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Thread: Mindful consumption quest

  1. #11
    Senior Member ctg492's Avatar
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    yes
    I learned that here about 4 years ago

  2. #12
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    So I have food. I bought the loose veggies loose - it's amazing, you can just put them in your basket and then unload them and then put them in your bag! And went to the case and asked the butcher to wrap dh porkchops in paper instead of getting pre-styrofoam trayed ones.

    the deli still uses a plastic baggie, and the organic carrots come pre-bagged. I did buy clearanced pasta in plastic bags because it was 25 cents a pound - but only two pounds, it's white pasta, so it's emergency dinner treat food.

    i bought bananas and grapefruit because there is no fresh in season fruit in Ohio in January, so I treat myself to bananas and grapefruit. Next year I will have frozen berries. But I get tired of homemade applesauce.

    i accepted a call to sub for only an hour because I had to get groceries anyway, and the ten mile trip from the grocery store takes me past the resale store. (-11 books, +$6, didn't buy anything there!).

    I went rent a lithe early which let me load the kiln and put out the compost containers in the lunch room (I take the compost home with me, so we only compost food waste on days I am there at lunch time.)

    I dropped some styrofoam cups with lids in the office at work. dh made me buy them for an event he was involved in and they were leftover. Work is having a parent coffee on Thursday and wants to have them available for people who want coffee and don't bring a mug (yes, I teach in the kind of place where people being a mug to the parent coffee)

    i did spend $11 on a big plastic shelf at goodwill, but it is the type I've been using in my studio for years and I find optimal. It will probably replace something else, which will then go to goodwill where someone else can buy used instead of new, but maybe not, I don't have the studio set up yet and may end up needing all my storage.

    I think I did ok.

  3. #13
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    Quote Originally Posted by Chicken lady View Post
    So I have food. I bought the loose veggies loose - it's amazing, you can just put them in your basket and then unload them and then put them in your bag! And went to the case and asked the butcher to wrap dh porkchops in paper instead of getting pre-styrofoam trayed ones.
    so let me ask this, if you buy veggies loose how do you store them? Ok that's easy for tomatoes, avocadoes, onions, potato's etc.. Those don't even go in the fridge. But what about things like lettuce and other greens? Do you just throw them in the veggie bin "completely naked"? Do you have special containers for them in the veggie bin? This is why I use the plastic bags for those types of things, so that I can better store them in the veggie bin by keeping them in the plastic bag. Otherwise I am afraid my veggie bin will turn into "rotting mystery vegetables"

    i did spend $11 on a big plastic shelf at goodwill, but it is the type I've been using in my studio for years and I find optimal. It will probably replace something else, which will then go to goodwill where someone else can buy used instead of new, but maybe not, I don't have the studio set up yet and may end up needing all my storage.
    I don't let things at the thrifts weigh on my mind as per mindful consumption at all. From the thrift they come and to the thrift they shall return (if I get sick of them, don't like them etc.). But I'm not really in any sense a hoarder (messy yes, but that's different).
    Trees don't grow on money

  4. #14
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    It's all redistribution of resources. Now I have the shelf. Someone else does not have the shelf. Maybe they will go buy a new plastic shelf, so I should only buy the shelf if it serves a purpose beyond "just in case" or "I like it."

    onions and and shallots and hot peppers went in the basket on the counter. Kale went in a bag, but sometimes I store it in the (dum dum dum) salad spinner. It comes twist tied. Next year it hopefully comes from the garden and I store it in the garden. I want to make some reusable washable leafy green bags. Sweet Peppers go in the crisper drawer loose. I don't use many of them in winter and I cook them within two days to be sure I don't forget them.

    i did the math, after gas (estimate used), groceries (reciept), items bought and sold and after tax pay for the hours I worked, I'm down about $22 today. That doesn't count regular billings like electricity, water, property tax, etc. I kind of wish I had worked another hour, I'd be a lot closer.
    Last edited by Chicken lady; 1-18-17 at 1:50pm.

  5. #15
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    Quote Originally Posted by Chicken lady View Post
    It's all redistribution of resources. Now I have the shelf. Someone else does not have the shelf. Maybe they will go buy a new plastic shelf, so I should only buy the shelf if it serves a purpose beyond "just in case" or "I like it."
    I kind of figured stuff that doesn't sell at the thrifts often ends up in the landfills or shipped to a foreign country etc.. I mean have you seen the vast piles of stuff they get, just waiting for processing. I don't think they sell all of that, sad but true. This doesn't mean it is my duty in life to go around buying stuff from thrifts, or that I need to stop donating to them when I have stuff I don't want. Just why I feel very little guilt if I buy something from a thrift that I'm not entirely 100% sure of beyond all possible doubt.

    onions and and shallots and hot peppers went in the basket on the counter. Kale went in a bag, but sometimes I store it in the (dum dum dum) salad spinner. It comes twist tied. Next year it hopefully comes from the garden and I store it in the garden. I want to make some reusable washable leafy green bags. Sweet Peppers go in the crisper drawer loose. I don't use many of them in winter and I cook them within two days to be sure I don't forget them.
    yea I store onions, garlic just on the table in a bowl. If I was to store stuff in the salad spinner, well clearly one salad spinner is just not going to cut it then, I'll have to get another! (I use the salad spinner for salad every day), I think I somewhat prefer to keep my sweet peppers in the containers they often come in. I haven't really found a better answer than the plastic bags for all the rest of the green stuff though. I mean this is what I can buy in one weeks grocery trip: several heads of lettuce, parsley, dill, green onions, a cooking green. So hmm.
    Trees don't grow on money

  6. #16
    Senior Member catherine's Avatar
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    Maybe slightly OT, but I was at research the past two weeks with a new client. She's something else. Fundamentally, I like her, but she is one of these larger-than-life people that you run into now and then. BIG talk, BIG laugh, very intense.

    In each city, the first thing she did was go to the book that holds all the area menus, and she'd pick what we would all have for dinner. This is not usual--typically, a couple of hours before dinner, we pass the menu book around and everyone gets what they would like. But she commandeered that whole process and would pick a place that served her vegetarian/vegan requirements and then order the food. LOTS of it. Like, after all ten of us had eaten there was probably enough food left over to feed another 10 people. And it all got thrown out (I did manage to bring home a full order that hadn't been touched of pad thai, and another of sesame chicken, and another dish of sushi)

    I don't know what drives her to behave that way, but this was her modus operandi for all the cities we went to.

    It just amazed me that she didn't seem to have the slightest inkling or concern that her behavior was unnecessarily wasteful. I'm not one of those people who thinks of "the poor people in China" when I'm eating, but my mind kind of went there then.
    "Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it--every, every minute?" Emily Webb, Our Town
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  7. #17
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    Aside from the apparent control issues, I'm trying to get my head around a vegan ordering you sesame chicken....

    i went to a thrift store again. I bought a high quality king sized cotton sheet to make my apron out of (project and solution) and three bowls for slump molds in my studio/classroom. (I'll keep them in the studio mostly, but share them with the kids at school sometimes - hard to categorize those). It was under $5 total.

    Ate at a restaurant tonight (vegetarian) where I had tapwater and we ate all but about 1/2 cup of food, which I left in the dish. - they use styrofoam take home counters but real dishes, flatware, and napkins and no straws. I tend to overeat slightly there, but mostly we try to order small enough to finish.

    also today I brought home a three drawer plastic rolling storage thing that needs to be washed. It was out for the trash and the trash guy was about half an hour behind me. I'll wash it and either use it or take it to goodwill. (Straight up project). And brought the compost home from school again.

  8. #18
    Senior Member Teacher Terry's Avatar
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    Catherine, who paid for that food that got thrown away? If I was expected to split the bill I would not be happy. In addition not everyone likes Chinese food. That is really strange behavior.

  9. #19
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    Went out to eat locally (3 miles from home, 3rd closest place to spend money as they are next to the post office but on the far side and the post office is across the street from the tractor sales and service store.) Saturday night. Used paper napkins.

    tonight I managed to scavenge up a dinner to keep dh from taking me out again, but he's going out to lunch tomorrow because we are out of meat. I need to plan better.

    tomorrow I go out in the world again because I have a doctor's appointment. I need to buy food and I will pass an overwhelming array of shopping opportunities. But mostly, I need food. With minimal packaging and processing. Preferably local, seasonal, and organic. I already know I'm going to cave and buy the really good crackers in the plastic wrap that I can only get at the far away store I'm going to be two miles from tomorrow.

  10. #20
    Senior Member JaneV2.0's Avatar
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    I've vowed to postpone grocery shopping until I've cleaned my refrigerator. Good thing I have canned tuna...

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