Category Family

Modern life tends to pull us away from the simple routines of home. Many of us spend hours each week commuting to work, school and shops so we can come home to rest. But the process of doing this removes us from our local communities and often burns fossil fuels to get us to where we need to go.

Spending so much time away from home means we’re often too exhausted or time poor to get the basic day-to-day things like cooking, cleaning and gardening done, so we need to outsource those. We turn to ‘convenience’ food and prepackaged products in an effort to save time. Then each year (at least), we need to get away from it all and take a holiday so we can regroup.

Is this cycle sustainable for ourselves and our planet? Does it honour our needs as individuals, families and communities? Does it really save us time and money, or could there be an alternative?

People clearly love having pets and have done so throughout history. The majority of pet owners view their animals as being part of the family. In Australia, approximately 62 per cent of households own a pet— domestic dogs and cats are the most common pets (with 4.8 and 2.8 million dogs and cats, respectively, recorded in 2016).

And the desire for pet ownership seems to be increasing, as the dog population rose by 600 000 between 2013 and 2016. Australians spend more than $12.2 billion on pet products and services each year. So we are talking about a massive industry and a whole lot of mouths to feed.

Most people feed their dog or cat pre-prepared and processed pet food, and the majority of pet accessories available are made from synthetic and plastic materials. The environmental impacts of owning a pet are often not immediately apparent, but with a considered approach, you can keep the impact of owning a pet to a minimum.

In our household it’s all about the golden jars of drippy honey, blocks of creamy butter, big bags of wholemeal spelt flour lining the floor, and tiny bottles of homemade vanilla extract. This is the simple basis for most of our family baking.

It hasn’t always been like this though. While in the last 15 years my baking has generally been on the healthier side of things, I wasn’t a stranger to sugar in the cupfuls, rainbows of food dyes and fluffy white flour.

Over the years, and with a variety of questionable ovens, my baking has evolved. Babies were born, tastebuds matured and knowledge was built on. Slowly I worked out what food was best to fuel both myself and those I loved. Unsurprisingly, it wasn’t the recipes that had two cups of sugar listed in the ingredients.

In a world dominated by screens big and small, we all need a little nudge sometimes to switch off, look up and get outside. A growing body of evidence tells us that it’s imperative that children get plenty of ‘vitamin N’ (nature connection) in order to develop many essential life skills. So how can you encourage your kids to swap screen time for play time? Here are our top 10 ideas to make the great outdoors fun!

1. FOLLOW ALONG

When you are in a special outside place with your child, step back. Observe them. Instead of directing their play, say ‘I will follow you’, and see where they take you. What do they see? What interests them? How does the world look from their perspective? What can you learn from this? Allowing your child to be free in the natural world is extremely empowering. Sometimes they may need coaxing to get out there, but once they are, as often as you can allow them to lead the way.