A Couple of Musings
Reviving Carrots, Bulk Bags, Voting with my Wallet
I made my first vegetarian Christmas dinner last week: lentil loaf, spinach salad with cranberry dressing, toasted brie on a sliced baguette and, of course, mashed potatoes. I had meant to make a soup as well but we already had enough food we decided even to forgo dessert.*
Problem was…I had already bought the ingredients for the soup and by mid-week, I had some limpy veggies.
The kale was even worse.
This blog, being what it is, I attempted to save some of the ingredients. The carrots firmed quite nicely overnight, simply by chopping off the bottoms and placing them in a glass of water:
The tops were still bendy so I flipped them over, and all was good.
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For a few years now, I’ve been using large, glass containers to do my dry, bulk grocery shopping. But I’ve been running into two problems:
- Cashiers that struggle with non-standard tares
- Stores that can’t accept tare weights heavier than one pound
So this week I decided to try using bulk bags for larger quantities of things like rice, lentils and trail mix. And you know what? I like it. Apart from having to peer inside at checkout to see what’s inside, it seemed easier to me than using my heavier (and breakable) containers.
I updated my post about using reusable containers here.
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And finally, while shopping at my Whole Foods this week, I came around the corner and discovered they had replaced their bulk spices with plastic baggies.
The customer service chick didn’t know why, but I can imagine it was too time consuming to maintain and not netting any profit.
However, another way to think about it is that Whole Foods was actually getting my business because of their bulk section. And this week, when I needed thyme, nutmeg and oregano, I actually shopped somewhere else.
Anyway, just another typical week in the life of Zero Waster. Happy New Year!
*Any friends reading this have already stopped at this point because clearly this wasn’t written by the sugar fiend they have come to know and totally adore.
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