MAR’ 19

18

We had our first delivery of dairy products from Longmont Dairy today and I am quite pleased. My milk, cream, and half-and-half in glass bottles arrived in a cooler on our porch. I have decided to start culturing my own buttermilk, sour cream, and yogurt in an effort to further reduce our consumption of single-use plastics. There were two recent articles in both the New York Times and the Atlantic Monthly about a crisis in the recycling business since China stopped buying recycled materials from the US. Without a market for the by-products of recycling, municipalities are finding that it is too expensive to recycle and many are resorting to diverting consumers’ recyclables to the dump or to burning it. I have been galvanized into action and am feeling renewed determination to minimize our consumption of even recyclable materials. Having already adopted reusable grocery/produce bags, glass/metal containers and fabric bags for purchasing foods in bulk, at the meat counter and deli, choosing dairy products packaged in reused glass bottles and using the dairy to create my own cultured dairy products is another step that I can take. And, honestly, I can’t believe that I haven’t cultured my own dairy before- it is shockingly easy. I’ve got a bottle of buttermilk fermenting on the counter as I type and it took no more work than pouring the last bit of store-bought buttermilk that I had into a bottle and topping it off with fresh milk.