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Welcome to Nourished Elephant’s first-ever newsletter!

Last year, I did a digital detox and just loved it! After reading Cal Newport’s book Digital Minimalism, I did 30 days without social media and limited smartphone access. It was hard at the start, but I felt SO much better by the end. I have a love/hate relationship with social media and find myself happier when I’m on it less, which created a bit of a problem for Nourished Elephant. As I thought about how I consume content, I realised that I enjoy short newsletters from my favourite instagram accounts. Small bursts of more personal information that I can read when I want. The result is our first-ever newsletter!

Plant-based Tip

I’ve never been much of a fan when it comes to tofu. I could never cook it very well and it would always end up sticking to the pan. We started My Food Bag’s plant-based box last year, and the tofu recipes are great. The trick is…baking it!

For the perfect tofu - pat dry out of the packet, cut or tear to 2 cm chunks and add to a bowl. Drizzle with oil, season with salt and add 1 Tbsp of cornflour per 300 gms of tofu. Gently toss together until well coated and spread on a lined oven tray. Bake at 230 degrees (or 210 fan bake) for 15-20 minutes until golden. Add herbs and spices at the beginning or drizzle with your favourite sauce at the end and coat well. We love BBQ sauce and a maple syrup/soy sauce combo.

Orchard Update

We had a cover crop planted at the beginning of summer because we were spending so much time weeding (why do weeds grow so well!). The aim was to reduce the maintenance, grow some more edibles, and enrich the soil.

We had a combination of wildflowers, daikon, beans, pumpkins, cucumber, herbs, peas, and other natives planted that exploded in growth over our long hot summer. We’ve since had the first trim, and it’s impressive watching the plants re-seed and start to grow back already.

Our summer fruit crop wasn’t great. Only one tree fruited, but we enjoyed the two dozen organic, spray-free peaches we had! Our latest crop was a basket of pears and grapes.

Listing To/Reading

If you want to know more about digital detoxing, check out Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport. He was also a guest on one of my favourite podcasts - The Rich Roll Podcast. It’s a really interesting listen.

Changes I’ve made are:

-trying only to check email/messenger once or twice a day - nothing is that urgent in my life ha!
-switching to a flip phone, so when I’m out, I can’t aimlessly scroll to fill in time.
-deleting Facebook from my phone
-creating a separate instagram account that follows no one to post photos of the kids. I can keep photos organised and safe but don’t get sucked into scrolling.
-listening to the news in the morning on Alexia and not checking online. This has been very hard to stick to with New Zealand’s latest COVID outbreak, but I feel much better and less anxious when I can do it.

And that’s a wrap of our first newsletter! I’m sure future ones won’t be quite so long. It’s been an intense couple of weeks around the world and it’s been hard to not feel overwhelmed and anxious about life and what the future holds. I try to focus on our little lives down here. Life in our bubble is quite lovely, and I feel immensely grateful for that. We do what we can every day to live a more sustainable life and raise two tiny humans who will hopefully head into the world with connection, respect, and empathy for nature and the world around them.

Take a deep breath and eat some plants!

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Disclaimer: I am not a nutritionist or health professional. I have completed a certificate in Plant-Based Nutrition from eCornell and have done in-depth research about plant-based living. The information I trust is mostly sourced from medical professionals that are leading the way in this plant-based revolution. Check out my recommended page for more info.