Making gluten-free bread

As I was making my weekly bread yesterday, it struck me how beautiful the process was -- from mixing the dry ingredients together, to adding the egg, to the risen loaf (before baking). Not only am I avoiding buying bread in plastic -- I can get most of the ingredients in bulk or cardboard containers -- but I'm also creating art and linking myself to my past, when generations of women made bread every week.

Grocery Store Thermometer - How did I do this week?

Here are my groceries for the week. On the left are the ones that are packaged in plastic, some of which might be recyclable. (Empty Tom's toothpaste tubes, for instance, can be shipped back to Tom's of Maine for free for them to recycle.) Theoretically, the company that picks up recycling in my town recycles milk cartons and #1 & 2 containers (Burt's Bees shampoo & conditioner, Coconut Milk shampoo & Coconut Water conditioner). The yogurt containers are #5s, so probably not recyclable, but I had a free coupon for the Noosa, which I couldn't resist trying. (It was very good!) Xochil chips look like they come in paper, but the inside is coated with plastic.

The groceries in the middle had minimal, but some plastic -- labels on the fruit (I brought my own bags for the produce), plastic caps on the hazelnut spread and mayonnaise, and the fish is wrapped in plastic coated paper. Next time I should remember to bring my own container for the fish.

The products on the right are either packaged in glass, foil, paper or cardboard, or were bulk items that I brought my own bags for (raisins, coffee, chocolate-covered almonds & ginger). The winners of the least packaged products this week were Hodgson Mill corn starch, Marcal toilet paper, and Frontera salsa, The Organic Valley eggs have a plastic label on the cardboard carton, and the Organic Valley butter is wrapped in tin foil, but that probably also has a plastic coating.

I'm looking forward to farmer's market season, when I can go back to buying fruit and vegetables without labels stuck on them!