Thoughts

The way we eat is badly broken

For most people, food has never been more abundant or cheap. Yet the modern food supply chain is doing both us and the planet some serious damage.

And whilst there are plenty of fights to pick - the consumption of meat, food miles and food waste to name just a few - plasticfree.kitchen takes aim at what we think is the most symbolic issue of all, food packaged in single use plastic.

A far cry from what our great grandparents would have recognised, supermarkets today are filled with row upon row of plastic-packed food. It’s a sign of how disconnected we’ve become from fresh, whole foods, consumed in any sort of proximity from where it was produced.

By removing the plastic, we think we’ll restore a system which is fairer, healthier and more fulfilling than that which exists today.

Solving multiple challenges

When we started producing recipes which reduce our reliance on single use plastics, we came to realise a few things:

We naturally started eating less meat - reducing meat is undoubtedly important and we’re not about to tell you to stop. However, with most supermarket meat being plastic packages, you’ll inevitably have to look to your butcher, or canned, for any animal protein. This generally means higher welfare, better quality meat, purchased less often.

We ate fresher and more seasonal - we came friends with our local greengrocer and he can tell you, only the asparagus from farms up the road come in those little paper wraps, the ones flown in from Peru in December are definitely packaged in plastic.

Some things took us a little longer to prepare, and we’re happy they did - whilst you can throw together many of our recipes in 15 minutes, some things will take longer than opening a package. With more time spent preparing food, we’ve definitely come to appreciate what we eat even more. Bonus points for preparing this with family or friends.

Simple is best - we found inspiration for some our favourite recipes from traditional cuisine, with minimal adaptations required. It sounds obvious, but classics that have been round for hundreds of years generally don’t need plastic and start with basic ingredients you can still find plastic free.

You won’t sacrifice flavour - whilst we’re not going to pretend everything is on the table - pardon the pun - there is so much you can do with the ingredients available.

Companies are listening - whilst we always try to support the smaller supplier, large corporations will remain part of our food system for the foreseeable future. Every pound you spend on a plastic free product is a message, written in a language the corporates understand.

Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good

Plastics and other derivatives from crude oil are here to stay. You’d have to retreat from society to do this 100%.

We’re not aiming for that. Our goals is to help you eat better, fresher and more sustainably as often as you can, and to have fun doing it. We’re not saying throw things away, we’re not saying you shouldn’t by plastics.