I’ve been thinking about this especially as tariffs are set to make non-plastic even more expensive, and we’re going to see EVEN MORE products that traditionally were glass/aluminum become plastic…Not just from an ‘ecowarrior’ thing but micro/nanoplastic pollution, what are your tips to avoid plastic packages as it seems increasingly the ‘only’ option for so many products now… even 75% of veggies at my local super are plastic wrapped with no alternative!!! Yes, I use the bulk section… what other tips/hacks do you have, if any?
We’re not eco-warrior or anything like that but we
We buy all we can in bulk, including rice and noodles, meat and fish and, obviously, fresh fruits and vegetables. I can’t recall the last time we purchased wrapped vegetables or fruits. Coffee, tea, spices, herbs,… all purchased in bulk and put in paper wrapping before being stored long term in metal or glass ones.
The only thing we have yet to find alternatives to are yogurts and, how do you call that in English: fresh cheese? Fromage blanc, in French. Those are almost always sold in plastic containers.
This is a good list, many things we already do…and some things I can try…first, I’m jealous of your local baker. If I want non-processed, non-plastic wrapped bread I have to make it myself. I love doing it but don’t always have time and my kids wont eat it, b/c sadly they’re conditioned on the soft, preservative filled industrial bread. We don’t drink soda and we cook 90% of meals, but as you mention, some products are inescapable… Including products we use for cooking… one pet peeve of mine: mayonnaise used to be glass now there is no glass option, same for a lot of oils (more than 80% of the olive oil is now in plastic, and what’s not is more expensive, same for vinegar). So even our ingredients… hell even the SPICES now come in plastic instead of glass jars. I can’t find glass/aluminum apple sauce for my kids to save my life. For us, there isn’t a lot of Fromage Blanc in the states where I live, but I found our most similar product (Cream Cheese) in blocks, still made of foil and cardboard like they always have for baking which is nice.
One of the advantage of living in Paris is that, among (too) many industrial bakeries, we still have quite a few real bakeries (and restaurants) and I would add ours is real talented—it’s rare people don’t queue—willing to bet your kids would love it ;)
Yes, that’s a real issue. I was already impacted as a kid, but not to the level it has reached in those last decades. Our kids are becoming overweight younger and younger. It’s frightening and, imho, if our species doesn’t vanish in a poof of smoke because of its own stupidity/rapacity, I’m afraid overprocessed food will be as detrimental to younger generations health as the cigarette was to my and my parents generations, as well as it was to older generations. Maybe even worse. Maybe not as dramatic as their phone addiction could be for them, that I can’t tell.
It is here too. We had to change our habits and reduce our spending on quite a few things.
Maybe there is still a place that sells them in glass jars or in bulk, alas I think it’s become very difficult to be certain of that because, what not a surprise, small local business are seldom efficiently promoted by search engines instead they will put forward shit on amazon and the likes.
Like you, we’re trying our best but I’m pretty sure things won’t get better any time soon and our options will dwindle down. Even more so now that the EU and America are not BFF any longer (and that the rest of the world hates us) and now that our undoubtedly incredibly extremely smart leaders are competing to decide who has the biggest… tariffs—you’re richer than we are and you have Walt Disney, so you obviously and easily win there but here in the EU we have the good old Parthenon and those unique French cheese so we win here and by a landslide if I dare say so myself because, obviously, our cheese are so yummy (and not plastic wrapped). Could we now be BFF again and stop that craziness? ;)
More seriously, thx for starting the thread. It’s an interesting discussion. I hope others will share their ideas too.
On spices - you’re right, I buy lots of stuff from bulk but I’ve been neglecting the spice section! I usually get the dry goods & snacks there… But yeah, you’re right it’s not getting any better. For what it’s worth - most of us in the US are just as horrified, I think… maybe I just live in a bubble, but uh, yeah, we’re aware that our country is collapsing in front of the world in real time and it’s embarrassing to say the least, horrifying more like. If only we hadn’t let all our absurd wealthy corpos & oligarchs loot and pillage our government… I’m grateful for lemmy where we can still chat as friends without algorithms, bots & ads! Cheers!
I’ve a huge confidence in the USA, even sick to the chore by illiteracy and by raging money-grabbing-rapacity—because it’s not just capitalism anymore talking, it’s something rabid and uncontrollable and so intoxicated, that doesn’t rely on hard work anymore. Something without a name that you now seem to have turned against yourself, and against your allies. That should worry everyone, as should the unbelievable wave of proud idiotism (if it wasn’t, it’s now officially a word) that’s also going on in the USA. Still, I refuse to doubt the USA have completely lost it.
That said, for the time being it doesn’t look pretty at all to witness the most powerful of ‘us’ happily re-elect such an illiterate racist buffoon (also the instigator of a failed coup); while at the same time watching him spit in the face of most if not all of its allies (doesn’t matter much if that was deserved or not); while lowering his pants in front of its enemies; while the whole country looks like its slipping into a state of quasi civil war; while a few persons of power are quickly dismantling/gutting all safeguards that were supposed to prevent any grab of power; while more and more of its population start acting like a mob of proud illiterate and ultra violent absolute idiots. Don’t get me wrong, we have our own fair share of shit going on around here, its just that the USA was supposed to be the leader and role model.
Well, all that combined is not reassuring and will not help appease those unfriendly feelings expressed by so many other countries around the world. Most of them also having started to imagine a future without us, that would instead orbit around Russia and China (and India?) I imagine.
Pessimistic me thinks that, whatever is bound to happen, it likely wont be pretty.
Less pessimistic me also don’t worry too much about the issue. We’ve already been trough some real hardship in the approx. 2000 years the ‘West’ has been a thing. But there is that little detail: we are in a unprecedented situation where we (not just you the USA, most of us) are insisting on electing the more incompetent people (and the stupidest ones) to deal with whatever major crisis is bound to happen, while seeking refuge and solace behind the most stupid and naive ideas being so sure we can’t be wrong ever because yeah, it’s us! Meanwhile, other countries seem to do the exact opposite kind of choice… and we can mock them all we want and say they’re retrogrades, clueless, or whatever so far I would say they’re not the ones demonstrating they’re clueless, quite the contrary. And that could cost us dear.
Sorry for the rant. Sadness of an old grumpy dude talking, nothing more obviously.