One of the biggest challenges I’m having with changing to a more sustainable way of life is food shopping. We’re on a tight budget which means we do the bulk of our shopping at our nearest Aldi and I might pop to the local Waitrose once or twice a week to grab a few extra bits. In addition to this I’ve started using the market to get the weekly fruit and veg shop. I’m going to do a whole post devoted to fruit and veg shopping so I’m not going to talk about that here.
Avoiding unnecessary plastic has been one of our top shopping priorities and it’s nigh on impossible if you shop at any of the major supermarkets. It can also throw up new dilemmas – I might be able to take my own container to the deli or meat counter but the meat isn’t free range so is it better to buy the free range meat that’s packed in the non-recyclable black plastic? Sometimes I end up getting so stressed and annoyed by it that I simply don’t buy any of it. But I can do this all the time or we’d never eat! So, in this post I want to share a few of the no-plastic wins we’ve had:
Aldi Specially Selected Farmhouse Yogurts
These come in little glass jars, admittedly they have a plastic lid but they can be washed and reused and overall there’s definitely less plastic waste than with regular yogurt pots. They are absolutely delicious too!
Aldi Kavanagh’s Organic Jumbo Porridge Oats
A lot cheaper than other organic oats and they come in a paper bag. They also work well in flapjacks.
Heinz Tomato Ketchup
I’ve managed to find this in a glass bottle in our local Waitrose. At £1.45 for 342g it doesn’t work out as cheap as the big squeezy bottles or supermarket own brand ketchup, but we don’t eat much of it so it lasts quite a long time.
Ice cream blocks
Sainsbury’s sell an own brand 1 litre vanilla ice cream block. Lyons Maid also sell a vanilla ice cream block (happily our village shop sells it). Both are in cardboard.
Waitrose Essential Choc Ices
My children are obsessed with ice cream and it’s really hard to avoid plastic packaging in some form. These come in a cardboard box and the individual ice creams are wrapped in paper.
Passata
Most supermarkets sell passata in glass jars and Aldi do some really nice ones with added garlic and herbs – I use these sometimes as a basic pasta sauce adding in some pepper and mushrooms and it works out more cost effective than buying a jar of pasta sauce.
Chicken dippers and potato waffles
My youngest is an appallingly fussy eater but she will eat chicken nuggets and potatoes in most forms hence chicken nuggets are one of our freezer essentials. Tesco sell them in cardboard boxes – you get fewer than in the big bags and they work out slightly more expensive than the bags but they do put them on offer every so often so it’s worth stocking up on them when they do. Potato waffles seem to be the only frozen potato product that’s sold in boxes in most supermarkets.
Eco Family Life 