My Plastic Free Starter Tips: FOOD

Here are some of the basic plastic free swaps you can make:

• Eat less meat, it’s all in plastic and usually can’t be recycled. If you can’t reduce then try asking if your local butchers will put meat in your own containers. I expect a lot won’t cuz “health and safety”, but you never know!

• Swap your condiments from plastic bottles to glass ones. Heinz, Stokes and Tiptree all do glass bottles of ketchup. Mayo comes in glass jars too if you buy the organic ones usually.

• Swap your regular oats to Flahavans (or Kavanaghs if you shop at Lidl). The bags are paper and compostable but are also great for using for fruit and veg.

• Lidl do loose nuts (roasted and salted cashews, almonds and pistachios), just bring your own bag cuz they just have plastic on offer.

• If you’re near a farm shop, have a look in there, you can get plastic free fruit and veg in most. But it is a bit more expensive for some things. My local one (The Good Life - part of Cobbs Farm Shops, check them out on Insta) do frozen peas, which you can use one of their paper bags for. They also do frozen fruit which you can use the Flahavans bags for. They do other frozen stuff too, but those are the main things that you can’t get plastic free in most shops.

• Farm shops sometimes also sell waxed cheese all year round so you can get cheese without plastic!

• The Real Basmati Rice company rice is more expensive that normal supermarket rice but it’s in a paper bag. They also do loose Portobello mushrooms which I’ve not been able to get in supermarkets.

• Look at a bulk food shop near you as they do loose rice, flour, nuts, granola, other stuff like that. You can take your own bags and fill up however much you want. My nearest one is called Rice Up in Southampton • For waste free chocolate, Seed and Bean is my fave, their wrappers are compostable (I make bags using mine). But it is a bit pricey. I buy in bulk on amazon when the price is good. Montezuma's also do blocks of chocolate in their shop, they're in jars which you can take your own bag in for.

• Pasta! There’s a brand in Tesco (might be in others too) called Barilla and they sell their pasta in boxes with a tiny clear window, so only a tiny bit of plastic and pretty much on par with price.

• Noodles for stir fries - I can’t find any non plastic packaged noodles, but spiralised Courgette works great as a substitute. (You can also get tinned bean sprouts rather than fresh plastic packaged ones)

• Bread! Big Tesco’s have naked bread (and panini is and bread rolls and even cake!) ein their bakery section. Just take your own bag cuz their paper bags have big plastic windows. Some farm shops also do naked bread and paper bags, you could also visit a bakery.

• Juice! Also my nearest farm shop; The Good Life, they sell apple juice from Hill Farm (in Swanmore) which is yummmmmy! But also in glass bottles. Haven’t found an orange juice yet but the milk man will deliver orange juice in glass bottles, only downside is that it’s from concentrate.

• Speaking of the milk man, I don’t drink cows milk but if you do, you can swap to a milk man delivery who still do glass bottles. Try Milk and More. • Teaaaaa! I love tea. You can get loose tea from Whittard of Chelsea but as I discovered recently, it’s expensive - £10 for 200g. But PG Tips sell loose tea in a box with no plastic wrapping, but only their loose tea. (also, switching to loose tea is good as well and you can get some lovely tea strainers!)

• A lot of the guilty food comes in plastic (biscuits, cake, shortbread, flapjacks, cookies etc), if you don’t want to keep paying more to get them loose at the supermarket bakery sections, you can have a go making them yourself too.

• Draaaaank: If you like a spirit and a mixer, Belvoir and others offer delicious mixers! supermarkets will also make cheaper versions in glass bottles too. So you can upgrade your lemonade. Coca Cola also sell their drinks in glass bottles again now too.

• Always take your own bags to the supermarket and buy the loose veg. It’s usually always cheaper too: peppers aren’t but onions are, mushrooms are, carrots, broccoli, potatoes etc. Plus it means you only buy what you need so less food waste. We’re all guilty of having a sweaty bag of carrots!

• Depending on how severe you go, you may find that you cut out some foods cuz you can’t get them out of plastic, like lettuce and cucumber. So if you do go this far, make sure you try growing your own in the summer. You can grow lettuce in tins quite quickly!

• Quick Chips! You could make your own chips but who wants to peel or cut potatoes sometimes right?! You can get potato waffles in a box from your super market (unlike chips which always come in bags!!), just bung them in the oven and then slice them up like chips!

• Make your own stuff if you can; crisps aren’t too tricky, just slice thin and bake in the oven. Tortilla wraps are easy, just flour, oil and water! The bbc do an easy recipe. You can make your own butter but I haven’t tried this yet.

• Make your own garlic bread. You can buy loose panini rolls from the bakery (I get mine at Tesco). All you need to do is cut them in half, make your own garlic butter, spread it on and freeze them until you want them. They cook quick from frozen and it means you aren't using their non-recyclable packaging.

• Buy your herbs from Sainsburies - they come in glass bottles with metal lids!