Self Care (Plastic Free July Edition)

There's a saying "busy hands, quiet mind" and I find this is really important when it comes to self care. My go-to self care habits include baking, yoga, drawing or painting - they're habits that I enjoy, they're good for the soul and allow me to be in the moment and recharge. Self care is today's prompt for #setmeplasticfree and to me a clear link is that my love of cooking and baking means that we hugely reduce the amount of plastic food packaging in our house by buying very little prepackaged snacks. I bake almost all of the bread that we consume (hands up who still has their lockdown sourdough starter going?), as well as breakfast bars, snacks and treats for us all. I use silicone moulds and reusable liners too which means there's next to no material waste. My next mission is oat milk to reduce the amount of cartons we consume. Nutritionally it also means I'm in complete control of what goes into our food and I can make much healthier snacks knowing exactly how much salt, sugar, oil etc has been used. This act in itself has a mindful effect for me as there is a definite comfort in knowing I'm making nourishing food while causing far less waste that is detrimental to the planet.

(This is particularly true because we are vegan - did you know dumped fishing gear is the biggest plastic polluter in the  ocean and is deadly to marine life? Discarded fishing equipments is responsible for an estimated 30% percent of the decline in some fish populations, and over 70% of marine animal entanglements involve abandoned plastic fishing nets. As the nets don't biodegrade they pose a danger for tens of years with the potential to entangle or suffocate fish, sharks, whales, dolphins, sea turtles, seals, marine birds, and more. This is something I've not seen spoken about much so far for #plasticfreeJuly - did you know about the environmental consequences of fishing?)

What are your favourite ways to practice self care? Do you find cooking therapy or a chore?