Plastic-free eating - day 1

Well, today was my first visit to the supermarket on the new, plastic-free regime.  I primed the family a couple of days ago, and, to my relief, got an enthusiastic response, and a bit of dinner-table discussion about what was going to be hard to buy.

Surprisingly, shopping turned out to be a more pleasurable experience than I'd had in Tesco's for a long time.  With my choices cut down to about 5% of what was on offer, I managed to whizz round in no time, and spend far less than I would have done normally.  Choosing vegetables was a cinch, as there were only a handful of things available that weren't wrapped in plastic, or packaged in plastic containers.  I picked up an aubergine, ten loose apples, bananas, leeks and a couple of peppers. 

I had a bit of an internal fight about the bananas, as I normally buy organic ones, but these, for some unfathomable reason, are always in plastic.  The apples looked and felt much nicer than their smaller counterparts in bags, so I'm sure I paid far more for them, but there was no price label by the box to tell me what I was in for.  When I got to the checkout, I noticed tiny plastic stickers on the apples . . . but I bit the bullet and decided that they were small enough to allow this transgression.

Another, slightly larger transgression was the fresh juice cartons - all of which had plastic caps or pour openings.  I even went to check the long-life versions on the other side of the supermarket, but they too had little plastic parts to them.  To pan out the juice a bit with an alternative option, I also bought Rocks Organic Blackcurrant squash - in a glass bottle; delicious with hot water instead of tea; equally good cold (http://www.rocksorganic.com/).

Short of banning milk in the house, I felt I had no option other than buying the paperboard cartons of Orkney milk, with their microscopic layer of plastic coating inside.  They are recycled, so I had decided not to obsess about it.  I bought more than I normally do, so that I could  make my own yoghurt, which brings me to transgression #3: a small carton of Yeo Valley plain yoghurt as a starter.  Don't start thinking that I'm a domestic goddess now.  I've never done this before; I just hope I don't poison everyone!

Buying the breakfast cereal was easy - with the sole option being Quaker oats.  Porridge it is, folks!  That shouldn't be too controversial as long as there's some syrup on hand.  Speaking of which, I had a very nostalgic, olde worlde afternoon yesterday, when I saw all the vibrantly orange-red Rosa Rugosa hips on our bushes, Googled a recipe for rose-hip syrup, and went out and harvested them.  An hour later, I was pouring a jar's worth of amber liquid into an empty honey jar.  It's a lovely, delicate taste - reminds me of the 'sirop' we used to get on French holidays as a kid.

Next stop: deli counter, and thank goodness for Orkney Cheese!  The young lass seemed interested to hear about my quest ("That sounds cool") and was concerned enough to point out that although some of the cheeses I could see were encased in wax, she would still have to wrap the cut pieces in cling film.  Just as she was producing a cardboard takeaway box from the barbecued chicken section, I spotted the packs of Orkney Cheddar - overpackaged slightly, encased as they are in black wax and a cardboard sleeve.  I think this will take some more investigating though, as I'm guessing (although it doesn't say anything on the packaging) that the wax is made from paraffin, and is therefore a close cousin to the dreaded p-word.

So, with all this, plus two jars of marmelade and two packs of butter, my (BYO hessian) shopping bags were mainly full of raw ingredients, and a lot lighter for it, as was the bill. Next time we need toilet paper, I'm going to have to shop elsewhere, as Tesco's had only the plastic wrapped specimens.  And I'm still racking my brains as to what to do about dried fruit and nuts.  As far as I can make out, there is no plastic-free option, but I have it on my to-do list to ask at our local grocer-cum-hardware-cum-gardening supplies shop, William Shearer's, about their bulk buying.  Around Christmas time, they had large boxes (cardboard) of dried fruits for making Christmas cakes, from which customers weighed out their own amounts.  If I could bring my own containers, perhaps they would let me do this again, even though the boxes are probably hidden round the back now, for Shearer's usual decanting into little plastic bags.

Sorry this has been such a long one!  The intricacies of my shopping list will not be repeated next time, but I'll let you know how I get on with Shearer's.