For my all time favorite which I used for a year with my son who’s prone to asthmatic attacks and is allergic to nuts and soy – RICE PRODUCTS!

Did you know rice can be used to make almost anything? Yeah, I didn’t either and I still don’t actually enjoy them but there’s rice milk, rice cheese, and even rice gluten-free, dairy-free pancakes!

I see a lot of media hype about how all food needs to be kept at a “safe” temperature. And some of these stories have made us move things like open peanut butter or open oils out of the pantry and into the fridge. But, are people going too far in their fear of food-born illness? Makes me think of the organ-transport-like rules for kids lunches discussed on Free Range kids last year: http://freerangekids.wordpress.com/2011/08/29/whats-the-difference-between-a-sack-lunch-a-recently-beating-heart/

I never peel apples, although I often quarter them, because organic apples can have critters living in them sometimes and I prefer not to eat the critter. It wouldn’t hurt me to eat the critter, but it just doesn’t taste good.

As far as refrigerating other things goes, it is often variable depending how much space I have. I don’t use a very large fridge because it has to be small to fit into my kitchen. Milk always gets refrigerated (or put on the back porch in winter) but eggs might come out if I need room for something else. Meat dish leftovers generally get refrigerated, but vegetarian things like black beans and rice might stay on the stove overnight if there’s no space.

Believe me, you had better peel that apple, or any fruit, because of the heavy use of pesticides and chemicals used.

Eating anything raw that is not peeled is throwing the dice on your health.

The rule in China is: don’t eat anything that is not peeled or cooked. Do you think things are better in other countries? Maybe…, maybe not.

http://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/2008/04/10/how-to-get-rid-of-ants-without-calling-an-exterminator/

I eat at a time when I’m hungry, not before. If I force in an early meal, I get hungry earlier and end up having to eat more later in the day. My friends at uni skip breakfast and then eat at 12:30, but my morning porridge can keep me going as late as 15:00. If I eat at 12:30 with them, I need an afternoon snack which is a waste of food and money.

In areas other than food, I guess the best way I question the norm is with transport. I stick to public transport or walking. When I lived in Zone 1 (Southwark) in London I literally walked everywhere, as far as Camden Town in the north or Brick Lane a couple of times. Now I’m a little further south (Camberwell), so I can’t really walk as much, but I did get a bus pass and avoid using the tube if at all possible.

As the door is at the top, it’s an order of magnitude more efficient than even the best front loading fridges as the cool air is heavy and it stays inside the fridge even if the door is opened repeatedly or is left open. It’d be even more efficient if I used non-cheap freezers, but either way, my power bill went through the floor and has stayed there ever since. As my hot water is gas fired, my power bill now mostly contains the daily service fee and next to no usage fee.

I now wonder whether the dollar a day service fee could be better spent on a small solar panel and battery setup.

Also keep in mind that in your own home, you’re pretty well aware how many days ago you pulled out that butter on the counter, but in a restaurant where there are many hands and many minds and not enough time in the day to communicate everything and you never know whether every person is following the rules to the letter, those items need to be stored more carefully. If the butter can be left out for a few hours with no problem, I don’t tell my employees that because “Well she said 2 hours but 3 won’t hurt…” turns into “Oops I tucked that in the corner and forgot to put it away and then I rushed out at the end of my shift and no one noticed and the next thing I knew I haven’t worked for three days and it got left out that long.” In my own home? I knew full well how long ago I got that butter. At work? I have no idea when it got left out and whether mice ran over it or if someone spilled bleach on the floor nearby in the interim. At home it just goes in the fridge–at work, it gets tossed. Different demographics.

The issue I keep running into is that sometimes food takes longer to thaw than I expect, and sometimes bad days result in not using something carefully planned ahead goes bad. I’ve gotten much better at re-evaluating the meal plans every few days according to what’s in the freezer, and using what’s available for whatever I can make when the bad days pop up. It does make for some interesting meal combinations though (red curry soup with tacos? ok then!)

And really, I just never take the time to cook the dried beans, but I CAN say they have been very useful during spells where the right beans weren’t on sale or I haven’t been able to go grocery shopping for a couple weeks. I realized one day that my food storage was moving into hoarding territory when I refused to eat the last can of black beans for two weeks because OMG what if I need it later?? We’ve been a lot more conscious about moving through it all since.