Groceries and such

Friday is our main grocery shopping day, and I felt pleased with this week’s version.

First thing I went out to the farmer’s market. It’s got quite thin really – the lady who sells eggs and chickens is no longer there, nor the lady who sells her own lamb, nor the lady who sells raw milk.

The only meat stall sold game (so, wild, which is okay) and free range chickens – but she didn’t know the suppliers and had no idea under what conditions the animals were kept. “Free range” has a very broad interpretation.

The veggie man was there – and he will just put the things straight in my basket – no bags, be they paper or plastic. So that was good news.

On the way home, I stopped at the farm shop, augmented the veggies I’d got from the farmers’ market, and bought some cream, butter and milk from what I hope are local farmers.

There’s a better farm shop at no greater distance, and the farmers’ market was a bit meh, so I’ll go to the other one next week. Still, we did manage to stock up on packaging-free veggies, the butter was wrapped in paper (no foil), and though the cream and milk came in plastic cartons, their labels were small and plain – so no dye-heavy brightly-coloured big labels.

Then in the afternoon we went out to Penhurst to take our spare vacuum cleaner for Storm who was short of one. We mentioned that we intended going blackberrying along the lane, and she said we could take some apples from her orchard too – which we gladly did.

It was a beautiful day, and we found plenty of berries – the last chance before the devil stamps on them at Michaelmas!

On the way home we stopped at the wholefood co-op to pick up ingredients for our next batch of Deliciously Ella super-bread – which is soooo good; we eat it every day. We needed brown rice flour, pumpkin seeds and almonds – the flour came in a paper bag like flour usually does, the seeds and nuts in plain cellophane packs – again, little or no dyes involved and only the bare minimum of packaging.

When we got home, all the laundry had dried in the sunshine – so grateful, because we’d washed lots as the Badger has been away in America. He hasn’t been home for a fortnight and had lots of shirts and socks and so on, to wash.

Then we walked along to the woods to get a bottle of spring water for our new Berkey filter – which is brilliant.

This has been a good anti-packaging day, then. Veggies, apples, blackberries and spring water, all without the abundant plastic cartons and bags that usually go with them – and the fruit and water were organic and free, too.

The other anti-packaging measure we’ve taken has been with washing stuff.

We changed over from regular toothbrushes to compostable ones made from bamboo – which are very successful and do the job nicely.

Then – do you know the company “Lush”? They are such good news; really good quality products packed with wondrously fragrant ingredients sourced in ways that bless the Earth.

They work hard at reducing packaging, and things like body lotion that has to be in tubs, they’ll take the tubs back to re-use or recycle. But a lot of their things come with no packaging at all. Shampoo bars and conditioner bars, for example – they are solid blocks you rub on your hair: no containers at all. And their Toothy Tabs, solid toothpaste tablets that dissolve in your mouth. My favourite is the one called “Breath of God”.

They do some bath stuff called “Fun”, that you can use as soap or bubble bath or whatever you like really, and some of its fragrances are not too floral, so can be used instead of washing up liquid for doing the dishes. Again, it comes in a block so no packaging is involved beyond a minimal cellophane wrap. This is very good news as our regular washing up liquid, though Earth-friendly (Ecover) does come in a very stout plastic bottle. I’m thinking the “Fun” will do for laundry too, at least for hand washing.