If you’re reading this, it’s likely that you, just like so many others, are looking to incorporate more sustainable and low-waste practices into your life. While the idea of zero-waste living might seem overwhelming or extreme at first, there are little shifts that anyone can make to start lowering their carbon footprint!
A great place to start is by becoming a more sustainable shopper. To help minimize unnecessary packaging before it enters your house, buying in bulk is a great place to start. While this won’t be the best option for all of your grocery needs, it is an excellent choice for grains, pasta, beans, nuts, spices, baking ingredients, and a variety of other kitchen staples! The more you are able to stock up on bulk items, the more money you can save! Here are some other great reasons to consider adding bulk shopping into your grocery routine.
- Limiting trips to the store
One of the biggest perks of buying in bulk is that you can make fewer trips to the grocery store when your cupboard has been proactively stocked with bulk goods. Grocery shopping is a chore for many of us, and every trip you take to the store consumes two very valuable resources: gas, and your time! When you are able to stock up on dried, canned, and non-perishable foods, you will be able to make shorter and more infrequent trips to the store, freeing up precious time for you to spend cooking yummy meals for yourself instead!
- Reducing food waste
Almost 40% of food in the United States ends up being wasted, and much of this waste happens in our own fridges and cupboards. All of us have made a trip to the store to purchase one specific ingredient for a recipe, only to realize it comes prepackaged in an amount that is significantly larger than you need! Instead of skipping the ingredient, or worse, taking it home knowing much of it will be wasted, shopping in bulk allows you to buy the exact amount of food that fits your needs. While shopping in bulk might sound like buying large quantities of an item, it doesn’t have to! Instead, it provides you with significantly more control over the portions of food you purchase, which means you will never have to pay for more than you need and risk the excess going bad in your fridge! Win-win!
- Increasing consciousness
Buying in bulk is a straightforward way to increase consciousness surrounding your own personal waste. It forces us to think more actively about the food we purchase and subsequently are more likely to ensure it is used. When you are weighing out your own quantities of food, you are much more actively engaged in the process of deciding how much you are taking home, the packaging you are using, and the way that your food will be stored and used. This sense of mindfulness is a great habit to develop, both in regards to food waste and sustainable practices as a whole.
- Saving money
As mentioned above, another great reason to incorporate buying bulk into your life is that when done right, it can really save you money! With zero-waste grocery shopping, you are never paying for the expensive and unnecessary packaging that so often comes with prepackaged groceries. In addition, you can choose to buy the exact amount of food that fits your needs that day! You won’t ever need to pay for a whole bag of apples or an expensive jar of nutmeg when you only need a little bit.
As the amount of single-use plastic and other packaging products in landfills grows significantly every year, zero-waste and bulk shopping can be great steps we can take to help be a part of the solution instead of the problem. It is a direct way to limit your personal impact and shrink your carbon footprint. And with a little bit of practice, you’ll start to find lots of moments where buying in bulk is kind to both your wallet and Mama Earth! Give your local zero-waste grocery store a try and see if shopping in bulk works for you!
