If you follow me on Instagram then you probably saw that I recently went down a microplastics rabbit hole and I’ve started to make some small changes in our home routine to accommodate some new fears! If I’m being honest, it all feels very overwhelming. I’ve always been sort of hyper aware of the ingredients in our foods (antibiotics, hormones, grass-fed vs. not, etc.) but the microplastics feels like an entirely new beast. Because if you think about it, majority of what we consume arrives to our homes in plastic. Whether it is our granola bars, cheese, carrots, meats, yogurts, vitamins, juices – plastic is everywhere.
I started really basic. I was always some who bought my fruit, rinsed it with water and served it to my kids. I always try to buy organic if I can but started to become increasingly aware of how plastics are literally invading our food. And most recently, a study on Charleston water showed increased levels of plastic. Another journey I’m on as we currently only have a water filter on our kitchen sinks (we have and LOVE Aquasana filters!) but now I want a whole house filter. But long story short, plastics are sadly found in every Ecosystem on Earth and it is affecting human and wildlife health. So I’m trying my best to do what I can to limit it in our home!
Back to the fruit – I have been immediately removing any berries and vegetables that arrive in plastic containers and cleaning them with baking soda and filtered water (and then I’ll also use a little fruit spray!). I let all of these soak and dry before storing them in glass containers in our refrigerator. I’ve also been very conscious about what I’m buying, for example – milk in paper containers, Babybel cheese in wax vs. plastic, glass jars of jam and peanut butter, I also signed up for our local Community Supported Grocery here in Charleston (but I’m sure if you do research you can find one near you!) where they deliver fresh product, bread and eggs each week. Oh another small swap I made is I switched out my dishwasher pods for these plastic free ones. Blueland and Branch Basics are two brands I’m trying to incorporate more into my daily routine!
I threw away all of my plastic containers, cutting boards, etc. and shared a big post on non-plastic swaps. All this to say, I am not perfect! My kids are still eating their favorite cereal bags because I haven’t bought glass containers yet. Their granola bars are wrapped in plastic and this weekend they each had about 3 bottles of Prime. I guess knowledge is power in these situations and you just do what you can. My thought is that I’m doing better than I was but wanted to share where my head is at and where my progress is since I’ve received so many questions about it!
