On spices - you’re right, I buy lots of stuff from bulk but I’ve been neglecting the spice section! I usually get the dry goods & snacks there… But yeah, you’re right it’s not getting any better. For what it’s worth - most of us in the US are just as horrified, I think… maybe I just live in a bubble, but uh, yeah, we’re aware that our country is collapsing in front of the world in real time and it’s embarrassing to say the least, horrifying more like. If only we hadn’t let all our absurd wealthy corpos & oligarchs loot and pillage our government… I’m grateful for lemmy where we can still chat as friends without algorithms, bots & ads! Cheers!

BUT POINTLESS ANXIETY IS WHAT I’M BEST AT. lol seriously though, thanks. Good perspective.

Our area is covered in ice/snow for much of the year, so my garden doesn’t help us too much with supplements. Our local coop is great and has pastic-free produce, but costs sometimes as much as 2-3x more than the chain store!! I wish we could get everything there, but it’s further and further out of reach with each price hike. I would ‘stop going’ entirely to the chain super with plastic wrapped veggies if we could afford it. The butcher is a great point - we don’t eat much meat, but when we do I can start buying it direct from the counter for paper-wrapping.

This is a good list, many things we already do…and some things I can try…first, I’m jealous of your local baker. If I want non-processed, non-plastic wrapped bread I have to make it myself. I love doing it but don’t always have time and my kids wont eat it, b/c sadly they’re conditioned on the soft, preservative filled industrial bread. We don’t drink soda and we cook 90% of meals, but as you mention, some products are inescapable… Including products we use for cooking… one pet peeve of mine: mayonnaise used to be glass now there is no glass option, same for a lot of oils (more than 80% of the olive oil is now in plastic, and what’s not is more expensive, same for vinegar). So even our ingredients… hell even the SPICES now come in plastic instead of glass jars. I can’t find glass/aluminum apple sauce for my kids to save my life. For us, there isn’t a lot of Fromage Blanc in the states where I live, but I found our most similar product (Cream Cheese) in blocks, still made of foil and cardboard like they always have for baking which is nice.