For the past couple years, our family has casually worked to transition our lifestyle to be more sustainable, frugal, and environmentally friendly. I view it as casual, since our transition has been more of a series of changes over time than a revolutionary overhaul. With young children and a moderate budget, we would struggle to convert everything we owned to a more sustainable option all at once. The first big changes we made were being intentional in not purchasing single-use products and recycling.
When my oldest was around 10 months old, we placed her in an employer daycare for a few months. I felt their menu was too full of processed food for the age group (or any age, really), so I elected to pack her lunches and snacks myself each day. She is an erratic eater at best, her favorite food Monday becomes peasant fare by Wednesday so predicting what she would be likely to eat became a challenge. I discovered that home girl would eat practically ANYTHING from a pouch. Not just toddler faves like applesauce or strawberry banana but like Chicken Pot Pie. ANYTHING. I scored some healthier brands on sale from Publix and stocked her cubby with these for a few weeks.
Since my girl is a sharp cookie, she started refusing most non-pouch food items at daycare, electing to hold out for the teachers to offer her a pouch. This started to really add up, even purchasing the items on sale. Also, these are single use packaging products so say she eats 5 a week, in a year that 250 pouches going in a bin. That seems excessive. So I began to search for other options. And I found something WE LOVE. Enter Squooshi Reusable food pouches. Images courtsery of Amazon.com.
I really don’t have much negative to say about this product, it’s pretty much amazing. For the price of two weeks’ worth of grocery store healthy food pouches, I can get a pack of super cute, toddler-friendly, reusable alternatives. They come in a pack of 6 pouches, which is a great number for parents looking to make a week’s worth of snacks. Amazon even has a purchase option where you get two additional pouches with 2 smaller soft tops (similar to soft tips of some sippy cups).
These are super easy to use and clean. The bottom of the pouch has a very sturdy Ziploc like seal, which you open to fill with puree. On a busy week, I simply fill them with applesauce as shown in the photo below courtesy of Amazon.
They are also super convenient to clean and reuse. They can be hand-washed with a bottle brush for a quick clean OR they can be loaded up in the machine since they are dish-washer safe! This makes them top notch in my book, since dishes are essentially my housewifery arch nemesis. I will say that I occasionally have difficulty opening the ziploc seal, but I believe this is more a personal issue since I have less-than-deft fingers and no fingernails to speak of. Others may not have trouble at all. I have successfully filled these babies with applesauce, purees and smoothies all to my daughter’s delight.
Rating (Out of 5 Stars):
Price: 5
Convenience: 5
Appearance: 5
Sustainability: 5
There are a variety of reusable food pouch brands currently on Amazon. WeeSprout, Simple Modern and ChooMee SnakPaks are three that are also highly rated, though I have not personally tried these. I am seriously tempted to buy some of the ChooMee because of the cool designs though!
For a motivational push, Americans are estimated to have gone through up to 92 billion pouches in 2018. That is incredible and not in a good way. Many of these pouches are either non-recyclable due to being made from more than one type of material or their consumers are simply not choosing to recycle them. Up to 70% of recyclable items are being sent to landfills, a number that doesn't surprise me because even in our "conscious consumer" home I'd estimate 10-20% of recyclables get thrown away while on the go or due to distraction. There are companies that have the technology to recycle multi-layer packaging, such as TerraCycle, however the products have to be shipped to one of their 100 locations in order to be processed, which is unlikely to appeal to the average consumer at this time. By using products that are by nature sustainable, we can all do our part to reduce waste and mindless consumption. The problem of plastics is a conundrum that isn’t going away, and I hope we aren’t trading short-term convenience for long-term destruction. I’m not a scientist, policy-maker or inventor, so I’m not sure what the solution is, only that there needs to be one. And sooner rather than later.
I promise that you can make a difference, even in the small things.
Love, Charis
Source: psmag.com
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