6 ms·

Serious question: how does it "cost less"? As OP notes, buying without plastic is a privilege due to the luxury goods pricing model attached to eco-friendly pro

Serious question: how does it "cost less"? As OP notes, buying without plastic is a privilege due to the luxury goods pricing model attached to eco-friendly products.

esotericn 7y ago
This is not the case in the UK except in very specific promotional cases. Fruit and veg without plastic is available at your local supermarket. It can be a bit annoying to weigh it - you can use reusable bags for that - an easy one would be that you can get at least 10 uses out of the clear plastic bags you take the stuff home in for example. Processed stuff is harder sure. I tend to not really eat that stuff, staples are cheaper anyway. I agree that most people don't do this - well over half of the supermarket is full of items I'd never even consider buying - but that doesn't change the fact they could. I actually think there's a hump in the middle of the distribution. Essential basic foods are cheap and generally come loose (or at least you'll get 15kg of rice in one big bag). There are some exceptions like frozen vegetables. Processed middle of budget stuff like pre made sauces, ready meals, pre packaged small cuts of meat etc - yeah that's full of packaging. Then you have the signalling products whereby basically you're paying silly money for ready meals in cardboard boxes or whatever.
- monk_e_boy 7y ago
  Tesco have always weighed loose veg at the till. In france they till person doesn’t care if fruit and veg are bagged, just so long as you have weighed it and have the little sticker.
  - tonyarkles 7y ago
    In Canada, I never bag my fruits and vegetables. They all just get tossed in the basket and come home in a reusable grocery tote. They get weighed at the till.
friendly_chap 7y ago
I think you miss the point entirely. Prepackaged foods are way more expensive (where I live at least). You can go to a butcher they wrap up the meat in hair thin plastic bag instead of the bulky one in supermarkets. If you go to a grocer/farmers market you buy almost all things lose. Packaging is an entirely different industry with people adding their own (usually substantial) margins. In Lidl nowadays they sell loose nuts etc, also cheaper then prepackaged ones. You dont have to buy cashew in organic bamboo leaf packaging hand crafted by Cambodian virgins, just bring your reusable bag.
- kthejoker2 7y ago
  Sorry, I should be clearer. First, where I live, in sunny suburban Houston. There are definitely no places around here that sell fresh meat, nuts, grains, beans, etc without plastic for less than a national brand in plastic at WalMart - forget the Cambodian virgins... The food may certainly be fresher and better and healthier - but it's not cheaper. And in the aggregate if I substituted cheap plastic bagged cereal, prepackaged frozen meals, and juice jugs for a farmers market / bulk store meal plan, my food budget would skyrocket. If it really, truly cost less to go without plastic, poor people would do it, they do any and everything to save a dollar on food.
  - spodek 7y ago
    I stayed with a friend in Houston in November and December. We went to a farmers market selling plenty of produce, nuts, etc that we put in our bags we brought. I spoke to one of the farmers a bit and he gave me some free vegetables. I find that pattern happens a lot. I was full of envy because by that time of year, New York, where I live, has mostly cabbage for greens. Your local farms had a variety of greens in season (meaning plentiful and cheap). I'm pretty sure I could eat cheaper in Houston than here. We also went to a store called HEB with a huge bulk section. We filled bags we brought with us. We ate delicious, healthy, nearly package-free at low cost. I'm not sure what you tried, but I find experimenting for a week or two doesn't give enough experience to learn to cook from scratch fast and cheap. For example, learning to cook beans from dry in a pressure cooker is fast, simple, and very low cost. Here are reviews of my famous no-packaging vegetable stews that resulted from my experiments: http://joshuaspodek.com/food-world-reviews http://joshuaspodek.com/food-world-reviews. > If it really, truly cost less to go without plastic, poor people would do it, they do any and everything to save a dollar on food. I suspect causality goes the other way, at least in part, that eating habits, prompted by poor education and predatory marketing, contributes to them being poor. As I understand it, your logic would suggest that poor people wouldn't drink alcohol, but I see lots of alcohol stores in poor neighborhoods.
spodek 7y ago
OP is wrong. I thought that way too before I started. If you blindly shift to whatever the store is promoting, you'll pay more. I joined CSAs (if you're around NYC, I recommend mine http://joshuaspodek.com/where-to-buy-the-best-food-around-new-york-city http://joshuaspodek.com/where-to-buy-the-best-food-around-ne...). Dried beans and lentils are a couple dollars a pound, pre-soaked and pre-cooked. I learned to buy in season, which means the ripest things are in greatest quantity at low prices, plus they vary. I'm swimming in tomatoes now, for example, and they taste incredible. A couple months ago it was lettuce. I also get to know the vendors at the farmers market, and they give me a lot of free produce as a regular. Buying with plastic is a privilege -- externalizing the costs of cleaning your pollution to poorer communities and future generations. I hope that we'll end subsidies that force me to pay for meat, other standard American diet ingredients I don't eat, and fossil fuels transporting foods across the country and around the world which would make prices reflect their costs.

Serious question: how does it "cost less"? As OP notes, buying without plastic is a privilege due to the luxury goods pricing model attached to eco-friendly products.

esotericn 7y ago

This is not the case in the UK except in very specific promotional cases. Fruit and veg without plastic is available at your local supermarket. It can be a bit annoying to weigh it - you can use reusable bags for that - an easy one would be that you can get at least 10 uses out of the clear plastic bags you take the stuff home in for example. Processed stuff is harder sure. I tend to not really eat that stuff, staples are cheaper anyway. I agree that most people don't do this - well over half of the supermarket is full of items I'd never even consider buying - but that doesn't change the fact they could. I actually think there's a hump in the middle of the distribution. Essential basic foods are cheap and generally come loose (or at least you'll get 15kg of rice in one big bag). There are some exceptions like frozen vegetables. Processed middle of budget stuff like pre made sauces, ready meals, pre packaged small cuts of meat etc - yeah that's full of packaging. Then you have the signalling products whereby basically you're paying silly money for ready meals in cardboard boxes or whatever.

monk_e_boy 7y ago
Tesco have always weighed loose veg at the till. In france they till person doesn’t care if fruit and veg are bagged, just so long as you have weighed it and have the little sticker.
- tonyarkles 7y ago
  In Canada, I never bag my fruits and vegetables. They all just get tossed in the basket and come home in a reusable grocery tote. They get weighed at the till.

friendly_chap 7y ago

I think you miss the point entirely. Prepackaged foods are way more expensive (where I live at least). You can go to a butcher they wrap up the meat in hair thin plastic bag instead of the bulky one in supermarkets. If you go to a grocer/farmers market you buy almost all things lose. Packaging is an entirely different industry with people adding their own (usually substantial) margins. In Lidl nowadays they sell loose nuts etc, also cheaper then prepackaged ones. You dont have to buy cashew in organic bamboo leaf packaging hand crafted by Cambodian virgins, just bring your reusable bag.

kthejoker2 7y ago
Sorry, I should be clearer. First, where I live, in sunny suburban Houston. There are definitely no places around here that sell fresh meat, nuts, grains, beans, etc without plastic for less than a national brand in plastic at WalMart - forget the Cambodian virgins... The food may certainly be fresher and better and healthier - but it's not cheaper. And in the aggregate if I substituted cheap plastic bagged cereal, prepackaged frozen meals, and juice jugs for a farmers market / bulk store meal plan, my food budget would skyrocket. If it really, truly cost less to go without plastic, poor people would do it, they do any and everything to save a dollar on food.
- spodek 7y ago
  I stayed with a friend in Houston in November and December. We went to a farmers market selling plenty of produce, nuts, etc that we put in our bags we brought. I spoke to one of the farmers a bit and he gave me some free vegetables. I find that pattern happens a lot. I was full of envy because by that time of year, New York, where I live, has mostly cabbage for greens. Your local farms had a variety of greens in season (meaning plentiful and cheap). I'm pretty sure I could eat cheaper in Houston than here. We also went to a store called HEB with a huge bulk section. We filled bags we brought with us. We ate delicious, healthy, nearly package-free at low cost. I'm not sure what you tried, but I find experimenting for a week or two doesn't give enough experience to learn to cook from scratch fast and cheap. For example, learning to cook beans from dry in a pressure cooker is fast, simple, and very low cost. Here are reviews of my famous no-packaging vegetable stews that resulted from my experiments: http://joshuaspodek.com/food-world-reviews http://joshuaspodek.com/food-world-reviews. > If it really, truly cost less to go without plastic, poor people would do it, they do any and everything to save a dollar on food. I suspect causality goes the other way, at least in part, that eating habits, prompted by poor education and predatory marketing, contributes to them being poor. As I understand it, your logic would suggest that poor people wouldn't drink alcohol, but I see lots of alcohol stores in poor neighborhoods.

spodek 7y ago

OP is wrong. I thought that way too before I started. If you blindly shift to whatever the store is promoting, you'll pay more. I joined CSAs (if you're around NYC, I recommend mine http://joshuaspodek.com/where-to-buy-the-best-food-around-new-york-city http://joshuaspodek.com/where-to-buy-the-best-food-around-ne...). Dried beans and lentils are a couple dollars a pound, pre-soaked and pre-cooked. I learned to buy in season, which means the ripest things are in greatest quantity at low prices, plus they vary. I'm swimming in tomatoes now, for example, and they taste incredible. A couple months ago it was lettuce. I also get to know the vendors at the farmers market, and they give me a lot of free produce as a regular. Buying with plastic is a privilege -- externalizing the costs of cleaning your pollution to poorer communities and future generations. I hope that we'll end subsidies that force me to pay for meat, other standard American diet ingredients I don't eat, and fossil fuels transporting foods across the country and around the world which would make prices reflect their costs.