10 pound blues

What was I thinking? I’m discouraged, depressed and ready to give up my hair-brained idea of a plastic diet.

One month is quickly closing in on me and I am ashamed to admit I have already considered (more than once) to chuck it all. It was foolhardy to declare I would lose 10 pounds of poly. It is everywhere and so hard to resist.

It really would be easy to delete from this blog my public proclamation that I would keep 160 ounces of petroleum-based junk from invading my life. I have the password. Deleting requires clicking on one button. Easy! I checked. The problem is, giving up is not my nature.

I just made myself dinner — a yam with sour cream and green chili salsa, a hard boiled egg, rainbow chard stems, avocado and a hunk of garlic cheese. Simple. Not exactly convenience food, but only the green chili salsa and the egg were “plastic free.” The sour cream came in a plastic tub. The cheese was wrapped in plastic. The chard had a plastic tie. The avocado had TWO plastic stickers.

I have to confess, I suddenly find myself empathizing with the overweight because I’m finding it hard to lose what I promised I would. Each plastic jar or bottle not brought home represents a fraction of an ounce, an ounce at most. It also represents not buying some goodie that I want to eat. Reducing plastic use, for me anyway, has been all about food.

It is about making my own salad dressing. I’m just not as good at it as Paul Newman was, and it takes time to whip up a batch. I have so little time. It is about walking past bags, bottles and jars that hold the foods that I want. It is about giving up foods I love.

I tried buying my veggies from a food co-op. Surely Birkenstock-wearing, tree huggers would poo poo plastic. Not altogether I found. It was far better than the grocery store, but they could do better. My rainbow chard came with the plastic tie. The cauliflower was swaddled in plastic wrap. The pears each had stickers proudly proclaiming, “We’re organic!”

“What? Do you grow that way?” I asked the pear as I washed it.

I’ll keep trying, but it ain’t gonna be so easy.

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