past year

Since quitting coffee last year, one alternative in particular has found its way into my diet. Not only is it extremely yummy, but it also elicits wonderful memories of India.

Indian Chai Tea Recipe

While in India ten years ago, coffee was not common, so Chai Tea was the hot beverage of choice. I came to love it and all its unique, spicy goodness. Now, every time I have a steamy cup I am transported back to cafes, chai stalls, wandering sacred cows, and sunsets over the Arabian Sea. Tranquility soon follows.

There is no need to buy expensive pre-made chai mixes or syrups. To make a simple, delicious Chai Tea at home, this recipe will do the trick. I have been perfecting it as preparation for a future career as a Chai Wallah.

5 cups          water
5 bags          black tea
10                whole cardamom
5                  whole cloves (or 1 tsp powdered)
5                  black peppercorns 
1 tsp             cinnamon (or 1/2 stick)
1 tsp             nutmeg (grated or powdered)
1 tsp             ginger (powdered, or piece of fresh)
2 tsp             vanilla (optional)
to taste         sweetener (I use 1/3 - 1/2 cup of sugar)

Add water to a suitably sized pot and bring to a boil. As water comes to a boil add all the other ingredients. Simmer covered for about 5 minutes. Warning: your home will smell distinctly exotic during this process. Take off burner and set aside covered to steep for 15-20 minutes.

After steeping take the tea bags out. Mix (in cups or a separate pan) equal parts of chai tea mixture and milk. Be careful not to pour the spices in, too, although a cardamom pod gives your cup a nice touch. Heat for a minute or two in a microwave oven, or in a small sauce pan on the stove top. Enjoy.

Left over chai can be strained and poured into a glass jar to be refrigerated for later, and can be served with milk over ice for a spicy cool drink.

Who knew quitting coffee could be so good? Escape the high price of coffee, and try chai tea.

Beanalicious Bean Broth Gravy Recipe

I don't care what it's been, what is it now?

When my dining partner and I started moving away from a meat-based diet, gravy dropped off the menu. But we like gravy. Yummy, yummy gravy. It is near the top of the list of comfort foods, and is an essential part of the northern winter diet required for putting on an insulating layer of fat. Besides, how else can you eat all those potatoes down in the root cellar?

For minimal meatists and those aspiring to reduce their foodprint, this gravy is not based on a dead bird or hunk of cow, but on the cooking liquid from preparing dry beans. Because of this it is also a very frugal menu item as it uses a resource that more often than not gets wasted.

Bean cooking liquid, bean broth, or bean 'juice' as we appetizingly call it, is rich in nutrients. When made into a sauce it is beanalicious. The following recipe is based on one I found in Laurel's Kitchen for Soy Gravy.

Although that recipe uses soy beans, I have made bean gravy using the broth from cooking several different kinds of beans. Soy broth makes excellent gravy, but so does the juice from pinto beans, kidney beans, white beans, and black beans. Garbanzo bean (chick pea) broth is not recommended for gravy.

Bean Gravy Recipe

Ingredients

1/4  cup        oil
1      small     onion diced small
1      clove     garlic crushed
1/4  cup        whole wheat flour
2      cups      bean cooking liquid
2      tsp        soy sauce or Bragg
pinch            one or more seasonings: chili powder, thyme,     black pepper, salt

Preparation

1. Preheat a saucepan or cast iron fry pan over medium-high heat. If you wish, toast flour in the dry pan for a couple of minutes, remove then set aside. Sauté the onion and garlic in the oil for about 5 minutes. Stir the flour into the onions and cook for two minutes. 
2. Add the bean broth and whisk to mix everything to a smooth consistency. 
3. Add soy sauce/Bragg and other seasonings to taste.
4. Cook on low heat for about 20 minutes to deepen flavours.
5. Cook to desired consistency (add a bit of water if too thick).

Serving Suggestions

As mentioned previously, bean gravy is made for mashed potatoes. We also use it for other dishes. Add corn to the gravy and have it over a bowl of brown rice. Thicken gravy and serve it over whole wheat toast. It is excellent served over split home made cheese scones.

Give Beans A Chance

If there were ever a time to channel your inner hippie, grab a big bag of beans and try some vegetarian cookery, now is the time.

Beans are one of the most nutritious and versatile foods known to the human race. They may also be the most misunderstood and maligned.

Most people in the meat-centric world know beans as the magical fruit that makes one toot, or they may associate beans with poverty. Either way, many steer clear of this healthy, frugal, and sustainable food source. The lowly bean just can't get no respect.

It must be some sort of meaty conspiracy with meat merchants planting misinformation that goes viral, eventually to become an urban myth that supports their fleshy agenda.

Take the case of a 'news report' of a man sleeping in a small, poorly ventilated room gassing himself to death with his own flatus. As the story goes, he ate a lot of beans and cabbage. However, researchers looking to dispel flatulent fallacies tossed this story in the methane myth bin.

It is true that as one increases the consumption of beans they may make you toot. This is due to components of beans interacting with your unique digestive system. However, after your body adjusts to the glories of the magic bean, the effect diminishes for fart-free fun with this most sensible of foods.

Beans vs. Meat

Meat production is one of the most environmentally damaging activities humans engage in. It consumes enormous amounts of energy and other resources, including rain forests being destroyed to make way for more livestock. Growing and killing meat animals accounts for more greenhouse gases than the entire transportation sector.

"It takes up to 16 pounds of grain to produce just 1 pound of animal flesh. It's shockingly inefficient to feed plant foods to farmed animals and consume their flesh rather than eating the plant foods ourselves."

"The world's cattle alone consume a quantity of food equal to the caloric needs of 8.7 billion people—more than the entire human population on Earth."

From:  http://www.goveg.com/environment-wycd-footprint.asp

Western Diet Syndrome causes a wide range of ailments resulting from a diet heavy in meat, fat, and processed foods. This includes diabetes, stroke, heart attack, metabolic syndrome, colon cancer, cardiovascular disease, irritable bowel syndrome... and the list goes on. That alone is enough to drive a person to beans, farts or no farts.

"People should eat according to the dietary guidelines for Americans, which is a diet rich in plant foods. I don't oppose meat, but they should consume red and processed meat once or twice a week, not once or twice a day." - Dr. Steffen

With advice like that coming from the medical field, it is time to give meat a miss, and beans a break. Not only are beans healthy, but they store well, can be purchased in bulk, and often at a discount. And there is more - beans can be used to make very tasty dishes.

When cooking dry beans, planning ahead is of the essence. It is going to take about an hour on the stove top, and several hours in a slow cooker. Pick through your beans - they come straight from the fields, tiny rocks and chunks of dirt and all. After picking through, rinse. You can cover beans in water and soak over night if you want. This will reduce the cooking time and, some say, the farting fun. Drain when ready to cook.

Place rinsed beans in a pot and cover with water up till 2.5 cm (1 inch) above the top of the beans. Bring to a boil and boil hard for a minute or so, then turn to simmer. Cook until tender (should be soft enough to squish a bean between your tongue and the roof of your mouth). DO NOT throw out the liquid after. The boiling water is nutrient rich, and makes an outstanding gravy.

I will be posting some recipes for bean dishes in the coming weeks. Two of my favourites are bean gravy, which is so much better than it sounds, and mexican refried beans that I eat by the litre. Our refried beans taste better and are so much less expensive than any canned varieties we have tried.

The much maligned and ignored bean. If only John Lennon had favoured them rather than peas.

Give beans a chance.

Change In Money Consciousness Required

We have grown use to abundance in the developed world. An abundance that has failed to make us any happier. All our big pile of cash has got us is record levels of depression and an environment falling apart at the seams. So why are so many people continuing to spend?

We need a radical change in how we make and spend our money. If more is not working, we should try less and see what happens. It seems counter intuitive, but it may be that the best thing that could happen to us is having less money to spend.

My favourite financial guy, Garth Turner, recently posted on his blog The Greater Fool: "The recession we thought was behind us is actually reappearing, and it will take a serious attitude adjustment on the part of many to survive." Ouch.

In 2008/09 household wealth was evaporating faster than a puddle of alcohol in a heat wave, and people were thinking about changing their financial attitudes and habits. Some actually did. For example, there are groups dedicated to not buying anything new for a period of time. Most members find they get hooked on their new simple life and never go back to shopping. But they are a rarity.

John Michael Greer, author and cultural critic, noted that changing our relationship with money is not that popular, despite the proven dividends it would pay:

"The problem is that the changes in consciousness that would actually do some good are changes that next to nobody in the industrial world is willing to make: for example, a shift in priorities that deliberately embraces poverty, accepting a rich personal, intellectual, and social life as a substitute for, or even an improvement on, the material extravagance that the industrial nations currently offer their more favored inmates."

We are our own worst enemies when it comes to cash. In our pursuit of more we open ourselves to the 'Wealth Effect'. It states that people will increase spending as household net worth increases. And this in spite of 88% of us thinking that life is overly materialistic. Net gain? Zero.

Other people are shifting the way they think about work and money. The ship is slowly turning back toward our frugal roots. The wealth effect works in reverse, too - the less wealthy we feel, the less we will spend. Perhaps being less wealthy is the answer then. Make less, spend less, live more. This is the new money consciousness, and it just may save our sanity and our environment.

Greer gives hope by reminding people that the "change in consciousness is certainly accessible to each and every one of us". However, "it requires a rare willingness to step outside of the approved habits and ideas of modern industrial cultures."

We can be brave, and step away from habits we know to be harmful. We can quit spending. We can stop the futile attempt to prove that money can buy happiness. A better, more simple, sustainable life lies ahead, and we will be happier for it. But it will require a change in money consciousness, and for some of us, a radical change.

My Square Inch Garden

Although apartment-dwelling has the benefit of sharing heat and land, garden space is a rarity at most buildings. Certainly it is where I live. I have tried to promote gardening on site, but to no avail. So armed with what I had on hand, and a desire not to buy anything, I started my 144 square inch space-reduced gardens. (Or 1 square foot, or .1 square meter)

My patio is shaded for most of the day, and is exposed to relentless winds coming off the ocean. It is not the best situation for growing copious amounts of food. That is not to say, though, that nothing can be grown. Witness above our efforts at providing a bit of fresh food.

My project started with two shrinking potatoes sprouting eyes. Previously I had rescued several garden containers from the recycling area, and now with my spuds in mind I took a walk down the beach. I accessed a spot where topsoil had fallen from the eroding land above. I carried a few buckets of rich, free soil home and plunked the potatoes into the 1 square foot container. Much to my surprise the potatoes came up.

Feeling bolstered by my potato experiment I transplanted another square foot of edibles. It is amazing the things that people throw out - herbs for example. We rescued several herbs from certain death due to neglect and wound up with oregano, mint, chives, and parsley. These were replanted in their new home. All of the herbs survived through the mild winter last year, and are again providing fresh highlights to many meals.

The potatoes did amazingly well, and we harvested and enjoyed four meals of fresh potatoes in the fall. The two potatoes destined for the garbage were converted into fresh food using free plants, containers and soil. The bounty of nature is inspiring. It gives and it gives, even in my square inch garden.

The other day Linda pointed out that the space-reduced garden matches our calorie-reduced diet. Fewer calories - smaller garden. Maybe small can be beautiful once again. We will let you know how our sprouted kidney beans make out this year.