I was dying for some juice, after a day in the cubicle breathing in god-knows what, so I had to buy some carrots. 

I began the adventure at Vitamin Cottage on Wadsworth and 72nd in Arvada, Colorado - a sprawling hell hole more or less. It was actually pretty easy. I just got some produce - baby potatoes, radishes, carrots, baby bok choy, cantelope, apples, and some parsley. Vitamin Cottage sells their bulk items in pre-packaged heavy duty plastic bags, so i couldn't get any bulk - big juicy organic raisins were calling me - but no go. 

I got to the register and thought it would be cool to get a picture of the cashier scanning my free-breathing food, both of them, together, open to the elements as nature intended. I told her I was doing this 30-day blog and asked if she would mind. After a moment, she decided she had to call a supervisor, who also had to call a supervisor. I finally go the go-ahead but wasn't allowed to capture the vitamin cottage logo, which lives on the smocks at chest level. See picture above. I did get some genuine Vitamin Cottage Cashier hands in the picture though. 

I never got around to the juice, but when I got home, I had a few spoonfuls of leftover room-temperature sticky rice and salty beans that I had made the night before to hold me over until I could make dinner. Then I washed the lettuce, spun it and put the salad in the spinner into the fridge for easy access throughout the week. I also washed the radishes, ate one, and put in bowl in the fridge.

I decided to make pasta from unbleached organic white flour, crushed green pepper corns, an egg, salt and some water. I threw the rest of the ingredients into a pot to simmer and dinner was served! I cooked the sausage and veggies in water since I haven't dealt yet with non-packaged oils. I did have some bacon fat in a jar in the fridge but decided against it for this time.

Today I finished preparing the kitchen for 30-days without packaged food. Raisin bran-like cereal, instant quinoa, numerous power bars, generic gummy bears, a tub of natural hot fudge sauce. They have all made their way into the donation bag. 

A few things I kept, like organic non-dairy hot cocoa mix, multi grain pancake mix, a few cans of beans even though the plastic lining on the inside of the cans bothers me. I stored them in a box and put it above the refrigerator. They will keep watch on the kitchen-honesty of the next month. 

The bulk items on the shelves are foods that were already in the house. They were brought home in plastic bags, but since we already had them, we decided to just go with it. For all future bulk items, we will have to somehow convince the store to allow us to bring our own containers. 

On the shelves are mung beans, adzuki beans, lentils, rice, bulgar, nuts, flour, and various kinds of rice. Basically the only processing these foods have seen is that the hulls have been removed. The flour was also ground up. Since they are so minimally processed, they fit within the rules for no packaged foods even though we brought them home in unnecessary plastic bags. We will try to solve this problem throughout the month and see what options we have for transporting fine grained bulk items.