plastic-free July | grocery shopping & cooking

We made it through our first full week of plastic-free July! How did you do?

This week I took the time to focus on how I could grocery shop plastic-free and then how the recipes I adapted turned out. Did I find any new swaps that I can extend past July?

Grocery shopping

First, the shopping. Let me preface this by saying my favorite grocery store is Trader Joe’s and since moving from LA and not being within a 10-minute drive from one I’ve struggled to meal prep. Listen, you build up some habits over the years! So, I’ve been relying heavily on meal subscription boxes to help me stay on top of being healthy and to cut out the effort of doing a lot of grocery shopping beyond breakfast and lunch. But I overcame that fatigue and put together a grocery list.

When you’re listing out all of the groceries you need while trying to eliminate your plastic waste you can tackle it by:

loose bulk buying + bring your own containers (think the bins at Sprouts or Whole Foods where you can even bulk buy nut butters)
buying fresh veggies that are not prepackaged or visiting your local farmer’s market
bringing your own reusable tote bags
reducing the amount of meat you purchase (also good for the environment!) or visiting your local farmer’s market to buy local meat
buying canned food
buying packaged foods that come in glass, paper or aluminum

On my list was fresh lettuce and salad toppings (to replace my typical bagged salad lunches), canned chicken, cream cheese, Velveeta, and SPAM. I chose my recipes based on what I knew I already had at home because one of the best ways to be a mindful consumer is to use what you have. It’s tempting, when picking up a new habit, to buy a bunch of new things, but’s important to curb that instinct in favor of only buying what you need.

Did you know that the average family of four wastes $1,600 of produce a year? Food waste also contributes to the generation of greenhouse gases and wastes the energy and water used in the production of the food. (Source: rts, 2020)

Cooking

So, how did everything turn out with some of my swaps?

My salads are delicious. I found fresh bunches of green leaf lettuce and arugula that we took home and cleaned well. I also bought a salad dressing that came in a glass bottle plus some extras like croutons and tortilla strips that were not bagged in plastic. I had cans of tuna already so I had tuna sandwiches some days as well and everything still felt easy, but filling + healthy. Win.

I’ve only made one of my dinners this week so far because I was trying to eat up some of the leftovers in the fridge first. Yesterday, I made one of my favorite easy dinners, but with my plastic-free swaps. Cheesy chicken taquitos are, first of all, I’m sure ‘Southwestern’ cuisine at best, but they’re delicious as hell. If you like chicken and cheese and spices you will thoroughly enjoy them. This week I swapped out the fresh chicken for canned, shredded cheddar cheese for Velveeta, and used corn tortillas from a previous recipe rather than buy flour tortillas. Overall, they were good! The filling tasted just as good, although I’d recommend adding the canned chicken right at the end so it doesn’t dry out. The corn tortillas, in place of flour, were not my favorite, but they weren’t a bad swap. To be truly plastic-free, I’d recommend making your own flour tortillas in advance.

Overall, it’s a lot easier to swap out plastic when grocery shopping than I thought I would be. I plan to continue to find as many ways as possible to swap out ingredients in recipes and this proves that you don’t have to be near a Whole Foods in order to still make impactful shopping decisions.

But you know what toughest food-related swap has really been? Not ordering whatever take out I want when I’ve had a long day of work! Ordering pizza is really the only take out I can think of that you can truly cut out plastic (refuse cutlery, say no to the dipping sauce, say no to the little containers of grated cheese). I’ve had to ignore my cravings for pho, Thai food, and boba tea all week. But thank God for cheesy chicken taquitos.

Barriers to accesibility

I find that far too often the environmental movement neglects to prioritize the most marginalized groups in conversations about what is needed for sustainable change, healthy communities, and a thriving planet. I will strive to present a nuanced approach on my blog and Instagram and I am very open to any constructive feedback!

With that in mind, I’d like to list some limitations that have come to mind this week as I’ve considered plastic-free grocery shopping and cooking:

Although canned food is easy to find in stores, it is often laden with sodium, which you wouldn’t find in the fresh or frozen versions. Frozen vegetables are a great alternative to fresh or canned, but they’re often packaged in plastic. Consumers shouldn’t have to choose between what is better for their health and what is more affordable. Everyone deserves access to healthy, fresh food.
Meal prepping and the pre-thinking involved is a time privilege that not everyone has. For someone working multiple jobs or odd hours, having to spend additional time and energy to search high and low is an unfair burden. That burden should lay squarely on manufacturers to empower consumers to have better choices.
In areas of food apartheid, often called food deserts, the least of consumer’s concern is cutting out plastic waste--it’s just trying to find a grocery store. Period. There can be no true plastic-free movement without addressing the discrepancy between accessibility to groceries and fresh food.
Canned meat is pretty good in some cases, like tuna, okay in other cases, like chicken, but doesn’t give you great access to other kinds of meat like the fresh or frozen versions do. Although it is important to reduce your intake of red meat, there should also be better packaging for when it is purchased.
Everyone cannot get to their local farmer’s market and every community doesn’t even have a local farmer’s market. I love a farmer’s market like many other people, but I also know that it’s a privilege to be able to access one and purchase produce from one, especially since it’s often higher priced. How do we support our local farmers knowing that some people in our communities truly cannot afford to buy the bulk of their produce from one? Imperfect Foods offers one solution, but we need more.

Next week I’m looking forward to examining some ways to incorporate more plastic-free changes around the house and share what I’ve learned about how single-use plastic became the industry standard.

enjoy & in joy,