Friday’s post about Weetabix reminded me of something that happened last week.

After indulging a little too much of late, John was having a week without sugar and he had to find alternative to his usual added-sugar fruit and fibre breakfast cereal. He hadn’t planned it too well and we didn’t have much in, so he decided to have porridge from some oats we’d had in the cupboard for a while.

I came downstairs to find him like a little kid, going “urrrrgh” with the half-chewed oats on his sticking-out tongue – they’d taken on that extra special “cupboard smell”, the one which smells stale and a tiny bit like the other hundred things we keep in that cupboard, from ginger and porchini mushrooms, to liquorish and dried chillis.

Now unlike my unsureness with Weetabix, I know that rolled oats can definitely be made into a facial scrub – but what else can be done with them? I think the “cupboard smell” is going to get in the way of culinary uses but I suspect there is still options for them yet…

We’ve had an email from Jenna to our Compost This address:

I just found a box of Weetabix in my kitchen cupboard that went off last April! Can I compost it?

In a basic, non-sealed compost bin/heap, one of the general rules is avoid putting anything in there that might attract vermin. While I certainly wouldn’t put milk-soaked cereal in there, crushed dry Weetabix should be ok – it’s even recommended in some circles as a starter food for wormeries.

(Another general rule of compost heaps is keep it balanced and well mixed, so keep that in mind if you’ve got a lot of the wheat biscuits to get rid of.)

Aside from composting though, are there any old uses for out of date Weetabix? I have a half memory of a facial scrub/mask thing using Weetabix but a search doesn’t show anything up. Anyone know?