Comments on: Chicken vs. ‘Chickin’: How green is my plastic-wrapped vegan meat?

By: Siel

Siel — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 00:02:35 +0000

Bulk beans have been v. helpful for me, since they’re easy to cook en masse and freeze to use as needed :)

By: Natalie Aldern

Natalie Aldern — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 04:07:49 +0000

I’ve had the same issue with going vegan.. It bothers me that so much of my diet has become processed vegetable protein. I’ve been working hard to cook according to season. That means more trips to the farmer’s market but it also means less packaging in my trash and less chemicals in my diet.

By: Siel

Siel — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 01:10:01 +0000

Green Fish — Those sound like smart changes, as long as you’re using the whole chicken :) That’s amazing that you have a local dairy you can get milk from — Do they reuse the glass bottles?

Your comment reminds me of the couple that started the 100 mile diet and their book Plenty, reviewed here. They were actually vegans before the experiment, but through their eco-experiment came to incorporate local poultry / eggs / milk :)

By: Green Fish

Green Fish — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 22:38:29 +0000

My husband and I ate vegan for 6 months, in large part due to our efforts to reduce our contribution to climate change – but I had the same problem with the plastic wrapping. We’ve now switched to a diet heavy on veggies and whole grains, but we also eat local organic chicken (wrapped in paper from the meat counter) and local free range organic eggs, which I think has much less of an enviornmental impact than our non-local heavily packaged soy products. We also eat dairy, which I feel somewhat guilty about, but at least we get it in glass bottles from a local dairy whose practices have the lowest greenhouse gas foot print I’ve ever seen from a dairy. This only works for us because we aren’t vegan…

I wish there was a simple answer to these sorts of questions, but for now I guess the best solution is to stay as informed as we can, and make the best choices we can.

By: Siel

Siel — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 00:12:26 +0000

Hey Zandria — Easiest way to eat beans = toss them into a salad :) Add salsa and voila — a taco salad sans meat! :) And yes, getting dry beans and cooking them is v. easy — especially compared to lugging heavy cans of beans from the grocery store up the stairs! :P (Also, cans = BPA)

M — I hear you about things coming in set quantities! This is why I especially love the farmers’ market — You can buy just one carrot and don’t have to buy a whole bunch! Co-opportunity also offers most produce items loose, though I realize you’re pretty far from Santa Monica –

I too have not seen any mystical bulk tofu — but I will look for it specifically next time I’m in the Korean supermarket! Most of the tofu there’s sold in plastic packs like everywhere else, but there is a pretty big deli / prepped food section, and I’m wondering maybe they have bulk tofu there –