PRE PACKAGED FOOD LAWS

Use these as your ultimate aspiration.  Try hard and do your best, and you will be repaid greatly with gratitude and love from the Earth and feelings of connection, even when you slip up!
 Print this out, keep it with you when you shop. For the next week, pull this list out and read it to familiarize yourself with these concepts.

Rule number one:
DO NOT purchase pre-packaged foods at all. And use reusable produce and bulk bags or containers. If you think you might have a hard time with this step, here are some other guidelines to follow to feel WAY better about your withdrawal from the packaged food system, and from the cycle of trash. Baby steps, slightly outside of your comfort zone are perfect. Set yourself up for success! What is the smallest step that you can take right now that will make the biggest impact?

  • No styrofoam!
  • No plastic, specifically bags and ESPECIALLY saran style wrap. Wrap does not recycle- bags do! Make the choice- this or that!
  • Things marked compostable only compost in a proper composting facility, not in a landfill. So if you don’t compost, it doesn’t do much better. Don’t be fooled. If you put it in the trash it will act like trash in the landfill.
  • Things being marked biodegradable does not mean that that they are compostable. Biodegradable is an extremely broad term that can be manipulated easily within the law. By the way, so is the term “all natural.” High fructose corn syrup is, in fact, “all natural.” More on that and other green labeling some other time.
  • Be creative. Use me, Betsy D, and the world wide Internet to learn how to reuse waste from packaging creatively! For tons of Pinterest fun click here
  • Begin to whittle down your pre packaged food consumption until it’s only for special occasions and emergencies. If you cannot do this all at once… well, DUH!!! It’s HARD!! It seems as though trash rules the world.
  • But you rule! Just ask yourself: What is the easiest step I can take right now that will make the biggest impact?
  • Frozen food has the highest retained nutritional value, but don’t microwave it or it will lose a ton of it! Plastic coated cardboard is NOT recyclable though. Go easy on it. The Frozen food bags are hard to recycle also, and not acceptable to toss. You can honestly Freeze all your own veggies for the CHEAPEST! And it does not take much knowledge or time!
  • Dried food is the other highest nutrient-retaining convenience food.
  • Canned food has very little nutritional value. The same goes for chips and crackers and things made largely out of flour of any sort it seems.
  • Now go up the ante on your packaged food choices! Hint: fig newtons come in bulk, and so do many other cookies!
  • Other hint: you don’t actually need cookies. =D Freedom!!