Going Glass and Cleaning Cupboards

One of the things I've been trying to do in the past few months is to be more conscious of our consumption, and how it effects our health. I was raised to be conservative out of necessity--things like paper, water,  electricity (or solar power) and more were in short supply where we lived.  I have continued to be relatively conservative in my adult life. Since having a child I have become more concerned about what we're eating, what is going into our bodies, and what we are wasting. As most of you know we switched to cloth diapers. This was for economic, health, and eco reasons. When Shane started to eat solids we started to eat a lot healthier, and although we are not yet where I'd like to be I have made large improvements!  The other thing I've been trying to tackle slowly is the use of plastics. Plastics, even when BPA free, still contain chemicals that can leach into your food especially when heated. And since I haven't yet become hippie enough to give up my microwave, I do a lot of heating food in containers! But glass is expensive, and so I've been trying to replace things slowly. The first to go was my plastic water bottle. Ever noticed how water tastes funny after it sits in a plastic bottle for a while? Yeah. I switched to stainless steel, and have my eye on a neat glass one too.    Then this week I found some pretty glass containers to start to replace all my little plastic ones. I use these all. the. time. for leftovers, lunches, freezing portions to eat later, etc. I believe the lids are silicone, but they don't touch the food or go in the microwave so I'm not too worried about them.  And look what pretty colors they are! The bright colors make me happy every time I look in my lid drawer.

The other thing I've noticed as I've come into the second trimester is a marked return of energy, praise God!  This weekend I was able to tackle the much needed project of cleaning and re-organising my kitchen cupboards. This is my "pantry", right next to the fridge. All of our food goes in this cupboard and it was kind of a jumbled mess, especially the spice area on the bottom left.

For the grand total of $1.34 I bought two perfectly sized little while baskets to organize my mess of spices/baking supplies.  I always think of my SIL Andrea when I look at my spices because we shared a house for a while, and when we moved in she took one look at my spice collection and asked if I was Betty Crocker or what? It still makes me laugh years later.