Day 5: A Trip to the Grocery Store

Today's lesson: People who do not want to make trash need to learn how to cook EVERYTHING
Today's winner: plastic lids.  they are everywhere!  
Today's discovery:  Whole Foods recycles plastic #5!!! 

Not pictures: 4 tiny sample cups, 1 tiny spoon

We made our first grocery trip of 2013.  It was a bizarre shopping experience.  We did not focus on what we needed or wanted, we focused on what products we could buy and not make any trash.  The answer?: not much.  We ended up getting some fruits and vegetables, a can of tomatoes to make our own pasta sauce, some spaghetti in a cardboard box (the tiny plastic window will be trash), and milk in a glass bottle (the plastic lid will be trash).  We perused the bulk foods and I think we will be eating a lot of rice, lentils, granola, nuts, and bulgur in the future.  mmmm....

All we can eat are fresh fruits and vegetables, canned items, and bulk products--grains, nuts, beans, honey, legumes, and dried fruit.  Yes, we can live well off of all of that.  We even will be a lot healthier.  But I am sad that I can't get the cereals I like or an easy-to-make dinner in a box (because they always have plastic bags inside)  And it is going to be a lot of work.  Or be very expensive.  I am going to have to start baking my own bread or paying a lot of money to get it from a bakery in order to avoid plastic bags.  We are going to have to accept that spaghetti comes with a plastic window or only buy it from the expensive farmer's market in the non-winter month or make it ourselves.

At least we found out plastic #5 is recyclable.  This opens up the world of yogurt, butter tubs, chinese takeout soup, etc. to us.  And hopefully sample cups.  We got drawn into a beautiful spiel about a beautiful sample and took the little plastic cup filled with deliciousness before we even realized the trashy implications.

So today's trash--- 2 aluminum taco wrappers from Bret and A's lunch, 4 sample cups (A grabbed 2 samples), the plastic lid that I didn't want on my queso, the plastic container my guacamole unexpectedly came it, and the plastic lid that I did not want on the hot chocolate I got for Audrey.  Lesson learned.  I have asking for a drink without a straw down pat.  Now I need to remember to ask
what sort of container I will be served in.

Medicine is still a problem.  I went to Target to refill a prescription.  oh!  I discovered the way to tell people about what we are doing.  How does this sound?  "My husband and I are doing and experiment is extreme environmentalism"--well, it is the line I used on the pharmacy tech before asking her to reuse my old pill bottles.  She couldn't--against policy or health code or something-- but it was easy for me to say without feeling foolish AND she gave me the name of an organization that might be able to help.  So more research...but I think my phrase is succinct and respectable.

Still researching.  Still learning lots.  Still excited about the possibilities.