For quite some time I've been a fan of trawling the "reduced to clear" shelves in the supermarkets at choice times of day. An hour or two before they close in the evening, when the items that will be thrown away at the end of the day if nobody buys them, supermarkets like the Co-op, Sainsbury's and Tesco will knock items down to a fraction of the original price. I've bought loaves of bread for 5p, bananas and apples for 10p each and other goodies for equally low prices on numerous occasions. In Manchester it's not uncommon to see people go into the supermarkets near to closing time and buy armfuls of packaged food knocked down to very low prices, and hand them out to the homeless people who beg in just about every food shop doorway in the city centre nowadays. All of this is good. Apart from the fact that anyone is homeless or hungry at all, of course.
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| Insanity. |
Anyway, the problem of food waste is a huge one. While retailers along with zero wasters, environmentalists and other enthusiasts are waking up to the issue and coming up with creative responses to it all over the place, the fact remains that billions of pounds worth of food is wasted in the UK every year, and this is still on the increase both by supermarkets and we so-called "consumers". This is the price we pay for convenience, it's completely insane, and we all know it. Let's change the world, immediately.
Another insane thing supermarkets do is sell sprigs of "fresh" herbs, wrapped of course in pointless plastic. They're products I see a lot on the reduced-to-clear shelves. Not normally the sort of thing I'd be willing to pay even a penny for, since I grow my own, but the other week the Co-op had a packet of basil ready for the bin, so I parted with 35p for it and brought it home. I wondered, could basil that had been stored in the fridge and had reached its "best before" date (whatever that means) be salvaged, regrown and returned to the soil? Spoiler alert: yes.
Basil is one of the many edible plants you can grow and keep alive in water. It's something I've done with spring onions and leeks already. (I wonder if such things can be pickled). I was curious to see what might happen to this basil, so I stuck it in a jar of water and left it on top of my oven, a nice sunny spot.
Unfortunately, most of the leaves became droopy and died. Some did not, though, and this is cause for celebration. Today I examined the sprigs that remained, and they had sprouted roots. Joy!
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| Joy |
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| Joy |
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| Joy |
I have planted these in my little kitchen garden along with the remaining lettuce from my Dad's garden this morning. The soil there is moist, so I'm hoping to see new life emerge from these once abandoned sprigs of basil. Imagine if supermarkets did that. Instead of fridges, trays of soil, bursting with edible plants. Cut, keep or insert straight into gob. Why the hell not?
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| Back to the earth |
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