Plastic Free Becomes the Norm: Groceries

I haul in my canvas bag stuffed full of more bags: canvas, plastic, organic cotton, paper.  And a few sheets of wax paper & aluminum foil.  At Whole Foods no-one bats an eye. 

I head for the bulk section.  Ah, my sweet trail mix, nuts, even crackers (a true novel delight), granola, rice, whole wheat flour, beans, lentils, raisins. . . I fill the re-used plastic bags, some paper bags and the cotton bags with the scoopfuls and move onto the produce section.

I save two plastic bags for the produce section: One for bulk carrots, one for apples.  This helps the checkout person to not fumble with half a dozen single items.  Plus, carrots get soft if not wrapped in plastic.  If I'm thoughtful enough, I'll line the plastic with paper so the food doesn't make direct contact.  I'm not always that thoughtful.  A lot of the organics are wrapped in plastic already, making them off limits for my plastic free attempts. But I still strive to buy organic, more now than ever.  I mean, how can I decide not to wrap my food in plastic because of the chemicals, and then accept pesticides on my produce?  Broccoli is usually only wrapped in a rubber band, as is asparagus.  (Does rubber count as plastic?  I'll have to look into that...)  Onions, potatoes, a melon, papaya maybe this week, or perhaps some kiwi?  Ooh, and yes, mango.  Apparently I don't mind my food travelling thousands of miles to get to my plate.

Onto the "innards" of the store: The cardboard boxes inevitably lined in plastic or containing a plastic bag, or maybe a little plastic tray so the cookies stay just perfectly placed.  All off limits, but I look anyway, just to see if I missed something before.  Applesauce, juice (pomegranate, blueberry, acai - only expensive organic juices come in glass bottles, so I get novel with it), and that's about it. 

I ogle the frozen section, full of plastic wrapped processed foods.  Yes, even organic is processed if it's frozen.  And I don't ogle the frozen whole foods.  The chilled dairy section full of plastics I pass on: sour cream, yogurt, cottage cheese, most cheese.  Whole Foods has a local farm who supplies milk in glass bottles - it's less than half a gallon. 

At the cheese section, the employee behind the counter now recognizes me and tells me what he's planning on slicing today.  He gives me kudos for my efforts and happily accepts whatever I give him to wrap the cheese in.  I haven't turned down an offer yet. 

The meat section is plastic wrapped, but there's a counter and they will gladly cut and wrap some meat in butcher paper, (or my waxed paper when I discovered the butcher paper is plastic lined).  We eat maybe 2 dinners a week with meat so the cost isn't prohibitive.  Someone mentioned the other days as "vegetarian" days to me recently, which sounded odd.  "Vegetarian" rings a deprived note in my brain, and offends me on some level.  Eggplant parmigiana doesn't seem like a "vegetarian" dinner in the way I think of the word.  All that cheese and frying... That's not deprivation, or healthy!  While they cut & wrap the meat, I get some unground coffee.  The choices are all organic, so even my coffee is organic now.  It's costly, yet the amount I don't spend on junk food and instead spend on produce (much less) makes up for the splurges of good meat and coffee.  This week I delighted in finding natural wax paper sandwich bags in a cardboard box while waiting on the meat.

The canvas grocery bags go up first to the cashier, along with last week's milk jug that I get $1.50 back on for returning.  Then the bags of bulk foods.  The produce tends to roll around on the belt, a mismatch of raw plants.  I get $1.00 off for bringing 10 bags of my own.  The whole shopping trip fills only three canvas bags since they have at least twice or three times the capacity of a plastic grocery bag. 

My bill comes to about $130 this week, including the extravagant purchase of an all metal "To Go" stackable Tupperware replacement.  A couple months ago I would have spent $150 at Walmart on supposedly "less expensive" food and the fruits and veggies would have generally gone to waste since chips and granola bars are so much more convenient and tasty.  That's just me, though.  I don't think everyone's food bill goes down when they switch to health food stores.  I am convinced that eating fresh foods is cheaper than processed at this point though.  I'm not sure exactly how... But our refrigerator is bare by the end of each week, which I see as a good thing.  That means we're eating all the food instead of saving it for science experiments to see what kind of decomposition happens in the fridge.  And my husband has been amazed numerous times at how I can pull a meal out of "There's nothing to eat!"

The Deli: No Plastic, Please

In hopes of fore-going the plastic wrapping of pre-packaged sliced meats and cheeses, I opted to go straight to the deli.  After seeing the lady behind the counter package previous customers’ meat in plastic, I shot straight from the hip, asking, “Can I have you wrap my items in my own packaging instead of plastic?”  She gave me the scrutinizing look of a woman who doesn’t want to be bothered with excess requests, nor people with extra heads growing out of their bodies, as though I’d just asked if I could have my cat butchered and sliced into lunch meat.

“I know it’s strange, but I’m trying not to use plastic.  Can you pack it in my container?  Or maybe wax paper if you have it?”  I gave her an apologetic, please-humor-me smile.

She gruffly agreed, and as I rustled through my bag to get out my own packaging, she slipped it all into one of her plastic bags anyway, behind my back.  “Oh…” I said with obvious disappointment.  “Do you have wax paper?” 

“No.”

“Well, don’t worry about it, now.  It’s too late,” I said lightly, trying to brush off the insult I felt as she went to cut more of meat, not giving any thought to it, as I’d read in other places that it could be a difficult concept for people to grasp.  She ended up taking the meat out of the plastic anyway, which was a nice effort, though useless.

From behind me an older woman with a canula asked, “Are you allergic to plastic?”  not unpleasantly.  I at least got the chance to tell her about my experiment.  I felt like one of those anti-cigarette commercials that show an asterisk above the heads of those who’ve been enlightened, and could almost see the asterisk appear over her head.  At least she was understanding!  She thought I’d get a better reception for my request from Sunflower Market.

When the deli worker asked about cheese I was ready with my container, but even as I held it out she STILL grabbed ANOTHER plastic bag.  Not even at least using the bag she’d already gotten out for the meat.

“Wait, wait, please…”  she didn’t hear me ducked beneath the glass case, or ignored me.  “Wait!  Stop!  Please don’t put it in the bag!”  I was pleading with as much reserve and dignity as I could.  Maybe I should have gotten on my knees.

“Alright!” she snapped, startling me.  And I gave her the container, both of us flustered.

I thanked her very, very much for using my container and asked her to please, please use the plastic bags she’d taken out for me for another customer.

“You can use them on my order!” volunteered the woman behind me brightly.

"*"

My First Plastic-Free Grocery Shopping Experience

It was a very small shopping trip, just for dinner’s ingredients, but a success!

I almost forgot my canvas bag, and was in reverse out of the driveway before I remembered, but I got it!  I went to King Soopers. 

My grocery list:

Red Onion

Tomato

Ginger

Serrano Pepper

Bread

I also grabbed:

Mangos

Avocados

I didn’t bag any of the fruits & veggies.  Just naked plants in the basket. 

I bought the only bread that they had in an all-paper bag.  A French Baguette.  Happens to be my favorite bread in the world (Indian Naan is a close second), so it wasn’t a bad option for dinner. 

I will definitely have to seek out better bakery options to get my normal whole wheat sandwich bread.  Where am I going to find bread that’s not packaged in plastic?  And how much will I have to pay extra?

Plastic used    =  None

Extra $ Spent  =  $0

Healthier Options = Nada.  White bread baguette doesn’t do anything for my nutrition.  The mango & avocado were an awesome desert though!