Food pouches (and other single serving food products) should only be used aboard a boat in direst circumstances.
Yes they have been sold to you as the ultimate in convenience. What the marketers fail to mention is that they are also one of the most polluting products on the planet, and one of the most resource depleting as well. And aboard a boat, they fill up your very limited trash space really quickly. Imagine what they’re doing to landfills.
Trash is a far bigger issue aboard a boat than most land based people realize. If you operate as you would at home you’ll fill the boat’s trash bin in a day. And in summer weather, the trash starts to stink. The long-time method of dealing with the problem is to throw it overboard.
But the days when we could blithely pitch trash into the sea and expect the ocean to deal with it are over. Not only are there too many of us, but we can no longer pretend our trash has no effect on the oceans. You’ve probably heard about the huge garbage patches of plastic debris at sea. Do you really need to be told not to add to the problem?
On Land or at Sea, Limit Your Trash Production: Start with Refillable Food Pouches
The first way to limit your trash production is to not buy pouches, Keurig cups, or single servings of anything. But yes, it is helpful to be able to hand a whiny child a squeezable, unspillable, tasty packet of pureed fruit and go on with your work. So check out the refillable food pouches. There many types to choose from.
Get a different type or color for each child so they always know which is theirs. Fill a few each morning and pop them in the icebox. Pull one out as the need arises. Treat them as you would your child’s toothbrush – keep them clean, replace two or three times a year. You’ll cut down on an unbelievable amount of trash.
There are many styles of refillable food pouches to choose from. Here are three that I like.
Recycling Food Pouches
There are recycling programs starting up for single serving containers such as food pouches. So if you must use them, please consider taking part.
TerraCycle, the company that started by packaging their plant food in reclaimed soda and water bottles, is now a huge recycling force. Check out the many recycling options from TerraCycle, including a couple for recycling food pouches.
Authentic Pork Tonkotsu Ramen is to die for. But it’s a bit much for a small galley. Making real pork tonkotsu ramen requires a long, drawn out process. Most small galley cooks – including me – will shy away from dedicating the whole galley, and most of the remainder of the boat – to the…
The Smart Boat Cook will Learn to Limit Trash If the cruising sailor isn’t careful, packaging trash can overwhelm a small boat, taking up a lot of valuable space, and creating a situation where every time you want to do anything you have to move it out of your way. This problem isn’t limited…
A big week of changes for Puget Sound. An ambitious estuary restoration project has returned a section of the Nisqaully Delta that was diked off for farming to its original situation as part of Puget Sound. Which is itself now also officially part of the Salish Sea, (approved yesterday by the federal Board on Geographic…
I’m always careful not to waste food. (Insert joke about sale of Brooklyn Bridge or waterfront lots in Arizona here.) So after cutting the rind off a pork roast, I popped the scraps into a pot of water and boiled it to make stock. The result – gelatinous glop. Julia Child probably could have turned…
Cutting down on plastics and chemicals is hard. Damned hard. Shopping on Saturday, needed mayonnaise. Guess what? All brands come in plastic. Except for the natural and organic brands, which cost $6 a pint. I can make my own for that. I stood there in front of the wall of mayo choices, dithering. I should…
Some of the things that helped us get through Hurricane Matthew. During bad weather or other extreme circumstances, there are certain tools and supplies that make life better, more comfortable and safer. Here are my 20 best hurricane survival tools – items that made themselves indispensable for riding out a hurricane in a marina, or…
