Brown-bagging it? Not quite…
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“Blue lunch-boxing it” to be exact. Well, now that March is over, I’m sure you are all sitting with baited breath wondering how I did on my “No Corporate Greed” March challenge. Overall, I feel really good about what I accomplished… such as:
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We are no longer buying juice boxes – only large bottles of juice and filling reusable containers (which you can also dilute with water).
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We are no longer buying Uncrustables – we make PB & J every morning now with local peanut butter and whole wheat bread.
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We are no longer buying individually-wrapped packages of crackers and cookies (like those 100 cal Nabisco packs) — only full-sized boxes and bags that we then portion out into reusable containers.
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We are no longer buying individually wrapped American cheese — only deli-style. We still buy string cheese because they don’t sell it without individual wrapping (at least that I could find ).
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Not a change, but we have always used a cloth napkin in the 4-yo’s lunch box vs. paper ones… it was a school request, but we whole-heartedly support it. I found some cool tie-dyed bandannas at A.C. Moore and they work great.
So here is what a typical lunch looks like for the 4-yo now:
The only waste is the small Ziploc that the sandwich is in. It’s hard to find a container that fits half a sandwich perfectly. Something tells me I need to go to the Container Store though… I feel pretty confident that they will have something I can use.
After my last post (which was 1/2 way into the month), I had indicated a few slip-ups… such as several visits to Starbucks, a dinner from McDonald’s and some purchases at chain stores (such as CVS). My goal was to have “NO MORE slip-ups” — but I didn’t quite make it. I DID stay away from chain grocery stores until the last week of the month… when I got a full-time job and realized that we had NO food in the house and the only place that was open was a normal grocery store (Roche Brothers). At least it was a locally-owned grocery store.
Since I had to go there ANYWAY, I bought individual drinkable yogurts because the 4-yo made it very clear he did not like the Kefir cultured-milk drink. Oh well — baby steps. I bought a few other things too, but nothing too awful… mostly just fresh ingredients and one or two frozen items. I decided that it was too difficult to be away from home from 7:30 am to 5:30 pm every day and have the time to purchase all our food and supplies from local business owners. It was a great experiment though and it DID force us to implement some healthy and environmentally friendly habits.
As far as Starbucks goes… I failed miserably. I CUT BACK… probably by 25 to 30% for the month… but I just couldn’t wean myself off the habit.
I am still making my weekly pilgrimage to Russo’s, but now I fight the crowds on Saturdays. It’s worth it tough..
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7 Comments to “Brown-bagging it? Not quite…”
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I solved my sandwich-baggie-wastefulnees-dilema with reusable sandwich/snack pouches at http://www.snacktaxi.com. They are super cute and it’s a local Mass. company too.
Jayna,
Those are GREAT! Thank you for passing along the link!!!!
Tammy
You’re doing awesome, stop beating yourself up over the Starbucks stops. One habit at a time. Send me your address and I’ll send you something yummy and we use brown bags too!!!
Cyndi
Great job. After your original post, I said something about it being easy (for me) to stay out of Star and S&S. I did have to go into one or the other (can’t remember which), headed straight for what I wanted and thought I was so smart going down the pet food aisle to exit. Didn’t currently have a pet (now have two foster cats for the month) so thought that was a smart bet. Not! Got stopped dead in my tracks at the cute dog toys – soft and plush and made noise when you squeezed them.
How about the individual pie slice containers for the half sandwiches? Probably not an exact fit but definitely reusable.
I agree the coffee is a tough one. But by going to Starbucks we are keeping people employed with good benefits. (My way of justifying making coffee at home and buying it in a store every day.)
Ever hear of anyone having Tupperwear parties anymore? Maybe Tupperwear makes a sandwich container.
Hi!
To solve the baggie problem, I put the half sandwich into a bigger plastic container and then add the other stuff on the side to sort of hold everything in. I sometimes use silicon cupcake thingies to hold the pretzles or fruit or whatever. THey cost about 10 bucks for a dozen and are very colorful. There are rubbermaid or glad sandwich things you can buy that are just the right depth to keep the sandwich together, but I have found that the BEST containers for sandwiches plus fruit, crackers whatever are the ones that come with the THAI Kitchen micorwave-able noodle dishes. Now, buying those in the first place is sort of wasteful, but I bought an 8-pack of them at COSTCO once for my lunch at work and have been using them for the kids lunch for YEARS!. Actually, the lids are getting a bit cracked, so I have been on the lookout for more, but they don’t seem to have them at Costco at the moment….
Another great way to recycle something you throw away all the time is to use the liners from cereal boxes to wrap stuff – it is just like wax paper….
[...] while back, I wrote a post about how I was trying to reduce disposables in my 4-yo’s lunchbox. I had been successful [...]