How, Why, and When to Create Compost from Kitchen Food Waste
Composting is one of the most effective ways to reduce food waste, enrich your soil, and contribute to a healthier planet. By turning your kitchen scraps into nutrient-rich compost, you not only reduce landfill waste but also create a natural fertilizer for your garden. Here’s everything you need to know about starting your own compost at home.

Why Compost?

1. Reduces Waste: Around 30% of household waste consists of food scraps that can be composted rather than sent to landfill.
2. Improves Soil Health: Compost adds essential nutrients to soil, improving its structure and moisture retention.
3. Lowers Carbon Footprint: Organic waste in landfills produces methane, a potent greenhouse gas. Composting helps prevent this.
4. Saves Money: Instead of buying chemical fertilizers, you can create your own nutrient-rich compost for free!

When to Start Composting?
The best time to start composting is now! Whether it's summer, winter, or any season in between, composting can be done year-round. The decomposition process may slow down in colder months, but your pile will continue to break down over time.

How to Compost Kitchen Food Waste
1.  Choose Your Composting Method:

• Outdoor compost bin: Ideal for those with a garden or backyard.
• Indoor compost bin: A great option for apartment dwellers.
• Bokashi composting: A fermentation method that works well for all types of food waste, including meat and dairy.
• Worm composting (vermicomposting): Uses worms to break down food scraps into rich soil.

2.  Collect Kitchen Scraps: Keep a compost bin or container in your kitchen for easy collection of food waste. Suitable items include:

• Fruit and vegetable peels
• Coffee grounds and tea bags
• Eggshells
• Stale bread and grains
• Nut shells

Avoid composting meat, dairy, oily foods, and processed items unless using a specialized system like Bokashi.
 
3.  Balance Greens and Browns: Composting requires a balance of:

• Greens (nitrogen-rich materials): Fresh food scraps, coffee grounds, grass clippings.
• Browns (carbon-rich materials): Dry leaves, cardboard, shredded newspaper, sawdust.

 
A good mix (about 2-3 parts browns to 1 part greens) ensures proper breakdown and prevents odour.
 
4.  Maintain Your Compost:

• Turn the pile regularly to aerate and speed up decomposition.
• Keep it moist but not soggy – like a wrung-out sponge.
• Watch for smells – if it stinks, add more browns; if it’s too dry, add greens and water.

5. Harvest Your Compost: Depending on conditions, compost is ready in 2-6 months when it becomes dark, crumbly, and has an earthy smell. Use it in your garden beds, potted plants, or mix it into soil for healthier growth.
 
Start Composting Today!
Composting is a simple yet powerful way to minimize waste and nourish your plants. Whether you have a large garden or just a small balcony, there’s a composting method that fits your lifestyle. Start today and turn your food scraps into gold for your garden!
 
Geraldine Fitzpatrick

I recently tried the Clearspring Hot & Spicy Miso Soup Paste and absolutely love it. It's delicious, packed with rich umami flavor, and so easy to make - just add hot water to the sachet, give it a stir, and enjoy. It has just the right amount of heat to warm you up on a chilly day, making it a perfect quick meal or snack.

I always love checking out your new product section and discovering hidden gems like this. Keep up the great work! Review by Charlotte
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Pancake Tuesday is coming up soon.
 
Sunday brunch is a tradition in our family, almost as much as Friday pizza nights. Our children are now nearly grown up, so they are not often at home on weekends, but when they are, we often have a late breakfast on Sunday that is a type of lunch. We would have sausages ( vegan of course ), fried potatoes, roasted cherry tomatoes, toast, even baked beans, and if someone was in the market on Saturday, we might have olives or butter beans or any number of treats.
 
On this Sunday, our daughter, Emma, decided to make pancakes. As she helps with the Hungry Soul business, she chose to use so Hungry Soul to make them … what a great idea! I had never thought of that, and we love fluffy pancakes especially with pools of maple syrup.
 
Her idea was to make a type of ‘buttermilk’ with our Natural vegan cheese. The fermented sour cashew milk worked very well.

Makes 6 large pancakes
 
INGREDIENTS

• 1 cup of Hungry Soul ‘buttermilk’ - made by mixing two tablespoons of Hungry Soul - Natural with enough water to make up a cup of liquid
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 2 tbsp light brown sugar
• pinch of salt
• 1 tbsp melted vegan butter

 
METHOD 

1. Sift the flour, baking powder, sugar and salt into a bowl and mix to combine
2. Add the hungry soul buttermilk, vanilla, and melted butter
3. ⁠Mix slowly with a wooden spoon, do this gently, just combing the wet and dry ingredients - it is okay if there are lumps, but do not overmix
4. Heat a pan on medium heat, cooking 2 at a time, about 1/3 cup of batter per pancake. 2 mins on the first side, flip when bubbles start to form and the sides begin to look cooked. Approx. 1 minute on the next side.
5. ⁠Optional: add fruit like raspberries, blueberries, sliced banana to the pancake just after you pour it on the hot pan.
6. - ⁠Keep the pancakes on a plate in the oven on low heat (50C) until you have finished them all and are ready to serve!
7. ⁠Serve with lots of maple syrup, and if you wish, more fresh fruit, melted chocolate, vegan butter and cinnamon sugar - the choice is yours!

 
P.S. I say Pancake Tuesdays ( the plural is no accident ) why not have pancakes every Tuesday 😊
  
Jacques, from Hungry Soul

The Carnivode Code by Paul Saladino

We see many customers in the Co-op who are embracing this dietary approach to positive effect. Particularly with autoimmunity as a factor. This code may not appeal to all but its gaining popularity anecdotally. Worth the read!
 
Dr Paul Saladino produced this book in 2020. That seems a lifetime ago now to be honest as we were getting to grips with making banana bread and sourdough. Our carb addiction is real and satisfying but increasingly we are learning about the downsides and high price. To swing the pendulum extremely the other side it is timely that there is increased evidence to affirm this diet for its healing properties. Get the facts and make up your own mind!
 
Dr. Saladino is the leading authority on the science and application of the carnivore diet. He has used this diet to reverse autoimmunity, chronic inflammation and mental health issues in hundreds of patients, many of whom had been told their conditions were untreatable. 

​Anne Maher

Bacon Mayonnaise

Ok, this may be a game-changer for you in more ways than one, but here is a recipe for the carnivores…

Ingredients

• 4 slices of bacon
• 1 large egg yolk
• 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
• 1 tsp lemon juice/cider vinegar
• ½ cup of bacon fat cooled but still liquid
• Salt & Pepper to taste

 
Method

1. Cook bacon until crispy. Remove bacon and set aside. Let bacon fat cool but not set.
2. Whisk egg yolk, mustard, lemon juice in a bowl until well combined.
3. Drizzle in bacon fat and whisk until mixture thickens.
4. Crumble bacon in to mayonnaise.
5. Add salt and pepper to taste.
6. You are welcome! 

Anne Maher

It was hard to believe it possible that some people had to endure 3 weeks of no electricity in recent weeks after the storm. All in all a reminder that we are grateful to have had a minimal impact from the weather this time. We are mindful that our suppliers have had varying experiences also. Not all good. Our food is so precious and valuable as well as vulnerable. How many people actually truly know this? Immersed as we are in products that pretend to be food, it is easy to be conned into believing that there is plenty of food.
 
Until there isn’t.
 
Electricity supplies the power to store much food supplies and sadly there was a lot of food wasted because that support was not there. We are ill prepared for such disaster preparedness. Adverse weather events happen. They always have and always will. Advanced warning systems allow us some preparation time.
 
What do we do in the preparation time? How about we start to get our act together and learn more preservation techniques that do not rely on electricity to maintain?
 
I rely on my freezer at home as do most folk. Recently though I have been looking at YouTube videos showing how to bottle meat. Homesteading influencers take up my social media attention with their innovative ideas and recipes. They could be on to something!

Anne Maher

In the same few weeks that a compulsory housing order for chickens was announced publicly because of Bird Flu, the EU also authorized the use of mealworms as a novel food. The company Nutriearth in France are leading the way here with the only authority to sell yet... A very fancy website with plenty of the right words. Selling pet food and supplements, the mealworm is being well utilized for its properties of being a protein substitute. So between doggie dinners and vitamin D supplements we are slowly being sensitized and what starts out as novel becomes standard..but how do you make people buy in to the concept??
 
Here is what they say about it themselves…
 
Among all edible insects, Tenebrio molitor (or mealworm) is the first insect approved by the European Food Safety Authority as a novel food under specific conditions and uses, testifying to its growing relevance and potential.
 
Tenebrio molitor is not only suitable for animal feed, but is also considered ideal for human consumption and has even been recommended as a bio-regenerative survival food for space missions.
 
A bio regenerative survival food for space missions….. I can hear echoes of another generation saying it clearly   “what planet are they on??”  
 
Meanwhile the culling of chicken has begun in Northern Ireland. Thousands of birds culled because a flu virus is detected. Imagine the same approach on humans? The kill all approach is considered the answer…like roundup, broad spectrum antibiotics will we eventually realise that it is counterproductive to the health of the species? How about survival of the fittest strategy? Or does progress in science and immunology count for anything now? Selective science I’d say.
 
Or perhaps the investors in meal worms are keen to take the market once and for all? Cutting out the middlechicken and we can eat the meal worms direct. What a cost saver! 

​Anne Maher