Social Commentary « (y)our food choices™

It's What We're Reading Now

No Impact Man

I picked up No Impact Man, by Colin Beavan, at the library on Sunday, the day we posted a piece on our blog about our Plastic-Free Dream. [Digression: I just need to say that the library is an amazing place. For years Steve and I have gone to bookstores and purchased books just because we “had to have them.” Now we walk just two blocks to the local branch of the San Francisco Public Library where we can borrow as many books as we want at anytime, and if we don’t read them we don’t feel guilty for spending the money. Check out your local library before purchasing your next book.] While we don’t plan on going on an impact-free diet, we’ll still use electricity and toilet paper, I’m sure it’s going to give us helpful information on reducing regular plastic use.

The next part of this post is going to be a little critical of Steve–sorry Sweetie. On Sunday, Steve made the delicious frittata with stinging nettle. (If you didn’t read the post let’s just say we were popular with the BDSM Googlers for a minute.) There was enough left over for Steve to take for lunch today and for my lunch as well. To my surprise, I opened the fridge and pulled it out it for lunch and I discovered that it was wrapped in parchment … AND plastic. Was the plastic wrap really necessary? Couldn’t it have been stored in a Tupperware container instead? I also noticed that the blanching broth from the stinging nettle was also covered in plastic. We do have mason jars with lids that Steve could have used instead, eliminating the need for the plastic wrap cover. So, unfortunately, on the first day of our plastic-free life, Steve used plastic wrap twice when it wasn’t necessary at all.

Plastic FAIL

I know to many I’m sounding like a nag, which I probably am, but if we are truly going to stand by our pact to reduce our use of plastic we both need to take that first step together. Sweetie, I am sorry for the public humiliation, but the next time you reach for the plastic wrap I hope you’ll remember this blog entry and that it makes you think twice about wrapping anything in plastic.

With Love, Jason

Explanation for the title revision “Busted!”: Writing a blog with your husband can be challenging at times. In our case, Steve’s grammar is impeccable and I like to have him review and edit my posts before I publish them. Sometimes he gets a bit carried away changing the style and tone of them, and publishing them before I have a chance to review. For yesterday’s blog, Steve titled it “Busted!” and posted it before I had a chance to agree to it. In my opinion it set the tone of the blog to be very accusatorial and finger-pointing at Steve, which was not my intention at all. I may be anally retentive when it comes to certain things, but in this case I just wanted to set our Plastic-free dream off on the right foot. I’ve changed the title to reflect my true intension, “Hard Habit to Break” and hope that with that change my true tone is reflected in the blog post. Of course, now that I have spent the last paragraph explaining all this it makes me sound like a true prick, but I’ll let you be the judge of it.

Not Pretty!

We’ve been troubled by the amount of plastic we use in the kitchen and throughout our apartment. Last year, we reduced the amount of glass we use by saving and reusing old bottles and containers. We use the containers for storing bulk items like beans, rice, flours, and other items we purchase in bulk from Rainbow market. We use the bottles for olive oil, maple syrup, and other liquid items. But reducing plastic seems to be difficult. We feel like crack addicts jonesing for the next fix whenever we can’t find a plastic Ziploc bag, but instead of crack we’re addicted to plastic. For years we have used Saran Wrap and Ziploc bags without giving a second thought to where it all ultimately ends up. We know it goes to the trash dump but where does it go after that?

We heard about the giant mass of plastic in the Pacific Ocean a few years ago, but thought that it was someone else’s problem, not ours. We recycle. We compost. We reuse plastic bags from the grocery store. This fall, we paid a visit to Sharon Beals’ studio in the Hunters Point Shipyards where we were blown away by her sadly beautiful photographs of the plastics and other detritus and flotsam she’s gathered on our local beaches. We then took a good hard look at our lives and realized we are part of the problem and the only way to be part of the solution is to reduce our plastic consumption to the point of eliminating plastics from our household.

Even though our blog is about food, it’s also about the choices we make. We’re not going to preach and stand on a soapbox about the evils of plastic, god knows we’re just as guilty as everyone else, but part of this year’s commitment to living a more sustainable life includes an effort to reduce the amount of plastic we use and to change how we dispose of it So, starting today we will be documenting our reduction of plastic as well as what we’re eating. For all those out there reading our blog, please give us any suggestions you may have for plastic-free food storage. We hope that by the end of this year we will be plastic free. We know it’s going to be a hard habit to kick, so wish us luck.