Death by Convenience

During a recent visit to the local grocery emporium to purchase the necessary foodstuffs for a week’s survival I came across something that caught my eye and had me wondering…”Why?”

Food has always been at the forefront of packaging trends for both shelf appeal and convenience of use. What has transcended is we now expect everything to be packaged for convenience. Gone are the days of cooking from scratch (well almost) and repackaging our own foods for our convenience.

Remember when your mom cut up carrots and celery and placed them in either a little plastic bag or plastic ware container then neatly placed into your school lunch sack or box? I know I am dating myself here remembering lunchboxes, but now all of this is done for us. We can purchase meals ready to eat, just like those used by the military only less healthy for us.

Now the item that caught my eye on this particular trip was little transparent “yogurt style” containers that had less than a handful of foodstuffs in them. Nuts, fruit, dried vegetables…”healthy foods”.

What we failed to comprehend as those who purchase these items is they are spending more for less. This handful of nuts for example retails for $1.99 or simply put two dollars a mouthful. A large bag of mixed nuts and a box of Ziploc sandwich bags (which can be reused for dry foods such as nuts) lowers the per serving price significantly…extremely affordable even in this time of high food prices.

Let me drop the other shoe…the container these convenience foods are packaged in for the most part are not reusable and add tremendous amounts of garbage to our landfills.

Is convenience worth it? Clearly the headlines will read “Death by Convenience”…Packaging…higher price for smaller quantities. More refuse to fill our landfills. Foods that have been and are now becoming clearly know as not good for us because of the use of highly profitable (for the food companies) ingredients ( ie…corn in its various forms).

Are you ready to buck the trend? Save money? Become more responsible for your health and the health of the environment you live in? Then it is time to start looking at ways to reduce the amount of convenience packaged foods you purchase. Dig out those old plastic ware containers you use to use.