Storing Home-Grown Food Without Plastic

At this time of the year, many gardeners are very busy trying to harvest produce from their gardens. Often, preparing, preserving and storing all of the food that we grow can be a major challenge. This challenge can seem even greater when, as many people are, we try to reduce the amount of plastic that we use in our homes. In this article we will discuss the various ways of storing home-grown food without plastic.

Why Reduce Plastic Use in the Home and Garden?

First of all, let's take a brief look at why we want to reduce plastic use in the first place. Most people are now aware of the horrendous impact that waste plastics are having on our environments. Plastics are clogging our oceans, entering the food chains, and disrupting natural systems in a whole host of different ways. There is also some evidence to suggest that storing food in some sorts of plastic may not be a good idea for human health – as some plastics will leach dangerous material into your food.

Even without this concern, however, the environmental concerns are surely enough to lead us to limit our use of the material as much as possible.`

Growing your own food is one great way to reduce the amount of plastic (especially single-use plastic) that you bring into your home. When you use your garden to grow your own food, you will have to buy less food in plastic. But this is only the first stage. You should also think about how you store this food without plastic.

Storing Home-Grown Food Without Plastic

First of all, think about how you store food short-term, in your fridge. If you use cling-film or plastic containers to store your food, you should consider:

• Wrapping items with beeswax wraps (organic cotton coated with beewax and a natural oil such as jojoba oil work best). These are great for containing sandwiches to take to work/school, and also for wrapping up leftovers for later. You can buy these or even make your own.
• Using glass jars to keep single portion leftovers rather than plastic containers.
• Using ceramic/glass bowls covered with saucers or plates to store leftovers for a few days.

It is likely that you will also want to store food for a lot longer by freezing it. Many people rely on plastic freezer bags or plastic containers to store food in the freezer. But there are alternatives to plastic for your freezer too. These include:

• Silicon bags/ containers. (Investing in a few silicon containers could be a good idea, especially if you are used to preserving gluts of fruit/vegetables from your garden in your freezer.
• Metal freezer containers (These are another good solution for freezing food – another alternative to plastic for your home freezer.)

It is easier than you might imagine to find alternatives to plastic when it comes to storing and preserving home-grown food.