April was a busy month here in our little lives, but we didn’t neglect our #2x12reductionchallenge! Once again, we’ve adopted a theme for the month. April was all about finding ways to purchase our favorite carbs without plastic packaging.

We typically eat a relatively well-balanced vegetarian diet that allows us to enjoy carbs in moderation, and yet we still had carb-induced guilt. Not from blowing our diet, but from the plastic packaging! As we have been paying attention to the remaining sources of plastic in our weekly grocery store trips, two of our big offenders were our favorite carbs – bread and cereal. We have recently discovered ways to purchase both items plastic free and we’re so happy about it! Guilt free carbs are the best carbs.

Bread without Plastic Packaging

We eat a lot of bread throughout the week – Mike has a peanut butter sandwich everyday for an afternoon snack and I often have peanut butter toast for breakfast. Lots.Of.Bread.

We recently discovered that our local farmers market has two bread vendors – this was a recent discovery because they often sell out before we even arrive! It’s the early bird that gets the fresh bread at the Leucadia Farmer’s Market. We bring our own bag (a reusable produce bag) or beeswax wraps so that we don’t have to take any packaging. While bread in a paper bag is plastic free, a lot of resources go into making paper, so it’s best to avoid any form of single use packaging whenever possible.

While our farmer’s market bread discovery was exciting, it was not terribly convenient given that we usually only go to the farmer’s market once a month. Fortunately we found another option that fits perfectly into our weekend grocery shopping routine! While I was shopping for an eco-friendly birthday present for my Mom in mid-April I learned that one of our local shops (Baker & Olive) carries the same bread from the farmer’s market. The fresh baked Prager Brothers bread gets delivered daily and there are a variety of types to choose from. I look forward to sampling them all! Not only are we able to bring our own bread bag to avoid packaging, but this bread solution is right on our usual shopping route. This prevents us from causing extra vehicle emissions as we seek out our weekly carb fix. Winning!

Bulk Cereal

While we put in a bit of research and effort to find our package-free bread solution, we kinda got lucky with the bulk cereal. In early April our local Sprouts began carrying one cereal in bulk, and fortunately it’s delicious! The flavor is blueberry limoncello. They call it granola, but it’s way more like a cereal. And it’s divine. Even just typing the name makes me want a bowl of cereal with non-dairy milk. Yum!

Shopping at Sprouts with out own produce bags and containers has truly been a game changer for us when it comes to reducing plastic in our grocery routine. We purchase all of our veggies “naked” and put them into our own produce bags, and we’re becoming connoisseurs of the bulk foods section. Some of our common purchases in bulk include: beans, rice, lentils, trail mix, nuts, granola, snack mixes, oats, and now cereal! Click here to see if there’s a Sprouts near you.

Wondering How to Buy in Bulk?

Purchasing dry goods in bulk may seem a bit out of the ordinary and perhaps it sounds like an intimidating change to make. Or at least that’s how I felt when we made this switch in early 2019! We went from buying all of our food at Trader Joe’s in oodles of plastic packaging to purchasing most of our groceries in bulk at Sprouts within the span of a few months.

If you’re curious about purchasing groceries in bulk, check out our blog post that breaks the process down into 5 easy steps. We go into detail on tare weights, keeping track of the product look-up codes (PLUs), and cashiers that don’t know how to tare your containers. With a bit of pre-reading and preparation, you can become a bulk food purchasing pro!

We are thoroughly enjoying our month of packaging-free carbs and we hope that you are too! If not, challenge yourself to give shopping in bulk a try. We’ve found our #2x12reductionchallenge to be a really fun way to encourage ourselves to make constant improvement. We’re addicted! Join us 🙂

xo, Nicole