Week 3’s Goal Follow-up: Meal prep. Meal prep. Meal prep! — Success. I’ll explain below…
Week 3, I am back on track. A big reason this week was such a success was that everything was back to normal. No travels, no festivals, and no guests. This left me with plenty of free time to plan for the week’s meals and explore all my options when shopping for food in plastic alternatives. I have found that going plastic-free is not only breaking a life long habit of the normalcy of plastics in everyday life but also finding ways to carve out time to prepare for every aspect of my shopping and outings. It takes a lot of time and effort.
With that said, meal prep is valuable on so many levels. With an organized list of ingredients needed for the week, I shave off valuable time in the store. I save loads of money because I am only buying exactly what is needed for that week (if I stick to the list of course). I am able to focus on the ingredients like organic, in season, or package-free. And typically, the meals are healthier.
I have been meal prepping for a long time and I ALWAY go to the store with a list in hand and a few recipes planned out for the week, but I dread the meal prep due to the prep part of it. Having to sort through the recipes, write out the ingredients needed (thus sorting through cupboards and the fridge too to ensure it’s not something already purchased). Then navigating the grocery store. Which, in my case, seems to swap the shelves every month or so, forcing me to relearn where everything is located.
This week I was introduced to an app called MealLime. There are several free options to select the type of diet (vegetarian, vegan, paleo). Choose from a selection of categories like meals under 30 minutes, or meals under $5 a serving and a list populates. I selected three meals, each with two servings for the week. The app combined all the ingredients I needed into one list that also happened to be organized the way the grocery store is.
This was by far the most enjoyable marketing I’ve ever done. It was super quick, simple, and I didn’t forget one thing or even have to backtrack through the isles because I forgot something. Once the ingredient was in the cart, I ticked it off the list and it disappears, making sure I don’t repeat anything either.
Because the overall shopping experience was simplified, I was able to focus more on the ingredients and packaging I was purchasing. And I did pretty well. Of course, there are some unavoidable items that had plastic:
- Grated parmesan cheese
- Butter
- Cheddar cheese
- Yogurt
It seems that all things dairy is in plastic.
With the shopping done, I was able to prepare the week’s meals in a flash. I had more time on my hands in hindsight because everything had been decided for me at the beginning of the week. And the trash was certainly not as full of plastics as before, besides the unavoidable (listed above). I used my reusable mesh produce bags, small canvas ones for bulk items like nuts and rice, I utilized the meat and fish counters – which, at our store, wrap items in paper – and had all the groceries bagged in our reusable shopping bags. Many single-use plastics were quite avoidable on this shopping trip.
I believe that once habits are built, most of the stuff that threw me off before, won’t anymore. I know exactly what I need to pack each day and for what events. I am learning how to overcome the things that popped up before I knew what a good alternative was, or how to refuse something politely and without feeling awkward. The grocery store is a great place to start.
Trash audit:
- Cheese container
- Cheese wrapper
- Yogurt container
- Butter wrappers
Week 4’s Goal: Engage our community. While recycling our plastics is the last of the 5 R’s and should only be utilized when everything else has been exhausted, it’s still better than nothing. Our apartment complex currently does not offer to recycle to their residents. Educating the staff and engaging the community is the pros of recycling might change this.
Fun Fact: The production of plastic uses around 8% of the world’s oil production. The World Counts
Resources this week:
Disclosure: I hope that over the next 5 weeks, I bring attention to the number of single-use plastics our world is bombarded with on a daily basis and how we might combat it with alternatives. There will be failures and moments of weakness, but I hope to acknowledge these in a supportive environment. Please use the comment section to share any tips, tricks, challenges, and questions that you have found throughout your own journey and keep all comments clean, supportive, and positive. For low waste to work, we must all support one another and understand that there are incredible barriers, such as food deserts, lack of bulk shops/farmer’s markets in areas, income, time, and so much more that we can not surpass just yet.
Notable 