My wife has dragged me kicking and screaming into the eco age, but now I’m all-in. We recycle soft plastics, cans and bottles, cardboard and other recycling products all separately via a series of multiple bins around our home. And now, I’ve introduced another one – food scraps. Every day they get turned into EcoChips by the new Breville FoodCycler.
It’s quite remarkable frankly. We’ve talked about composting – because we do have a bunch of food scraps every single day. But my wife is worried it’s a drawcard for Rats, and that’s a big no-no for us!
So, instead, we now have a small metal “bin” on the Kitchen Bench. After dinner, food scraps go into it. Same when chopping up fruit, the cores go in, the ends of the strawberries and the banana peal.
No Hard stuff like Peach stones or bones from meat, but you get the gist of that in the instructions.
I’ve put some bread scraps and pasta in there, no drama.
While the Breville FoodCycler could sit on your kitchen bench, we’ve put ours in the laundry out of the way. It’s quiet and uses very little power – but I just wanted to save the bench space.
There’s a lid for your food scraps bin so they aren’t sitting out in the open all day but once the 2L container is full, you leave the lid behind and take it to the Breville FoodCycler.
To be honest, this may be the simplest gadget you ever own. Put the bin in, close the lid, turn it on.
And wait. Don’t stand and wait, could take 4-6 hours.
Basically, this is an overnight, or while you’re at work kinda thing.
This morning, all the night before and lunch prep scraps went in.
This Afternoon, small, brown, dried, crusty EcoChips.
You can either dump them in the bin, that’s a handful of rubbish compared to 2L of rubbish. Or put them on your garden.
There’s a few caveats to the Garden usage, basically don’t just throw them on top, mix them in, and don’t use where you’re growing foods.
The process is a three stage one. Firstly, the Breville FoodCycler heats and dries out the food.
Next, it grinds it into small particles.
Then, it cools down before beeping, and allowing you to remove it and discard.
A handful of waste, from what could have been a bucketload.
Pure Genius.
The price of being green though is $599, the Breville FoodCycler will go on sale from December 15th at Breville online.
