You might remember the picture from a few months ago of my groceries for a week. While that truly was the best I could do at that time, it made me realize I could do better. (By the way, I highly recommend doing this for yourself one day after you get home with your groceries. It provides a perspective you probably haven’t seen before.) So I divided the packaged goods into 3 groups: what I couldn’t do without, what I could make from scratch, and what I could sacrifice for the good of the earth.

(Full disclosure, this picture isn’t completely accurate for a regular week. There is usually a bag or 2 of flour, a quart of half and half and a couple boxes of butter, a hunk of cojack cheese and maybe a bag of mozzarella cheese for pizza but most of that can be composted, save for the cheese wrappings. They aren’t included because I hadn’t bought them yet for the week.)

I wanted to share a few tips I have picked up that help me eat food with less waste.

Homemade yogurt: I use this for tzatziki sauce, fruit and granola parfaits, sour cream, smoothies, etc. The ways it can be used are endless and I no longer recycle plastic container after plastic container.

Bulk Oatmeal: I make this for the girls’ breakfast with a pinch of salt and some maple syrup and use it to make my homemade granola. The maple syrup is local so while I don’t think it tastes as good as maple syrup from Vermont, it’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make.

Bulk Rice: I make this a lot more now. I only buy one kind to streamline the process for me. I know how much water/salt or broth to use, how long to cook it, etc. so it keeps the thinking down to a minimum. If the meal isn’t enough, I throw on some rice to bulk it up. Same goes for the barley and quinoa. Or all three of these can have veggies thrown in and some olive oil, balsamic vinegar and salt drizzled on and boom! You’ve got dinner.

Bulk Chickpeas: I also throw in a couple handfuls of chickpeas to bulk up a lot of dishes but what I’ve been doing even more is using them to make hummus. My grade school friend Alex, suggested I could always serve hummus with meals and a lightbulb went off in my head. I had always looked at hummus as being an appetizer for when company came over but now I bring it out to the table with pita or veggies whenever the meal I make isn’t quite enough. It kind of fills in those extra crannies that got missed, especially since I’m cooking with a lot less meat these days.

Tofu: the tofu (Mofu) comes wrapped in plastic but it’s made here in St. Louis (hence the MO in Mofu) so even though it’s wrapped in plastic, its environmental impact is a lot less since it’s local.

Chicken: that’s about the only meat we eat during the week (save for the 2 sausage links I buy plastic free from the butcher for weekend pizzas). It’s also local and was free range so its impact is also less.

Milk: We joined a co-op here in St. Louis and are able to buy a lot of local foods at cost so while buying milk in glass containers was financially out of our reach before, it is now available to us. I’m thankful for this since we now use it not only to drink and cook with but also for the homemade yogurt.

Goat cheese: the plastic wrapped cheeses are the items that I just can’t let go of. And since it’s just too pricey to order from the deli, for now, those 3 plastic wraps a week are just going to go in the trash.

So I hope that gives you some ideas on how you might be able to cut back on a couple of plastic food items. And if you’re participating in Plastic Free July, keep up the good work! You can do it!