Try searching for a "refillery" or refill station near you. They are stores where you bring reusable containers with you to fill with goods. They usually have a limited selection but it's something and it helps.
I've been doing that for things like shampoo and detergents. But unfortunately I've got celiacs. All my food HAS to be packaged so that I know it's safe to eat.
I did to some degree. I have some issues with certain fruits and vegetables due to their fructose and alditole composition. So it's not so easy for me, yet, but I made lasagna with alternative minced meat and oat milk, chili 'con' carne with the same minced meat, once with wheat basis, more times with peas. Sushi without fish or meat. But originally and natural vegetarian meals, I guess not really. At least I can't remember right now.
Don’t try to eat less meat, try to eat more veggie. I know it’s technically the same but the thought process is different. Before you know it, you had weeks without meat.
I have a lot of asian friends and their meals are always the opposite of typical American meals. It's a ton of veggies/rice with meat as a 'topping' rather than meat being the centerpiece with veggies as sides. I'd love to incorporate that more but I love meat so much...
Start easy, cut out 1 animal you don't eat too much of and go from there. Once I stopped eating beef, pork and lamb I felt weird about eating chicken, so just stopped altogether! (amongst other reasons)
I did so for greenhouse gases reasons. First I stopped with beef, never enjoyed lamb (poor young thing), and several others. Pork pretty much, too, but sometimes I still eat it, same with chicken. Not at home, there are amazing alternatives for sausage and 'meat'. But when eating at restaurants, I have issues eating vegan or vegetarian due to some intolerances. And eggs are still a problem for me. But I buy from a source where male hatchlings are not getting shredded.
You could reduce your mince meat consuption by adding TVP/ soy protein crumble in it. This is what some fast food places actually do and people don't notice the difference unless they hear about it. There are also many vegan proteins in freezer section in many stores. Tofu can be super delicious once you learn how to cook it. I think cooking yummy tofu is sign of good chef.
So far I exchanged minced meat by bought alternatives of peas and wheat. With differing textures and formes and I really enjoy them in my meals. I still need to learn to process and cook more with tofu. What I learned already some months ago, you need to press tofu with some weight for half an hour, potentially freeze it to further reduce their water by open pores, and then cook it in some sauce so that it can absorb the taste. Made sense afterwards, but always wondered how they got their taste. Good advice!
I have tried like 5 different vegan meat things now and they ranged from bad (the times they involved cheese, my god vegan cheese sucks) to "ok, but would rather just eat something that is vegan without trying to be fake meat."
Is there any particular type of product that's good? Brands will probably only help if you're also in germany, but maybe fake chicken is just the wrong fake meat to buy.
I would argue we shouldn't live without it, but it does need to be cut back and less glorified. There are soo many alternatives that are healthier, cheaper, better for environment but you should still be able to have a medium rare steak and some chicken wings when you want it.
well as of the ethics doing a bad thing once is still having done a bad thing, but I guess sure if you want to decrease animal suffering the fastest realistic way, getting 10 people to reduce their consumption trumps 3 people completely cutting their meat consumption. (yet you'll still have 10 people exploiting animals for their "products" who should be living without doing just that. vegan btw)
nah, meat is great. Just the sourcing of it is not so great. Get your meat from a local butcher where you know where the animal came from.
Or better yet, if you have the space, time and money: get your own livestock.
the animals don't care wether their dead corpse is shipped to you from Argentina or from your local butcher that is just such a nice and friendly guy :^) they'd prefer not having their throat slit by anyone at all
And it's just so much worse if it's something I don't actually need and is on the pricey side... Like, I enjoy those canned Starbucks nitro cold brew drinks. I feel guilty wanting to buy them, I feel guilty about how many I want to put in my cart, and I feel guilty when I drink them.
I've had a lot of microwave meals and I can't say that any one has ever come close to the appeal of fast food. Usually they're watery vegetables and a microwaved porkchop or something. At least buy a decent frozen pizza.
That might be your gut microbiome craving it. You can re-anchor your microbiome with new bacteria but it takes about a week or two.
I start getting cravings for strawberry banana smoothies with spinach now. Or berry smoothies. Costco sells unflavored yogurt and milk in bulk, same wity big bags of frozen berries. It's typically replaced desserts for me because they are filling. (I also have one of those bullet shaped blenders where the lid becomes a drink cup. I have a few cups so I can just rinse the blades and then throw the cup in the dishwasher. )
I used to have those same cravings, so I know how it feels!
Takeout. I get it a few times a week and always feel a bit guilty about it. I like supporting the local businesses but it's expensive and the plastic containers aren't great.
Not the products themselves, but the amount of packaging to throw away every time I buy a new chair or shelving unit that comes wrapped in layers of foam and plastic. Makes me guilty how much waste there is. But buying second hand isn’t always an option.
Hm... I haven't seen those. But I do sometimes make my own pizza using grands biscuit dough for the crust so it'd probably be hella good. They're owned by General-Mills.
I actually feel really guilty about buying all those single serving drinks from Dunkin' and the convenience stores because of all of the plastic I am just putting back into the environment. I really need to stop doing this. 😾
I really enjoy iced/ cold brew coffee but always felt dumb paying $5 or more for it, especially because of the waste. I bought a cold brew pitcher and some travel mugs, and now I can have my coffee for pennies a day with no waste. Only downside is you have to remember to make it at least 12 hours before you want it.
Edit to add: Total price for the pitcher and mugs was equal to about 8 cups of coffee from a coffee shop.
Gasoline. Airplane tickets. Those are probably the worst two things. But as others have said there are really only a few things that don’t make me feel guilty. So it might be easier to list those.
Interesting, may I ask what you get from it over regular stuff? Is it the content itself or is it the idea that it's a regular person? Or a bit of both?
I was gonna say energy drinks. I gave them up for a year and demonstrated to myself that I don't need them. Then I let them back into my life and again developed a (mostly mental) dependency on them.
fyi, that coffee you are buying isn't "fancy." Buy yourself actual fancy coffee and grind and brew it yourself. I bet you could get some extremely amazing brew say, $250/lb and it would be cheaper then then the shit you buy daily.
Oh, yeah, no, it's definitely not coffe that's actually fancy, I just mean dressed up coffee. Iced vanilla latte with an extra shot of espresso is my jam.
Now I use a morning blend with my Kureg and froth up some milk with a shot of vanilla syrup and drink that.
And then it breaks a few months later and you swear never to buy stuff from there again, only to go back a few weeks later when you see a Daiso store while out doing something else.
Things I want but don't need like a beer at the store on Friday evening or a tablet of chocolate for the weekend or a game on Steam. So I try to minimize such purchases.
I spend like 200 per year on lottery tickets. I know that the odds of ever winning big are close to zero, but it's like a guilty pleasure that let's me dream a bit. Like a cheaper movie ticket.