Reading What to Eat and No Impact Man at the same time are really helping me to pause and really look at my habits. Mostly, my eating habits. I’m so glad. I’ve noticed that I’m starting to slip toward old bad habits and gaining some weight back. I was thinking of using SparkPeople again to get the weight off, but just recognizing those bad habits has helped so far.
But anyway. The whole point of this entry is about my slowing changing lunch. This week I bought some soups and frozen entrees to keep me from going out and buying fast food. It’s working. But it still doesn’t feel right. The Marie Calendar dishes have a lot of sodium and are still a bit too processed for my level of comfort. The soups work and, as always, my Thursday Amy’s entree is wonderful. But I’d rather have dishes that I make up at home and simply need to reheat. But, as I’ve mentioned before, I don’t have glass dishes to put and reheat them in. Wednesday night I decided to take the first step.
I bought a True Seal 6 cup container. It’s a glass container with a BPA free plastic lid. I’ve got two smaller, round ones currently storing food that I really should get rid of in the freezer. They’re doing a great job. So I figure if this one piece does help me with my lunch dilemma, it will be worth going and buying enough to get me through the week.
That’s the other reason I only bought one, I don’t want to get too many or have them all be too large for what I need. I want to see how many I’d realistically need in a week. If it’s less than 5, that’d be great. But I’m willing to buy 5 because even if I eventually don’t need them for lunch, they’re great food storage containers. This Saturday when I make my weekly Whole Foods trip, I’m going to take a closer look at food there and possibly get lunches for the week there. I know that their stock is going to be less processed than what I’d find at mainstream supermarkets. And the lists of ingredients probably won’t be nearly as long or confusing.
Now I just need to start working on eating more locally and in season.
Polymind 
I totally hear this. After reading ‘No Impact Man’ I realized that I was using way more packaging than needed by buying those single-serving yogurt containers for my daily brekky. A large one lasts me a week and uses so much less packaging. Even with recycling facilities, I’d rather not support the consumption of the resources in the first place, especially since recycling takes even more resources and doesn’t give back a 100% return.
Next step: make my own yogurt. That might be a while. 😉
Awesome! I make my husband little single-serving Jell-Os for his lunch instead of letting him buy them. I got so tired of listening to him complain about the lack of regular choices, and it’s so much better in so many ways. Less packaging gets used, it’s cheaper, and he gets a lot more variety. Good luck with the yogurt making! I wish I could do something like that.