Oh, Annie, NO!

I have some good news and some bad news. First the good news: the Eco-Bags are a hit. I took them to Top Tomato, a local green grocer where I usually have to wave and make extra noise to stop the cashiers from placing my purchases in plastic bags. They take the items out and always seem a bit annoyed. Now, I do make a point to say 'I don't need a bag' but I think there's a language barrier here. So I took in my new cloth produce bags the other day. The cashier saw them, stopped, and looked up at me with big smile. "It's nice!" She didn't make a move towards the plastic bags this time.

Score.

Now for the bad news: My relationship with Costco may be at an end. The night before starting this blog I went with the idea of seeing what I could get there (that I needed) without plastic. Not much as it turns out. Actually nothing, at least not this time. It is common knowledge that you can't leave a Costco without spending $100. Well this trip cost about $27 for four items: butter, half-and-half, a case of organic diced tomatoes, and Annie's Organic mac-n-cheese in a bulk box. They weren't all plastic free but I thought I did pretty well. The butter came with a thin plastic wrapping around 4 boxes and was $1.50 cheaper per box compared to the grocery store. The half-and-half has a plastic pour cap but also a fantastic price. The tomatoes are canned, so they have a plastic lining on the inside. I love cooking with canned tomatoes in the winter-- not sure what if anything I can do about that right now. The mac-n-cheese was 5 boxes of pasta with the pouches of dry cheese powder. I thought.

So the night before Thanksgiving I don't feel like cooking and get down the mac-n-cheese:
There's a strip of plastic tape holding the box closed. OK, I'll add that to my weekly tally. Then I get the box open:

AAIIIIEEE!! Those aren't the boxes! I should have looked more closely. The foil pouches have that orange cheese goo in them. Even though it is Annie's and organic, the cheese goo is not as good as powder. IMO if you are going for mac-n-cheese from a box, powder is the way to go.

Sigh. This is more plastic than I planned on.