Feed Yourself or Your Plants, Not the Drain
By Joan Young on
When you cook vegetables, do you boil them, and then throw the water down the drain? Does this remove the vitamins from the vegetables?And if so, why throw them away?
Most vitamins are water soluble, and when you boil vegetables, some of those vitamins will leech out of the plants and into the cooking water, which is usually tossed away.However, there are two very good options for ways to reclaim that water and the vitamins.
Off topic, but as an aside, it is healthier to steam or stir fry vegetables because this will reduce the vitamin loss.But sometimes boiling is just the easiest option.
If you buy veggies packaged from the store they will already have a fair amount of sodium added. This will also be transferred to the water. If you have enough room in the freezer you can pour this into containers and freeze to be used as soup stock. Boiling it down will reduce the volume, but also destroy more of the vitamins, so its best to use as little water as possible in the first place.
However, if you boil fresh vegetables, there will be only the natural amount of sodium present. Dont add any salt to the water. If you want to salt the vegetables, do it after cooking and draining. In this case, you can save the water and let it cool to room temperature. Then pour it on your houseplants for some free plant food.You dont want to use water with salt in it on your houseplants. This will build up in the pots and eventually make the plants very unhappy.
The pictures are from when I blanched some spinach for freezing the other day. By the time I had finished preparing the large bag of spinach (which I was given and was way more than two of us could eat before it went bad), I had almost a gallon of green water and gave all my houseplants a nice healthy drink.
This isnt as good as compost tea, but that takes a lot of work, and this is just something that you would otherwise throw out. Youre just reclaiming it. I always feel good about squeezing every last drop of goodness out of anything!
I just loved the title! I think, that's a great idea and I have seen my grandma doing it. She would first shortlist the ones good for her skin (the beauty conscious that she is! lol) and then sprinkle it over her kitchen garden.
That's a great idea. Also, the water can be used as stock if you are cooking other food at the same time which needs stock/vegetable stock like soup.
I thought everybody did this!
Great idea, I never ever throw any part of a vegetable.The vegetable n fruit peel is made into compost and even the water used for washing rice is used in my garden..
I never thought about using my veggie water to water my plants. Good tips - thanks!
I will have to try this!