So Many Lifestyles, So Little Time

Zero-Waste, Organic, Plastic Free, Raw Food....

Why are there so many cool lifestyles I want to adopt??

Life waste-free, they said. It'll be easy, they said.

How false was that! Living waste-free is not easy. It's actually quite challenging. Especially since I don't live in New York City or SoCal. My city doesn't have a compost pick-up like they do for trash and recycling. And the farmer's markets? They're more like flea markets that also have the same groceries you can buy at the grocery store. I can get mangos from my farmer's market.

I live in Virginia. We have no mango trees here. So how do they end up at the farmer's market? Sneaky, sneaky.

I've found that I have to research where my food actually comes from - whether I get it from Kroger or from the farmer's market. It's not fun. It's really time consuming.

And zero waste vs organic - here's the battle: Organic tomatoes, imported from Chile OR regular tomatoes from some state in the U.S. that's way closer than Chile. Zero waste says buy local. Organic says buy organic - and that means Chilean tomatoes. See my struggle?

Zero waste vs plastic - here's the battle: I have tons of plastic utensils. Bea Johnson and Lauren Singer both threw out their plastic and swapped it for wood/stainless steel... but isn't that kind of wasteful? I like my plastic Joseph Joseph utensils I got for our wedding.... I don't want to throw them away! And why should I? They work just fine! I think I'll keep using them until they fall apart. And then recycle them. Waste not, want not, right? Does that even make sense?

Raw Food vs Zero waste -  here's the battle: Ok, so a Raw Food lifestyle doesn't exactly interfere with Zero Waste, Organic, or Plastic-Free.... you would think. Here's my problem: I LIVE IN AN APARTMENT AND COMPOST SEEMS IMPOSSIBLE. Where am I going to put it? I can't just put it in a tiny bin! That would fill up SO quickly from all the fruit and veggie scraps. I tried composting on my patio. It failed - miserably. Yuck. I'm planning on reading more about how to compost, but I don't exactly have a yard. Or grass. And worms? In my apartment? EW.

Sometimes I feel like I'm rocking all of these lifestyles, but most of the time I feel like I'm failing at all of them... but my life is still a work in progress! You can't wake up one morning and decide to be Zero-Waste or Raw Food... you have to transition into all of it and clean up whatever messes you've already made.

Thanks for reading!