One of the things that can help to increase sustainability is simplification. For example, simplify the food chain by buying direct from a local producer and you can reduce food miles and keep money in the local economy.
Something that has been niggling at me for ages is what I spread on my bread. Although lactose intolerant, I can eat dairy in the form of butter or margarine in small quantities and do use it on toast and sandwiches; plus Mr Snail-of-happiness is not lactose intolerant, so we’d use it anyway. Because I like to be able to spread the stuff, we have been using a dairy-based margarine that can be used straight from the fridge. However, it contains lots of things:
Vegetable Oils (31% Seed Oils), Buttermilk (27%), Salt (1.7%), Cream, Emulsifiers (E471, Sunflower Lecithin), Natural Flavourings, Colour (Natural Beta Carotene)
And I’m wondering whether those vegetable oils (although not hydrogenated according to the manufacturer) include palm oil – I think they probably do, as I know they did in 2010. Anyway, all those ingredients must require lots of processing. What I’d really like to do is to have spreadable butter, preferably produced locally and organically. This also makes sense in terms of health benefits, since recent reports suggest that unprocessed fats, like butter, may well be good for the heart.
I was delighted, therefore, to come across a blog post a couple of weeks ago that seemed to offer the solution… a simple way of storing butter at room temperature, but without it being exposed to the air: a butter bell. It’s a French idea, involving a thing like a large egg cup that you fill with butter and a container into which you put water. The egg cup thingy is then inverted into the container of water so that no air can get in and, hey presto, you can keep your butter for several weeks at room temperature. I just had to have one:
Butter bell without butter
Add water to one half and butter to the other
Invert the butter bell and lower it into the water container then keep at room temperature for spreadable butter that won’t be tainted or go off
Sadly I had to buy a mass-produced one, because I just couldn’t find one from a local potter and I wasn’t clear enough about the design before I had seen a butter bell for real to be able to commission one to be made.
There is a slight problem at the moment, in that it’s not very warm in our house, so the butter in it is not very spreadable. I’m sure that it will function well for much of the year and I’ll just have to find it a slightly warmer spot for it to live (top of the fridge?) for these chilly months.
The Snail of Happiness 