Plastic-Free Food: How to Shop, Cook and Store Food Without Plastic

Wanting to cut down on single use plastics in your kitchen? This is an awesome way to support the health of the environment and also protect your own health.

Our small team has been on this same journey for many years. Below we share what we've found works well – our favourite alternatives and some tips to keep you going.

As you work towards plastic-free food, be gentle on yourself. It's not all about being perfect straight off the bat. Every small change you make is one less single-use plastic item ending up in landfill, which can add up to make a big difference. Good luck and have fun!

1. Shopping for Food Without Plastic

Fruit and veg: Choose loose fruit and veg. Take your own reusable produce bags or just buy the loose fruit and veg without a bag. Try shopping at smaller independent stores that have less plastic packaging on fresh produce, or shop at your local farmers market. That way you're supporting local growers while cutting down on plastic packaging. Win-win.

Dry goods at the refill store: Find your local bulk food store for all your package-free dry foods such as nuts, seeds, legumes, grains, pasta, baking ingredients, sweets, chocolate, teas, spices, honey, tahini, cereals and more. Many refill stores also offer cleaning and personal care products such as laundry powder/liquid, bath salts etc. Take your own containers and recycled glass jars, or in a pinch use the paper/compostable bags supplied.

Dry goods at the supermarket: If you don't have a refill store close by or just find it easier to shop at a supermarket, opt for items packaged in compostable paper where possible – or an easily recyclable material. You can also cut down packaging waste by buying bigger portions. For example, opt for 5-10kg of rice rather than single servings.

Bread: Buy real bread from an independent local baker and they'll usually be more than happy to pop the loaf (and any pastry treats) into your own bread bag.

Meats, cheeses & deli goods: Bring your own clean containers the the butcher and deli counter and ask them to put the items straight into your container. Most will be happy to.

Reusable bags & containers: Invest in some reusable bulk food bags and a reusable bread bag if these are things that would make your plastic-free shopping easier. Or get out the sewing machine and make some of your own using natural, repurposed fabrics. Keep reusable shopping bags in your car when you go shopping, or pop one or two in your handbag / backpack so you have them on you for unplanned shopping trips.

2. Storing food without single-use plastic

General food storage: Use silicone snack bags, food pouches and bowl covers for easy, reusable plastic-free food storage. If you need to buy more containers, look at stainless steel options. Glass jars also make good storage containers. Op-shops are a good place to search for containers that deserve a second life.

Cling wrap alternatives: Beeswax wraps and vegan wraps are our absolute favourite. Also very handy for quickly covering bowls are these Reusable Cotton Food Covers by 4MyEarth.

Baking paper alternative: An awesome product is OneWrap which you can use like baking paper but also as a food cover. It has a tight cover and can be used in the oven, microwave, fridge and freezer.

Storing fresh fruit and veg: Some veg can be stored loose in the fridge (including beetroot, eggplant, chilli, zucchini and capsicum). Others do well in a silicone bag or container (think leafy greens, herbs, celery and spring onion). Alternatively, the Veggie Saver is a great fresh produce storage bag that significantly lengthens the life of your raw fruit and veg. We've had good feedback about this one.

Freezing food: Silicone food bags are great for this purpose, otherwise you can always freeze food in glass jars! Save and reuse glass jars from the kitchen for freezing almost any food, from meals to home-made ice cream. Just make sure to freeze your jars of food without the lid first, and pop the lid on later to avoid pressure buildup as the contents freeze and expand. Being able to reheat your food inside the jars is also handy (without the worry of toxic chemicals leeching into your food from plastic).

3. Cooking without plastic

Pots and Pans: Research over the last few years has shown that pots and pans that have a non-stick coating may be releasing microplastics into your food when you cook. When you're ready to, swap out your old non-stick and plastic-coated cookware for stainless steel, cast iron and glass alternatives.

Cooking Utensils: Plastic utensils also present a microplastics risk. Switch to wooden and stainless steel utensils instead.

Chopping Boards: Invest in a solid, single-piece wood chopping board. It'll make chopping your veg that much more pleasurable. Plus, wooden boards (especially when they're made from one slab of wood) are better at neutralising bacteria than plastic.

4. Making tea and coffee without plastic

Did you know that the majority of tea bags contain plastic? Yep, even paper bags often use polypropylene to seal. This means they - like all other single-use plastics - are destined for polluting natural environments and, unfortunately, are likely releasing microplastics into your drink.

Tea bag alternatives: Switch to a stainless steel tea infuser, organic cotton reusable tea bag, or a bottle with an inbuilt tea infuser which allows you to use loose-leaf tea instead of tea bags (also much cheaper). Or go back to the old way and brew your tea in a pot! A French coffee press also works great.

The millions of used coffee pods disposed of every day in Australia are also a huge problem as they cannot be easily recycled and are not accepted in our curbside recycle bins.

Coffee capsules: Swap to reusable coffee capsules which allow you to refill a single stainless steel pod with fresh ground coffee instead of having to continually buy more single-use pods. It's cheaper in the long-run and you can use freshly ground local coffee for a tastier brew. In the meantime, use this TerraCycle Map to see where you can drop off your used aluminium pods for recycling.

Other coffee methods: Explore plastic-free coffee making methods like pour over, French press and cold brew.

5. Growing your own food

Growing your own food can help you avoid single-use packaging – and you get to have delicious, fresh food at your fingertips. You don't have to have an intense garden set up - even growing a pot of herbs on the windowsill will make a difference.

Here are some easy ideas of what you can grow at home: