Planning & Preparing

This zero waste business takes some serious planning. Running to the corner store is not so much an option anymore, so I had to think ahead for every ingredient. Here’s the dinner menu I put together for our first five days:

• salmon with bok choy and roasted potatoes
• spaghetti with marinara and asparagus
• quinoa bowl with black beans, bell pepper and salsa
• veggie pizza
• beef pot roast 

Luckily I live in San Francisco and have Rainbow Grocery, mecca of all things bulk, close by, as well as more Whole Foods than I can count on one hand. Aaron and I packed up our reusable shopping bags and headed off to Rainbow to kick start our zero waste kitchen. I was confident they’d have smaller reusable containers available to purchase for my bulk goods. So I was a bit shocked to find the bulk aisles stocked with disposable plastic bags and one semi decent smaller re-usable cotton bag… for $13. I purchased 4 glass jars around $2 each (with more planning I definitely could have found these cheaper elsewhere) and swore to re-use the plastic bags I did end up needing for bulk items as much as possible. Since then, I’ve actually gone a bit Laura Ingalls Wilder and sewed a few reusable bags out of old clean tees for future bulk purchases.

Here’s what I found and purchased in the bulk aisle:

• rice
• dried beans
• spaghetti
• quinoa 
• a huge variety of flours, including tapioca, sorghum, brown rice and millet 
• xanthan gum
• brown sugar
• Hungarian sweet paprika (yeah, seriously)
• granola
• chocolate covered raisins

Heading over to the dairy section, I was a bit disappointed to see all cheese was pre-wrapped in plastic and the cheesemongers had gone home for the day. So I skipped cheese and just bought a glass bottle of Strauss milk. The bottle is returnable for a $1.50 deposit and Strauss reuses 95% of their glass bottles. Later in the week, I walked over to the Ferry Building on my lunch and bought a delicious and affordably priced cheese from Cowgirl Creamery. They happily shoved their unpackaged and fresh cut cheese into my mason jar, warning me to let it breathe when I got home.

Produce was the easiest section to avoid waste. Instead of using plastic bags, I just put everything directly into my basket (except the mushrooms). I bought:

• zucchini
• tomatoes
• fresh basil
• mushrooms
• bell peppers
• avocado
• onion
• fresh cilantro
• jalapeño peppers
• eggplant
• limes
• fingerling potatoes
• asparagus

Over at Whole Foods, I struck out in the meat department. I didn’t have any containers from home to use, so they wrapped up my meat in paper. Next time I’ll try my luck with the butcher and a container from home.

Wine also poses an issue. As far as I can tell, the only way to get bulk wine is from a winery, and I’m not sure the drive to Napa outweighs the negatives of recycling glass. And let’s be realistic. I’m not giving up wine. Who are we kidding here.

All considered, I’m pretty pleased with my first attempt at zero waste shopping for the week. It’s far from perfect, but a vast improvement on our mountain of takeout boxes, not to mention the health and taste benefits of eating a more natural diet. It’s a start!