How much does it cost?

Food without packaging is becoming popular in France too. However, it is usually organic food and it is typically much more expensive than regular, packaged food. I don't want organic. I just want to avoid packaging, and favor local food.

Unfortunately, all these "green" initiatives seem to be based on market segmentation than on real environmental concerns. There is a class of people who prefer organic, dislike packaging and have money. It is good for business and shops make money off it. Is it a good thing. However, I think it would be even better if we could stress the point that green can be cheap.

>However, it is usually organic food and it is typically much more expensive than regular, packaged food. I don't want organic. I just want to avoid packaging

Just avoiding packaging is more expensive, because as this excellent article points out[1], packaging represents the automation of the distribution chain.

> Some of the first packaging arose in the late 19th century. Some of the earliest packaging was for Uneeda Biscuits. They were packaged in a box with wax paper that sealed in the biscuits so they wouldn't go stale. Packaging was all about easing distribution for producers, because before that, everything was sold in bulk containers. The transformation of production and distribution as well as retail sales—going from mom and pop stores to the chain supermarkets we have today—means that packaging represents the automation of the distribution system. I think producers are very conscious of how helpful packaging is in helping them centralize their businesses. In doing that, they get to downsize and streamline and create economies of scale that they couldn't create if they didn't get to consolidate—which is what a lot of the drive behind switching from the refillable to the disposable bottle and can was about. The beer and soda industries consolidated massively in the post-war period, and the number of producers shrank dramatically. And this massive consolidation in both of those industries was facilitated by the switch to disposable containers. The industry no longer has the necessity for regional bottling plants where trucks can only go so far to deliver the products because then they have to go retrieve the empties. Now they can just drive straight through, one way, and they don't have to take anything back. They can go to the next central hub, pick up more stuff, keep driving and drop it off.

In the same way that containerization resulted in massive automation of ports and shipping (thousands of dock-workers vs. a few crane/truck operators), disposable packaging has automated terrestrial distribution channels. This has resulted in massive cost reductions, leading to large scale and consolidation ("let's ship from a single factory to the whole world" vs. "let's ship from a thousand local producers located within 100 miles of the end-consumer").

Packaging is really about automation, which is really about supply-chain lengthening, which is really about maximally concentrating profit.

>green can be cheap

Couldn't agree more. Low-tech is best tech. The permaculture folks realized this years ago.

The shortest/greenest supply chain is having your "grocery aisle" growing in the front yard (designed for zero-inputs[2] and near-zero-labor). Perhaps the ultimate solution isn't "Super Recycling" ie automated plastic sorting (still needed for other plastics btw) but "Super Reducing" -- an inexpensive easy-to-setup food garden that makes the entire supply chain (or most of it) obsolute. It needs to be something that people in suburbs can A) actually use and B) get past their HOA/neighborhood association.

The idiot-proof recycling bin is great, but we also need the idiot-proof organic garden.

[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20050401192355/http://www.altern... (I know I keep hammering this article, but the author nailed all these issues way back in 2005)

[2] Yes, zero-input gardening is possible even though you're removing material. Soil organisms continuously break down rock for minerals, and plants fix nitrogen and carbon from the atmosphere. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2H60ritjag

so basically how stuff was sold prior to world war 2 or how most stuff is sold on lcoal markets today?

Demographics were very different back then. Nowadays we have one person households. Also nowadays nobody peels potatoes anymore. I honestly wouldn't know how.

Have considered the fact that the skin is edible? Or that you could boild/roast the potatoes and then peel them by hand? If you're making fries you'll hardly notice the bit of skin at either end :-)

Raw potatoes are good too!

Be careful with this, as uncooked potatoes can be poisonous.

Solanine is not degraded much by cooking. It isn't the rawness of the potato that can be dangerous, but exposure to light, particularly when significant enough to cause greening of the skin.

Don't eat green potato skins, or sprouted eyes.

I like raw potatoes too but I have noticed that eating too much is hard on the stomach. Eating a few pieces is fine though.

Don't eat the green bits. They are poisonous and particularly bad if you are pregnant.

I don't understand why this guy is being downvoted. I don't know how to pluck a chicken like my Depression-era grandparents.

Don't peel potatoes, they're delicious and have ++ nutrients.

Peeling potatoes is not exactly difficult. You would learn it in a few minutes.

There are also (surprisingly) a lot of good Youtube videos on the topic.

I just don't bother peeling most fruits and vegetables and just eat the peel. Cucumbers and potato skins are fine to me. Obviously things like bananas and oranges need to be peeled but I throw all of that in a compost pile in my backyard. It has the side benefit that my kitchen crash can never smells bad.

Wait, people peel cucumbers? Do they also remove the seeds? Is there some nutrition philosophy where the bit left over has any value?

I'm peeling my potatoes, especially when I'm cooking them in the oven with oil.

Don't peel them. Pat them down with a paper towel to remove any extra moisture (especially if you're cutting them) and then use butter to get that delicious crunch and browning on them.

Thank you for your suggestion, I might try this, but I hesitate to add even more butter to our diet, since we're already eating a lot of it on bread.

Increase butter, cut out the bread.

Well, since I'm putting my butter on (toasted) bread, it's going to be complicated.

If you get a good potato peeler that has a similar shape to this one[1], you'll be able to peel potatoes fast and easy. If you can shave your face (or any other part of you), you can peel potatoes.

On the upside, Chips(fries) taste SO much better when they are just made from fresh potatoes and olive oil.

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[1] https://www.amazon.com/ZYLISS-Vegetable-Peeler-Y/dp/B0018IAH...

Yes, let's buy more disposable plastic garbage from China. That will solve our problem with shipping disposed plastic garbage to China.

My peeler has lasted me six years, and I expect it to last me sixteen more. It's also a pleasure to use, compared to the old Soviet steel ones, that my family used to have.

Interesting, here in Germany peeled potatoes are pretty much unheard of and only available in jars which are super rare.

Do they sell food? (meat, frozen things, etc.) Because buying food creates the most waste for me.

In many supermarkets/butchers, you can also bring your own resealable plastic containers for meats.

Most will usually insist on washing the container for you (because of regulations), so it's usually better to ask off-peak hours.

This is basically Bulk Barn but without plastic bags, neat!