Day 2 of the No-Food-Purchased-In-Plastic Experiment

Two days in and already challenged! My shopping list yesterday was short. All I needed was a couple of oranges, broccoli and vanilla extract.

Organic oranges were easy as they are sold by the piece.

Broccoli was more of a challenge. Much of the fresh produce sold at the neighbourhood organic market is packed in plastic bags to preserve its freshness. At the big-box-grocer across the street, organic broccoli is bundled together, three stems at a time, secured with a plastic elastic that has an attached plastic label.

Slightly perplexed I started pacing back and forth between the organic broccoli and the non-organic broccoli. Even the non-organic broccoli was bundled with an elastic band!

[Note to self: research if elastic bands contain any type of plastics.]

Nope, I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t purchase the non-organic broccoli. Not after writing June 22nd’s post introducing the What’s On My Food database. Broccoli is one of those products that contains large amounts of pesticide residue. Even organic broccoli does not arrive at the table pesticide-residue free.

I decided to purchase two stems of organic broccoli, but not before I pulled the stems out from the confines of the plastic elastic thingy. I think that was slightly bending the rules ...

I looked for vanilla extract at the organic produce store. Unfortunately both brands they carried had plastic security things shrink-wrappped around the plastic lids.

Back to the big-box-grocer. No organic vanilla extract there. They had artificial vanilla extract in plastic bottles ... blah. Fortunately they also had a house brand real vanilla extract in a glass bottle and there wasn’t any shrink wrapping security thing around the plastic lid.

Yup... a plastic lid.

Annoyed, I purchased the house brand vanilla extract rationalizing that at least I could reuse the bottle and its plastic lid. Slight bend of the rules number two ...

About mid day I met up with some friends for lunch. Afterwards we thought it would be nice to pick-up a coffee and go sit by the water. Great idea, except that I didn’t have my travel mug with me. No problem. I really could use a second coffee mug to keep in the car for just such occasions.

At the big-box coffee shop I refused to purchase a cheapo plastic travel mug. There was one choice of a stainless steel travel mug ... that would be the stainless steel travel mug with a plastic handle and plastic lid.

Rolling my eyes and complaining bitterly to my friends, I paid for my $30 take out coffee with ... yup you guessed it ... plastic ... I didn’t have enough cash with me.

Its going to be a long month.