This week I have had a few personal breakthroughs that have really encouraged me to keep trying to reduce my lifestyle waste! At times it can be very discouraging so I am happy to have had these small victories to keep things determined and positive.

A large part of approaching a zero-waste lifestyle has to do with what you eat and what you buy at the grocery store. In this day and age our food industry thrives on (over)packaged foods. It is know wonder why these products fly off the shelves — they’re easy! Additionally, whether we want to believe it or not, the meat and dairy industry are not great for our planets health. As someone who eats plant-based for a majority of the times, I wanted to look into how to make things at home at typically come in plastic at the grocery store.

My first culprits were a simple salad dressing, a tahini dip, and vegan mayo (yes, I said it). I am lucky to own a Magic Bullet, and found that I used it for all three dips. Each were made from products that came from glass jars/bottles (which I reuse for many different things!) and had 7 ingredients or less. Typically, in dressings, dips and sometimes even mayo, there are additives and nasty chemicals that hide inside. Often they are hard to understand because of their names and/or how the the nutrition label is organized, but for the most part we don’t need to be eating them. The best way to avoid unnecessary additives (that are also bad for the environment) and plastic waste, is to make your favourites at home!

For each recipe I searched options on Pinterest and had a great selection to choose from. I decided on ones that seemed healthiest and were made from products I had on hand.

The mayo was the most surprising. It’s main ingredient is something called aquafaba, which is the water form a chickpea can! I was able to make a soup with the chick peas and use every part of the can. Then I added apple cider vinegar, dijon mustard, maple syrup, sunflower and/or olive oil (I used some of both), and chilli powder. It turned out just like the real deal but with amazing additional flavour! I used a mason jar with a canning lid to store it and it will now last for 2-3 weeks!

All-in-all, I think this was a very easy to make these dips and they ended up tasting great! And most importantly, I was able to avoid all of the additives and plastic in the process. This has inspired me to make more things homemade that are typically store bought, as I think it is a great way to reduce your waste and increase your health! 🙂