Food Waste
Along with being vegan, I’ve been trying to avoid other wasteful eating practices. Recently I’ve been paying a lot of attention to excessive packaging and labeling. I do most of my shopping at Whole Foods, where one would expect good behavior on these fronts, but even there I’ve found several things to look out for. I’ve been buying a fair amount of herbs such as mint and basil and I’ve noticed that there are normally two options when doing so. With mint, one can sometimes find a loose bunch (tied up with a twisty tie and a label) in the general greens section for $1.99, but the much more salient option is a prepackaged plastic box of mint (from the same supplier, Jacobs Farm) that is hung up at eye level with all the other herbs like rosemary and lemongrass. It costs $2.49 for what looks like much less mint. The boxed mint is also more consistently available. The same story plays out for basil. I’ve been able to buy bunched basil for much less than the 2.5 ounce version in a big plastic container, but it’s only every once in a while that I find it. Since I’m trying to reduce waste where possible I’ve been avoiding the boxed versions. In some cases that has led to menu changes when the loose herbs weren’t available.
Obviously buying nuts, grains and raisins in bulk helps cut down on packaging use, but there are actually financial disincentives for doing so. If my memory serves me, pecans are 11.99 per pound in bulk and 8.99 for a 1 pound package in a thick plastic zipper bag. Even when buying in bulk, one is encouraged to use a disposable plastic bag to hold one’s purchase. I have personally been reusing these bags (and the little twisty ties), but it would be nice to see a proper reusable bag with a known weight (to subtract from the weight at checkout) for bulk items. While Whole Foods is loudly proclaiming its intent to eliminate plastic grocery bags on Earth Day this year, I imagine the produce/bulk disposable plastic bags will remain.