I just love the look of my pantry and baking staples in glass jars. I love the colors and textures and I like that they work so much nicer than plastic stuff everywhere. I’ve been making a serious effort to cut my plastic use down considerably. I don’t think I could go completely free of plastic, but I think that it is fairly easy to reduce a good deal of it in the way of food storage and preparation.
Ikea has a line of food storage jars that I adore. They look like those fancy expensive French canning jars however they are not that expensive. Even the largest one is only $4.99. The easier to use smaller and middle sizes are like $2.99 and $3.99, respectively. Every time I go, I pick up a couple more and add them to my collection. This time I wanted to get jars for our chips… chocolate, white chocolate, peanut butter, mint and for chopped nuts. Over the holidays, almost every store had these bags of chips on sale for great prices, so I stocked up on them for the year, for our own homemade treats. I also got one small one for cocoa powder and for mini marshmallows, which the girls love this time of the year for hot chocolate but always dry out in the little bags. A good rubber seal jar should stop that from happening.
I’ve also been saving old canning jars and even good, unique food jars that our food comes in. I have noticed that in the grocery store, I am looking for products in glass or metal over plastic. It’s hard, practically the whole world now wants to go to plastic everything! I’m surprised they don’t have plastic coffins for us to lay down for eternal sleep! I will admit, I’m not a super freak about the whole peak oil and green living, but I find more and more of the ideas and principles just making good sense and I am starting to practice them in my life, one step at a time. All that plastic needs oil to be produced. Most tin cans and steel cans are from recycled materials. Glass is made from sand, which from my rock and mineral processing I know is about 90% of the world’s mineral structure. (Quartz that is) Cloth is a sustainable product if it is cotton or flax or linen. And best of all, is NO wrapping. I often will bring in my own bags for all sorts of thick skinned produce, like potatoes, onions, carrots, and apples, and other fruits and won’t take those little plastic sleeve bags. I am going to sew up some very lightweight mesh bags for other produce to start taking in as well.
Okay, yeah, I’m slowly becoming one of those hip and trendy, green chicks that is trying to save the planet one person at a time. I do play in a band you know. I’m one of those sensitive creative types that is easily disturbed by deep thoughts on my life and how I’m living it.
But I’ve also been noticing one thing. One Big Thing. Since I started on this trip? I’m much more flush in the moola department. Green living = savings. Flat out. My company sales have increased a bit, but not as much as my overall personal funds have. And the only reason? Being a more careful and watchful consumer. Or better yet? Being a more careful and watchful NON-consumer. I’ve really been watching WHAT I buy. And going very simple with the majority of my day to day needs. We reuse, recycle, repurpose and in the end, it’s saving us a good deal of money that we used to waste. I really like that.
So when I look upon my beautiful pantry jars of goodies and my nice and full freezer and second pantry and frig and know that we’ve easily got at least a month’s reserve of food ready, maybe even more, that feels good. It keeps me out of the stores and not spending more on less. When we are sewing our own bags and curtains and other furnishings instead of paying full price for store things, it feels great. Having ditched the TV and cable and other “extras” and playing board games and reading and crafting instead, that feels wonderful.
Those jars bring me a reminder of the good life that we are finally living and loving.
You can do it too… just start taking those baby steps. Just pick one thing a month to change. That’s how we did it. Just one new habit at a time. It works. It’s awesome!
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