Sustainable Living with Hannah Jack

Introducing our sustainable friend of the month, Hannah Jack.

Hannah is the founder of Country Kitchen, a medicinal herbal skin care range.  She lives on a farm north of Auckland with her husband and kids and lives a pretty damn sustainable life. Country Kitchen was born from her blog created 4 years ago based on the farm and her love for sustainability and whole foods.

When did you get introduced to the idea of sustainability?

Nature has inspired me from the beginning. I have grown up on the farm, but I wouldn’t say in a sustainable way. The more I stood out and soaked up the minimal, simple way of nature the more I  awakened to that instinctive feeling of this unsustainable way just not being right. There is no such thing as ‘waste’ in nature, everything is used and is beneficial to something else. Where as with our idea of waste, it is destroying this perfect harmony between all that is living.  It wasn’t until I built my own home on the farm that I started to make the trip into the city once every two weeks to stock up my jars of dried goods from organic bulk bins. I wanted to stop bringing plastic back on to the farm and shake off the naive idea that once you put the rubbish in the bin that it all just vanishes.

What is it about sustainable living that interests you the most ?

I adore the quote, “only leave behind footprints in the sand”. I first heard this quote from the Farm Folly girls who stock their beautiful cold-pressed soap on my website. It simply sums up sustainability to me. I do admit, in this generation it is incredibly hard, but there are so many amazing companies with this same ethos of living in mind including the incredible GoodFor store, that makes it so much easier.

What’s one thing you’ve done to reduce waste in your home?

To be honest, we are incredibly sustainable at home. We have fruit orchards, grow all of our vegetables we consume and botanicals for the business. We also have very loved animals including goats for milk and chickens for eggs. Although one thing that has made a huge difference in reducing the waste this year was eating vegan and making our own tempeh, fermented foods including sauerkraut and sourdough and buying bulk! We buy our honey in 5kg pales from local and more importantly organic beekeepers. It is the small changes that make the difference but at one step at the time.

What’s one zero-waste item you can not travel with out?

This is a hard question as there is a few! I can not travel without my ceramic travel coffee mug created by lil ceramics in Muriwai. Following closely behind is my cotton bags for produce and a bar of soap that can be used for both face and body and my shampoo bar both from Farm Folly.

What’s one thing everyone can do today to make a difference?

We have ALL heard it before but my goodness every time I walk into the supermarket the amount of single-use plastic bags that still head out is just crazy. Another one is single-use coffee cups, it does just come down to habit, so create a good habit of taking a reusable one with you everywhere!

Glass Jar or Tupperware?

I am a glass jar kind of person. I started collecting all kinds of glass jars from second hand stores about 7 years ago.

What’s your favourite ingredient to cook with from GoodFor?

I love freekeh, bulgur wheat and quinoa. These grains are so versatile, I cook them in vegetable stock and toss through roasted vegetables and seasonal vegetables for a quick lunch time or dinner salad.

 

You can find Hannah on Instagram at @countrykitchennz // www.countrykitchen.co.nz