A Broth By Any Other Name.....

Wow, this whole recycling thing is confusing, but I'm starting to get the hang of it.....maybe.....I think. A friend did correct me on bottles, at least here locally. Bottles can be clear, brown, green or blue, remove the lids and rinse out, but you don't have to take off the label anymore. Good news for my wine bottles!

I made potato soup Saturday and bought a couple of cartons of organic chicken broth. I know there has been a question about the possiblility of recycling them. I saw on the lower back of the carton it did say "Recyclable" but...only where facilities exist. It gave a website, recyclecartons.com, where you can check to see if facilities exist in your area. I checked but none exist in my area as of now. So now the question remains, do I keep buying that brand of broth with wasteful packaging, or buy broth in cans which can be recycled, or do I make my own homemade broth and eliminate having any kind of packaging at all??  I like making my own broth, it's fairly easy and tastes a lot better, but man, that packaged stuff is a lot more convenient!

But then again, I haven't seen any organic chicken broth that comes in cans. If anyone has seen any let me know. When I make homemade broth, I only do it with an organic, pastured raised bird, free of hormones, chemicals and has been raised the way God intended, on pasture, eating bugs and some grain,  like they are supposed to. Affordability keeps me from buying that kind of chicken all the time, I wish I could, but if I'm going to make broth, that is what I use.

So do I buy a broth that I don't really want in order to be able to recycle the can, buy the organic broth in a box that I can't recycle, but that I feel better about or always spend the extra money and buy the organic bird and make my own broth?  Of course, there is always bouillon cubes, but I've never used them and I'm not quite sure it would be the same and I think there may be a lot of sodium in them.

The dilemma here is, for instance, if the store that has organic chicken broth in a can is, oh say, ten miles away, is it more sustainable to drive the ten miles, put more carbon emissions in the air in order to recycle the can. Or, go to my usual store that I can walk to, buy the boxed broth, walk home, get some exercise and have the healthier broth? For me, I will go for the second choice.

I will sacrifice recycling the cans in favor of cartons of broth and making my own. But on the plus side, I have upped my other items that I put in the bin. I never did wash out plastic cooking oil bottles, seemed like a lot of trouble, but I'm doing it, the box that my laundry soap comes in, I'm now recycling. Before, I just threw it in the garbage instead of bringing it up from the basement....my own laziness. So I think I am still doing a lot better than before. I think it's a matter of doing a little more eveyday until it becomes a habit. I do know that my bins are filling up faster than they use to.


Kathy