Sealed Container

Day 223: Sealed Container

Food packaging. I've always assumed that it is a major contributor to negative environmental outcomes. Often as I unwrap a granola bar, or pour myself a bowl of cereal, or take a piece of bread out of the plastic bag, I imagine Caroline Ingalls and her monthly trip to town. How the flour and sugar and baking soda and pickles and candy were displayed in giant wooden barrels. The grocer would weigh the items on a giant scale and twist them up into pieces of paper, which Caroline would tuck into a woven basket for the long ride home. Even that was too much dependency for Charles, who kept moving them farther and farther into the wilderness, where they had to make do with whatever they brought along, or could grow, build, bake or trade in the new, emptier landscape.

On our kitchen counter, we have rows of sealed glass jars that remind me of those pioneer days. In them: corn meal, white flour, wheat flour, sugar, popcorn, rice, brewer's yeast, pasta, teabags. To some extent, this is a successful effort on our part to minimize waste from food packaging. Partly, it's a decorative choice. But, although our popcorn included less packaging than the microwave variety, it still came in a large plastic jug from Costco, or a small plastic bag from Meijer. Ditto everything else in the jars. We didn't pull the ears from the stalk, hang them to dry over the winter, and enjoy a tasty, fully compostable treat by the fireside come spring.

It turns out that some of the things I thought about packaging are true. Yes, packaging is a large component of the municipal waste stream, compromising about one-third of the total; food packaging alone comprises about 20% of municipal waste. The good news is that the volume and weight of packaging has remained constant since the 1990s despite overall economic growth (with accompanying increases in waste). The EPA has solid regulations the encourage recycling and composting.

The big surprise to me - duh - is that the primary purpose of food packaging is to keep our food safe from contamination. It's not all just a marketing ploy! And guess what? We have one of the safest - perhaps the very safest - food system in the world! So you don't have to feel entirely guilty about those little plastic bags that you repurpose as poop sacks, or the little apple bags you use to carry your lunch, or the cardboard cartons you put in the recycling bin.

I've idealized Charles and Caroline and Mary and Laura and Carrie. I've even imagined my next year's challenge: only whole foods, every day for a year. Nothing prepackaged. No restaurants, no tortillas, no store-bought bread, no Kellogg's or Kraft. No Trader Joe's cheese, no matter how delicious.

Now I'm not so sure. First, eating only whole foods would be a major, major time commitment. A lot of the food would suck, because I haven't had the lifetime of lessons Caroline had to make her food palatable. Let's face it, I'm not the best bread baker in the world. We'd get a lot less variety. Moose Tracks, not. Greek yogurt, not. Gin and tonic, not.

I'm still keeping the sealed containers on the counter (not including this green metal one, which doesn't match). I'm still going to get my milk delivered so Calder Dairy will reuse the bottles. I'm still going to bring my canvas bags to the grocery store, and refrain from putting bananas in a plastic bag, and buy dish soap in larger bottles less often. On the other hand, I'm also going to consider food packaging - and our safe food system - with more appreciation.