Old Fashioned Can Be Eco-Friendly Too

As per my morning routine I drank my coffee and read some great articles over at Lime.com After reading The Green-Eyed Momsters article on going with out plastic for one week, I got flash backs to a few years ago when I started counting how many plastic bags came home with me from the market. I quickly moved to using heavy duty canvas bags and instantly went from bringing a cart full of groceries home in 25-40 little plastic bags, to bringing home the same amount of food in 10-12 canvas bags. It has made a big difference in my home to be sure, but like the Green Eyed Momster, I had continuously been frustrated at the amount of wasteful packaging (plastic or otherwise).

This is one of the reasons that the bulk food section has become my best friend, if I can get it in the bulk section it's coming home with me. Rices, sugar, cous cous, cereal, nuts, flours, pasta, coffee, even dry mixes for things like hummus and bean dip are showing up in bulk sections and at better and better prices. If you can name it there's probably a bin for it. You can even grab your herbs, spices and teas loose in "bulk" at many places. Best of all you can recycle the plastic that you got your first batch in. Lately though, I've thought of going a step further.

Remember the days (or hearing others tell of the days) when flour, sugar and rice came in cloth sacks? It's an old fashioned way of packaging to be sure, but think about it. If you started buying even one or two items you get regularly from your local markets bulk section and used a cloth bag to package it in, how much wasteful packaging that would reduce? Well, there are plenty of websites, even local fabric and hobby stores, where you can find unbleached (and some even Organic) cotton/hemp/recycled fiber cloth by the yard. Why not make your own cloth sacks for the items you get the most often? Heck, even sew a little label on them if you get a regular supply of the same stuff. When you get home, toss the goodies into their own containers (I like the glass hinge topped jobbers myself).

Also, think of doing the same thing for produce items like lettuce and spinach, only using a terry cloth type of fabric (helps keep the greens from getting all slimy) or burlap for potatoes and onions and so forth.

Those of you who are fortunate enough who have access to orchards and pick-you-own farms can do the same thing, even utilizing berry baskets and other woven baskets to bring your fresh foods home.

I think as more people begin to look for ways to do things in a more eco-friendly way, they will realize that the forgotten and "old fashioned" ways held a great deal of merit and use; and with a little bit effort on our parts, it can again.

Eating Locally Gets a Little More Complicated

A think tank in Britain has recently added a new spin on the argument of eating locally. The idea is that by eating locally people are in fact hurting people in developing countries such as Africa, because we are not buying their fruits, vegetables and produce related products. As Harriet Lamb, executive director of the Fair Trade Foundation, said recently, “"Many products which come to us from Africa are giving some of the poorest people in some of the poorest countries in the world a chance to earn a decent living,"

I too am someone who has embraced the idea of “Eating Locally”. The benefits of that particular movement can be seen in the success that local farmers have year after year, and can be felt every time you leave a grocery that sells local or every time you leave a weekly farmers market. The increase in co-ops has been great to see and the effect of which are palpable as well. Communities are becoming more independent from massive factory farms and are seeing where their money is going: back to their own community.

But here’s a thought: What if farmers from other countries also focused on selling/trading locally and became more independent? I’m sure the foods that the farmers are growing could go to much better use feeding the people over there than extending the window of availability in supermarkets over here.

I realize it would be simplistic to expect to see such a thing happen instantaneously and to ignore the issues that inevitably go hand and hand: What about free/fair trade? What about bringing these developing countries “up to par” with other, more “civilized” countries? These are issues that will resonate and be talked about in think tanks on university campuses and in line at your local grocer. I’m sure the debate for and against buying locally will go on for some time.

But personally, I’d much rather see photos of co-ops and village farms dispersing fresh produce to local people in their own countries than be able to get pomegranates from Iran, avocados from Israel and plantains from South Africa out of season.