As I mentioned in a previous post, my major New Year’s goal is to limit some of the excess food packaging that comes into my house.
My foolproof super hopeful plan!
As noted, I’ve failed to reach my goal for four years or so. I’m pretty sure that I’ve been aiming too high, which is exactly the opposite of what I always tell other people to do. For example, I want to eliminate ALL unnecessary food packaging. Yet, obviously I’m not nearly reaching that goal. I always tell you, my readers, to take small steps towards a greener lifestyle, so this year, I’m taking my own advice.
In 2012, my household will be concentrating on some smaller, hopefully more achievable steps towards an overall less package-laden lifestyle. Here’s what I’ve come up with.
Baby steps for my goal this year!
Who will be involved:
Since I live with four other people for the time being, a true elimination of household packaging would require the entire household’s cooperation. That spells potential trouble and extra stress I don’t need. That said, I’m limiting my goal to what I can control – meaning packaging concerning my son Cedar and myself.
The basic plan:
1) I sat down and thought about all the foods we buy prepackaged.
2) First I eliminated impossible items from my list. For example, I’m not buying an organic cow, milking it and churning flipping butter and ice cream. I’m also not raising chickens. Meaning, we’ll keep buying items such as organic milk, eggs and butter prepackaged.
3) Then I thought about the stuff I could manage easily because I’ve already got the skills – i.e. I can bake cookies and muffins vs. buying packaging. I can also buy rice and beans in bulk and cook them vs. purchasing cans or boxes.
4) Then, because a goal should be at least a little bit challenging, I considered something harder. For us, the food items with the biggest package impact would likely be soup. We eat soup for most lunches and often for dinner too. We eat organic veggie, chicken noodle, veggie chili, tomato and more. I have almost zero soup making skills. I’ve tried to make soup before. At best I’ve had curious results and at worst really terrible results. If I can learn to make decent soup, it would be a BIG deal, save on lots of cans and a great accomplishment.
My chosen small steps:
- Quit buying rice and beans in cans, bags or boxes. Both are easy to get organic in bulk, but take more time to cook.
- Don’t buy potatoes or carrots in bags anymore. Can you believe I sometimes do this! Anyhow, I can cut up bulk carrots myself and lately I’ve located bulk organic potatoes not in bags.
- Bake cookies and muffins from scratch from now on, using bulk ingredients. Easy because I’m a good baker and since I work at home, baking is something I do have time for – i.e. it’s easy to walk away from the oven, so long as you set a timer.
- Learn to make soup. This will be the hardest part for me. One reader suggested a crock-pot, which I’ll be looking into, and I’m going to gather up some organic soup recipes.
How is 2012 going so far?
Well, not great, but luckily it’s only the 8th. I bought bulk carrots and potatoes this week, plus didn’t buy any muffin mixes or prepackaged cookies.
I’ve utterly failed to research soup making yet and I bought two boxes of rice and two cans of soup. Blah. So, it’s going about half good. Stay tuned, because hopefully I’ll manage to look up some soup recipes and share them here.
Image by Johnkarun via sxc.
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Would it be considered cheating if you bought an organic (dry) soup mix in bulk and used your own container? I did that. I formerly hated soup b/c I could not get around the fact that you were eating a liquid! I am very weird that way. But I thought my ever growing # of kids would like the alphabet bean soup. The instructions said you could use either broth (in a package) or water. I figured this was a step in the right direction for me! Good news is that we all liked it! It’s become a once a week or every other week staple at our house. We’ve (well, mostly I’ve) even expanded our/my horizons and tried other soup varieties! We found the bulk soup mix at a local co-op. Good luck! You are inspiring me once again, challenging me to step it up and re-think a few things…
These are great steps.
Our thrift store frequently has crockpots for very cheap. But you can also make soup in a regular pot. If you cut the ingredients small enough it doesn’t take too much time.
To eliminate egg packaging I want to try to find a local seller. I saw once on craigslist someone selling free range organic eggs, I have to locate them again. Usually in those places you can bring your own egg carton.
Good luck!
And I forgot to share this link with you: http://annie.paxye.com/?p=4179
If you’re going to make soup, this can replace stock. I make a batch a couple of times a year and store jars in the freezer/fridge. It reduces cost, packaging, and I like it better than store bought chicken or vegetable stock.
This website also has a lot of fantastic, cheap recipes. Most of them are regularly on the menu in my house. They serve 4 + lunch the next day.
A crock pot is definitely helpful with soups. I like to slow cook any meat I’m going to use in the soup the day before – keeps it tender. Then use it the next day with broth and the rest of the ingredients and let it cook for hours. It uses less energy than the stove! You just need to be careful with noodles. Add then close to when you are ready to eat, otherwise they get soggy.
People magazine has an article in it’s current issue about a “zero waste family.” They use glass jars to buy bulk items and meat. While I don’t think I’ll use jars, it did inspire me to bring my own plastic washable container to purchase my meat. I thought it was a great idea!
Hmm, I left a comment here but maybe spam got it since I put links in there. Anyhow, I was saying that if you make chili, use beer in it. That adds so much flavor. Also, cook some iron skillet cornbread using Mark Bittman’s recipe, yum!
Good luck.