Plastic. Trash. Waste. Sigh

So, as my kids get older my budget goes up.  As my values change, my budget goes up.  I know that I'd be able to keep my grocery bill super low if I shopped at the 99 cent store for produce.  But damn, everything there is wrapped in plastic.  Everything.  And what happens to the plastic?  Nothing.  It gets put into a landfill where it lives forever.  Or it ends up in the ocean.

I was happy to find TerraCycle, which recycles many many things.  But I recently found out that you need to have a recycling program with them.  And they are limited.  Fine, I figure - maybe I can just find a place that has a program with them, so that I can recycle those damned chip bags. 

But no.  There is no way to search for locations. This makes me sad.  I have two bags of these and no way to recycle.

There are things that I can do to reduce plastic waste.
- Buy my fruits and veggies loose, and use my own bags.  We are very good at this.
- Buy rice, grains, beans, chocolate, nuts, seeds, in the bulk bins.  Done
- Drink water from the tap.
- Buy condiments in glass.  Glass is infinitely recyclable.

But there are things that are just harder.  Not impossible, just harder.
- Meat.  I suppose I could buy it at the butcher and ask them to put it in my container.  We don't eat much meat.  I do buy canned chicken, and cans are at least recyclable.
- Bread.  For awhile last year I was baking bread.  But then my husband fessed up that he doesn't like this bread for sandwiches.  So now we are back to buying bread at Costco, and two loaves comes with THREE PLASTIC BAGS.  Ugh.  Same deal with gluten free bread, sigh.
- Cheese
- Milk (I can't bring myself to spend the $$ on the glass bottled milk, because dayam, my kids drink a lot of it.  I should think about switching to cartons, which are also recyclable).
- Snacks.  You can't get EVERYTHING in a bulk bin, though I wonder if I could just start buying tortilla chips fresh from a restaurant, and get them in a paper bag?

So we recently returned from spring break, and we did some things well, others not so much.
Good things:
1.  We stayed in a house.  We stopped at a grocery store and I brought my reusable produce bags.
2.  I brought my cheese from home!
3.  We brought water bottles, and bought ice cream in cartons.
4.  We ate lunch out one day at a real restaurant and use real silverware!
5.  I took our picnic basket with plates, cups, silverware, a wash cloth, towels to dry dishes, a small cutting board, a knife, some tupperware containers.
6.  We prepped quite a bit in the hotel for the last 2 days of the trip.  I learned how to make nachos in the microwave on part of a takeout pizza box.


Not good things:
1.  Eating out on road trips - first, there's the little plastic containers of ranch.  Sigh.  Then there's the stop at In N Out.  I didn't specify a drink.  So my spouse comes with water.  Fine, but I have water in the car.  In N Out gives you a plastic cup with a plastic lid and a plastic straw.  Geez.
2.  That real restaurant gave plastic and styrofoam takeout containers. 
3.  A lot of our prepped food was granola bars, and that's a lot of waste.
4.  Those little shampoos in the hotels.


I guess it's just a process.  Keep trying, it's all you can do!

Take a Shopping Trip with Me

My shopping habits change with the year and the season. During the CSA season (now 46 weeks long), I always pick up our fresh veggies on Thursday after work. (except next year, I think I signed up for Tuesday. After 10 years on Thursday, how much do you want to bet I'll forget the day?)

When my son was in daycare, I would often shop once per week at Tri County Produce because it was close to his child care provider, and had very good prices. When I was working Sundays, I would hit the farmer's market at lunch time near work. The Saturday farmer's market is one of the largest and is my favorite, but during the year or so that I was training for half marathons or triathlons, I always almost missed it.

When I worked part time, I shopped several days per week as I needed things, because I simply had more time. When I went back to work full time and got tired of that, I decided to only shop once per week (not counting the CSA pick up and farmer's market). When that got to be too stressful, I took a page out of some others' books (those who shop once every month or two or three), and attempted to shop only every 2 weeks. My thought was that I still had the CSA to pick up every week for vegetables, and there was now a farmer's market at my son's school on Wednesday, so I could shop without an extra trip.

I found the challenges to every 2 weeks were milk and fruit. It's not that if I ran out of something else, I couldn't work around it. I have a lot of practice with that. No bread for sandwiches or toast? Eat oatmeal or rice or pasta or soup. Milk does not stay fresh for 2 weeks. I know that you can freeze it, but I wasn't able to find 1/2 gallons or organic milk in the plastic jugs, and I didn't want to attempt to freeze paper cartons. And we eat a LOT of fruit. I eat 2-4 pieces a day and the spouse and child eat 1-3 pieces each. Our CSA supplies little fruit (some weeks, none at all), and the farmer's market choices are heavily dependent on the season (as expected). The market at my son's school is very small (1/8th the size of the Saturday one), with few vendors. I found myself having to shop at least once a week for milk and fruit, so I gave up the "every 2 weeks" shopping pretty quickly. I think I lasted 6 weeks.

The frugalness of my shopping trips has varied over the years and months too. A lot of frugal shopping and cooking habits can be learned and practiced bit by bit. Using a price book. Shopping loss leaders. Buying (and cooking) in bulk. Putting up "excess" (yours and friends'). Avoiding convenience foods. However, like healthy eating habits, it's pretty easy to find yourself drifting away from the good habits over time. One holiday party here and a pizza lunch at work there, and you find yourself hitting the bread or chocolate or wine a bit too much. Likewise, a week or two of craziness at work, a sick kid, or a traveling husband can mean you find yourself ordering pizza more often, or not using your price book, or buying convenience foods, or shopping at only one store because it's easier than shopping at three.

My shopping habits have also changed because of my reading habits. What to Eat, The Omnivore's Dilemma, Eat for Health, The China Study etc... now I purchase organic dairy whenever possible. We eat less meat (a LOT less) and buy organic and free range (local when possible). We eat about 5-10 lbs of meat in a typical month (for a family of 3). We try to eat organic for the "dirty dozen" fruits and vegetables also.

"Back in the day" before I embraced the more-organic path, and when I was working part time, I would use cash to shop and could feed us for $70/week plus $20 for the CSA. We ate more meat, I shopped more often at Tri County, and my son was mostly fed on breastmilk and baby food. I sometimes think longingly of those days of shopping aggressively and cooking from scratch 5 days a week (with leftovers on the other two days). But my shopping and eating habits have had to change for my own sanity's sake.

So, frugal or not by your standards, here's a day (sort of) in the life of my family's shopping habits. I was able to shop myself (no kid), which was relaxing.

At the Wednesday farmer's market this week, I discovered something dangerous. The hummus guy. Oh my goodness. I was shopping for my son's school snack for the next day. I like making my own hummus, but there's that time factor again.

Weds Farmer's market: $15
3 tubs of hummus: $13
1 lb broccoli: $2

Weds Grocery store: $9
crackers and baby carrots

Saturday Farmer's Market: $34.50
raw almond butter: $8 (this stuff is GOOOOOD)
10 lb bag oranges: $6 (great deal! and they keep pretty well in the fridge)
3+ lb avocado: $5 (from the best avocado ranch around)
1 ripe avocado: $1.50 (from a different vendor)
2 heads lettuce: $2
24 oz honey: $9
2 lb carrots: $3 (vs. 33cents a pound at Tri County. Not the frugal choice, but they are tasty)

Contrast these prices (some good, some not great) with Tri County Produce (location of origin listed).
Total Tri County: $14.82
yellow onions (USA) at 0.33/lb
kabocha squash (USA) at 0.79/lb (oops, they charged me for acorn)
organic pink lady apples (USA) at 1.39/lb (best price I've seen all year for organic)
cabbage (USA): 0.49/lb
poppy and sesame seeds: 0.69/ea
celery (USA): 0.79
red bell pepper (Mex): 0.49/lb
eggplant (Mex, though the label on the shelf said USA!): 0.99/lb
soda (bad Marcia): $1.59


I read recently that our poor farmers feed our rich people and our rich farmers feed our poor people. I wish I could remember where. Probably from a link from another site, like Casual Kitchen. When you compare our farmer's market prices vs. our store prices, you can see that is true.

Trader Joe's: $56.94
drinks: prosecco, limade, grapfruit soda (for a party)
sparkling water, apple juice (for home). Yeah, I pay for bubbles.
milk (1 gal, leaking), 2 kinds of yogurt (32 oz each) - I haven't made my own in awhile
fruit applesauce pouches (a jar would be better, but it's a treat for my son)
olives, capers, pickles
whole wheat penne and fettucini, bowtie pasta
bananas, gorgonzola, sour cream, bread

So, there you have it. $115.44 for the week. And we ordered pizza one night.

Free Range Chicken

I have been doing a lot of reading about food over the past several years. Fast Food Nation, The Omnivore's Dilemma, What to Eat, The Way We Eat: Why Our Food Choices Matter. All of these books lead me towards eating foods that are fresher, organic, local, and sustainable. I've learned a lot about factory farming, feedlots, the egg business, the dairy business. While I still do not have a moral problem with eating meat (I did grow up in a hunting family), I would like the meat I do eat to have a reasonably happy life.

Over the years our meals have gotten more and more vegetarian and vegan, and more and more local. We've been members of our local CSA for about 8 years now. We shop at farmer's markets and farm stands. The one area that I haven't gone yet, however, is local, free-range meat and eggs.

There are two main reasons for this: 1. I am frugal. Growing up in a large, rural, poor family, I sometimes cannot bring myself to spend more than I need to on something. And free range meat is expensive. 2. I don't eat very much meat or eggs. So I rationalize it by saying: "if we only eat one chicken and one roast a month, does it really matter?"

In any event, I finally made the leap this weekend. We had friends over for dinner, and I bought a chicken from Lily's Chickens (they also sell eggs) at the farmer's market. One 3 to 3.5 pound chicken is $12. Generally, I buy my chickens on sale at the grocery store, for $0.59/pound. One chicken is about $2.50 for 5 lbs. So the free range chicken is more expensive and a lot smaller.

I simply roasted the chicken using the Roast Sticky Chicken recipe from allrecipes.com. It was enough to feed the four adults and two toddlers present, with maybe a little leftover for a sandwich. I completely forgot to save the carcass for stock. But boy, was it good. We could honestly taste the difference. Now I know why my Chinese friends talk about how tasteless American chickens are - they are used to free range. My husband said "we're buying this stuff from now on."

We will probably continue on the path of eating less meat and making more of it local and free range. Because after all, we can afford it. Not everyone can. And I figure if I support my local farmers, maybe it will become more affordable for everyone else. (It also makes us less dependent on Big Agriculture). Next time I need eggs, we're trying their eggs. Not cheap at $4 a dozen.

All in all, our dinner - which included a salad with organic greens, pomegranate seeds, apples, and avocado, the chicken, and aloo gobi (Indian curried potatoes and cauliflower from World Vegetarian) by Madhur Jaffrey, cost about $25 - including the snacks (hummus and guacamole) that our friends brought. Much healthier, cheaper, and tastier than eating out!