Plastic floating in the ocean, left by us. We have been so repulsed by this that we decided to embark on a month long challenge of buying no food products encased in plastic. Challenges like this have a way of making us more aware of our dependencies and this was no exception. We have come to realize that we live in a world of plastic and ridding our lives of this is no easy task.
1. One of the greatest culprits is Costco. It is virtually impossible to buy anything that is not packaged in some form of plastic, most items are double packed – plastic bags tied with plastic, multiple cans wrapped in shrink wrap.
2. It is relatively easy to purchase fruits, eggs, vegetables, fresh baked bread and items from the bulk bins. Almost all processed foods have some type of plastic packaging – oatmeal lids, bags inside crackers and cereal, cheese, yogurt, frozen blueberries, pasta. (we don’t eat canned foods) The end result, I rejected the ready made potstickers skins and made them from scratch, we ate spaghetti squash instead of noodles, and I stopped myself before going to Asian Box last week.
3. Meat is a story in itself! I bring my plastic box and buy one chicken from Whole Foods each week. The butcher guy in Los Altos long ago gave up complaining but rudely rolls his eyes at me every time. This week, I bought a pork chop and pulled out my meat box. The butcher insisted on putting it in a plastic bag first and when I told him no plastic, asked me if I wanted him to throw the bag away! That was failure #1. So… if you are willing to pay more and put up with crap, it can be done.
4. I had to be super vigilant. I went to the bakery and saw them go to the back room to put my loaf of bread in a plastic bag. I had to yell out, “no plastic” for them to bag it in paper. I’m sure they were thinking, “Crazy Chinese woman!”
5. In the check out line at Sprouts, the couple in front of me had every item in a new plastic bag. Why they needed to bag their bananas mystified me. They did have their cloth grocery bag though!
The next week will get more difficult as we have used up much of our pantry items and will not be able to replace them. More to come…