September 12, 2023 • 35 mins
Join Tiff & Kat in patting yourself on the back for bulk food shopping like a good American. Learn the pros and cons of bulk shopping, what makes it eco-friendly or less so, what the Dunning-Kruger effect is, and how old Kat's dog is in your favorite green living podcast.
Sources
- Green Foot Mama - https://greenfootmama.com/bulk-buying-eco-friendly/
- Attitude Living - https://attitudeliving.com/blogs/lifestyle/5-eco-friendly-reasons-to-start-bulk-shopping
- Her Money - https://hermoney.com/enjoy/food/foods-to-buy-in-bulk-to-save-money/
- Apartment Therapy - https://www.apartmenttherapy.com/how-to-buy-and-store-bulk-food-108248
- Investopedia - https://www.investopedia.com/articles/pf/07/bulk_buying.asp
- The Good Trade - https://www.thegoodtrade.com/features/bulk-shopping-tips/
- Supermarket Guru - https://www.supermarketguru.com/articles/benefits-of-bulk-buying/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:02):
Hi, Tiffany, how you doing?
Pretty good.
How are you? I'm flying high onthe fact that I figured out how
to put us on YouTube. But it'sso excited. We're wearing the
future we live in. What are thepresent? I guess we've joined
the present. We're no longer inthe stone age. Yeah. Podcasting
(00:25):
from from covered wagonsanymore. Yes. But yeah. So now,
if you're listening to us onYouTube, thank you like and
subscribe, like and subscribe. Ithink people don't understand.
It's really hard for us to tell.
who's listening to us? Becauseyour podcast stats are very not
they're not very good. They'renot expensive. It's very
(00:47):
difficult to see. You're justdoing
Yeah, so it's like, how, howmany people are downloading,
which I never, I only downloadpodcasts if I know I'm going to
be like on an airplane anddon't.
That's how I used to be, youknow, yes. A lot of people don't
download because of that. ButI'd now download everything
(01:08):
partially because I know itmatters for the podcaster. But
also partially because I don'twant to use up my data when I
because I listened to it inthe car. But yeah, that's that's
my thing. Yeah. Yeah.
So downloads are great if youhave the bandwidth on your
phone.
Yeah. Like giving us a five starreview on Spotify helps or
liking us. Wherever you listento us. That helps too. But most
(01:30):
of the great thing about YouTubeis they're very transparent
about how many views you get andhow many people are subscribed,
so Oh, cool. That's, that's it'sgiving me hope. Because I'm
like, nobody likes us. And I'mlike, No, people like us. Thank
you for liking us. If you don'tlike us. Send us a note because
we would love some controversy.
Yes. Oh, my goodness. We canhave a shitty review. Review.
(01:52):
Yeah,just Yeah. Read read the hateful
things people say about us. Butso far, it's just lovers. So
thank you lovers. Yeah, we loveyou too. But that I mean, okay,
I'm just going to jump into thisweek, then. Yeah, because we're
doing bulk food shopping. Andokay, I'm gonna be honest, maybe
I didn't spend enough timeresearching it. But it just
feels like this is very light.
(02:12):
It kind of reminds me of theRedwall episode where it's like,
I can't find anything bad.
And I think that's good. Yeah,episode was so enjoyable that
yes, it's kind of like our, ourepisode on laundry detergent to
it's like, hurray. Yes. Sohopefully, this is a hurray for
everyone. But I'll just get intomy shortlist of sources here.
(02:36):
And I was looking back since I'muploading all the old episodes
on YouTube. Like our firstepisode, we had like three
sources. And now we have like,really? Yeah, that's so funny.
He hasn't grown for that. Yeah,in 23 episodes, we have grown.
So that makessense. Our research is
improving, I suppose. Yeah,I guess we're getting out of the
Dunning Kruger. Oh, no. See, nowI'm going down a rabbit hole
(02:58):
here. Dunning Kruger is thetheory that the less you know
about something, the lesscapable you are of knowing how
little you know. So I thinkwe're maybe yeah. But I think
we're getting into a phase wherewe're very aware of how little
we know. And how littleYes, okay, I get it now. So it's
sort of like that. That's whyyou get frustrated when you're
(03:20):
doing something new.
Yeah, well, it's that well, whenyou first start out, you think
you're Oh, wow, this is amazing.
And I'm really good at this. Andit's because you don't have the
experience to know how bad youactually are. Yeah. Okay. How
little you know, and that's whylike the difference between
someone who's like, like, thethe more you know about a
subject, the more of an expertyou are, the more you doubt
(03:42):
yourself. Yes. And and the moreyou're willing to admit you
don't know, because you have abroader view of the subject. So
you don't have just thisintroductory, like, oh, yeah,
this is this little world, likethe bubble grows, and you
realize how small you are in thebubble of No. Right. So
that is definitely happening.
Because our I feel like ourrecent episodes have been much
more complex. Yeah. And wait,it's like, yeah, we're not hard,
(04:06):
or it's just harder to just,it's just reality. So
Right. And I was thinking aboutthat I listened to a scientist
on some Instagram posts, andthey're, like, when you hear
somebody say, Well, I'm anexpert. And I know x, it often
it's like, that's not realscientists will be like, from
what I can tell. This could betrue. You know, the evidence
(04:30):
says, why when people say it'sdefinitely X than you, you
should doubt them a little bitmore. Oh, yeah, totally. But
yeah, anyway, we, I guess, couldalso say, Welcome to greening up
my act. We are not scientists.
We are two marketing writers whowant to figure out what we can
do to impact sustainability andthe ecology in our world full of
(04:53):
climate change, what we can doas individuals, and so we do
research on on products andservices and rate them on a
scale of one to five granolas byhow crunchy they are. Because
the crunchy are the better. Andwe rate them based on how well
they work, how money economicalthey are, and how much of a
(05:14):
hassle they are. And also ifthey're actually better for the
environment. Yeah. So but we aremarketing writers, not
scientists. Yes.
We're amateur sciencejournalists.
Yeah, right. Not even I won'teven say that. Because there are
some real science journalists.
Are you like, I think I could doscience journalism. And then I
get into it. I'm like,Absolutely not. I know, right? I
(05:35):
wouldn't. That's always anamateur. Yeah, this is an
entertainment podcast, but we dothe research. We do the
perfunctory research that youjust don't have time for and
answer your questions on theseproducts and services. So yeah,
andwe'll be open if there's just
not an answer, easilyaccessible. And if we're wrong
dives, we go deep dives. Andwe're like, I don't know. I just
(05:58):
don't know. Yeah. And if we'rewrong, we're willing to say that
so if you know something aboutthese subjects, please let us
know. Yes, please. We are soopen. My scientists sister often
will correct me on things whichis nice. I love it. Yeah. But
okay, so this this week bulkfood shopping. My sources, I
just a few have a small list ofseven I think, or eight, green
(06:22):
foot mama. Attitude. Living Iknow, these are all just, you
know, friendly blogs, her money,apartment therapy Investopedia.
The good trade and supermarketguru all had information on the
benefits or non benefits of bulkfood shopping.
Okay. I'm really interested inbulk food shopping, because I
(06:46):
don't know it just Yeah. It'sseems like there could be some
drawbacks.
Yeah. All right. So what is bulkfood shopping, there's two ways
to think about this. There'sCostco buying, you know, or you
just buy large amounts of stufffrom a big box store. So that's,
(07:07):
you know, I buy 50 rolls oftoilet paper at a time. You
know, things like that, if youhave a big family that that kind
of bulk shopping. That's onetype of bulk shopping that a lot
of people do. And probably whenyou don't think about very much,
because you probably justalready do it. But yeah,
maybe like yeah, if youYeah, I definitely I kind of
avoided to be honest, because Idon't like storing all that
(07:28):
stuff that I do have too muchtoilet paper. So there are
certain things that Yeah, Imean, it's just for me, I just
don't want to have to thinkabout it. You know, no, I get
that. I buy a lot of batteriesand it also well we'll get into
that it can save you money inthe long run. But the other type
of bulk food shopping is onethat we think about maybe less
is those items that come inprepackaged the smaller items
(07:51):
that come prepackaged that youmight not realize you can buy in
bulk from the bulk section ofthe grocery store like nuts or
spices, rice, lentils, flour,peanut butter, even that you can
just buy smaller amounts of inyour own packaging and that can
save you money, etc. And we'llget into kind of that kind of
(08:14):
bulk traffic. There's alsothings that use a lot of plastic
for instance shampoo,conditioner, soap, you know
laundry soap, well, maybe wetalked about laundry detergent,
but yeah, you could buy bulkwashing soda. About Well, here's
a list of things that you canbuy in bulk. And that maybe you
should her money had a list of awhole bunch of them that they
(08:34):
say are more cost effective. Soshampoo, soap, shower gel,
laundry detergent, like ourrecipe you can bulk buy washing
soda and Dr. Bronner's cleaningproducts. White vinegar for
instance. Toilet paper, bread,you can bulk buy cereal, you can
bulk buy chicken breasts, likeany any large amounts of
(08:56):
protein, chicken breasts,salmon, cutlets, tuna, ground
beef, those can all be bought inbulk. hard cheeses like Parmesan
things that don't go bad.
Butter, you can freeze eggsapparently they can last as long
as a month after the sell bydate if you keep them
refrigerated. So as eggs don'tgo bad as quickly as you think
(09:16):
especially if you're using thema lot. Olive oil cooking oils
broths and stocks. Plant basedall dairy alternatives like oat
milk or almond milk, which wecould get into what that means
but right. That's a reallyinteresting one. Yeah, nuts and
seeds. Canned goods like dicedtomatoes, spices, cardamom,
(09:36):
cinnamon, any of those like seedpods, spices that might you
might buy like sesame, you know,chili pods, things like that.
Those you can all buy in bulk,and they're more cost effective
generally to do that. Yeah,yeah. We talked about that.
Going to the spice aisle of likeWhole Foods. Yeah. You pay like
10 cents for something thatnormally would cost right? I get
like right now or half a cent?
(10:00):
And you're like, yeah,yeah. So. Okay, so that's the
number one reads. Okay, if we'regoing to why would you bulk food
shop? Number one, it's lessexpensive. Usually. So
supermarket Guru said you cansave 30 to 50% on buying bulk as
opposed to prepackaged foods.
Okay, wow. So ish. Do you knowif they're referring because I
(10:22):
feel like they're so different,like going to Costco, right?
Going to your, because I feellike it's more like a health
healthy, fancy grocery storethat has the bulk section
often, yes. And so that they'regetting that's the difference.
When you're doing, you know, thebulk food aisle at Whole Foods,
it's usually hippie dippiepeople who don't want the
(10:42):
plastic packaging. So they maynot care about the cost as much.
Yeah.
Interesting. I'm just curious toknow if that's like crazy
expensive, or if it actuallysaves money, but
you know what, it depends on theitem around you get it? Okay, so
that's okay, that's one of thewe'll get into the why you
wouldn't bulk Bucha up andthat's when you already probably
(11:02):
do it with your produce yourtoilet paper, cleaning products,
etc. You probably already buy,you don't buy like, five
dishwasher pods at a time.
Right? You buy 50 And you mightbuy you know, those things that
don't go bad if you have theroom to store them, you might
buy the bigger Costco thing ofit, you know, a Costco makes it
easy to bulk shop. Right, youdon't necessarily have to go to
(11:23):
the food Co Op and do bulkshopping that way. It still is
less plastic packaging, it'sless shipping. I mean, it's less
time that you're going to thegrocery store, you know, it does
save on that you can buy more atonce. So you have more of the
product at home, which makes iteasy. It saves you trips to the
store again, so less pollutionand transportation. If you're
(11:44):
doing the bulk shopping thatwe're talking about, like a
hippie dippie Whole Foodsstores, reusing jars saves on
plastic waste and landfillwaste. So supermarket guru says
bulk food reduces averageemissions by 48%. When you buy
from bulk versus traditionalpackaging. Nobody, I could find
nothing on how much plastic itsaves. Like I couldn't get, like
(12:05):
48% on emissions, that thatincludes the shipping costs and
the you know, it includeseverything. So I don't know how
much plastic you're saving. Andagain, I think it's because
you'd have to get into case bycase basis. Like right. How much
of my saving buying paper. Yeah,bulk paper towels versus one
paper towel at a time. I don'tknow. Because that's those still
(12:27):
come individually wrapped inplastic. Right? Yeah,
they do sometimes.
It's very annoying, right. Butthe emissions? Yeah,
I know, like you're already aplastic wrap, but the emissions
that you're saving are on it,transportation costs, things
like that, okay. So you canreduce the amount of plastic you
use, especially plastic bags,when your food shopping, and
(12:47):
packaging Nice. Okay, so theydid say, if you average 10
products and your grocery cartthat you've refill over, over
the year, you save 118 pieces ofpackaging from a landfill. Okay,
whenever I repeat that, so ifyou get, let's say 10 items that
you buy normally, okay, let'syou know, peanut butter,
cinnamon, shampoo, conditioner,10 of those. If you refill those
(13:14):
and do bulk, rather than justevery time you go to the store,
you buy a new bottle of it. Overthe course of the year, you will
keep 118 pieces of plastic orother materials out of the
landfill. Okay. So, you know,over a year 118 pieces might not
sound like much. But if you'redoing more than 10, maybe that's
(13:36):
a good thing. bulk products arerefreshed more often in the
store than prepackaged. Sothey're often fresher.
Whoa, which I didn't thinkabout. Now, I would have thought
the opposite to be honest.
Yeah. And what I wondered aboutthat was how much of it they
throw away, because I think it'syou know, bulk items are, I
don't know, if they're, they'rerefreshed more often because
(13:56):
they're, they go through themfaster. Or if it's because
they're exposed to the air andthey have to be thrown out
because they go bad faster, youknow, I wonder. So I don't know.
But you can use the same jar inthe store that you buy it in. So
you don't have to transfer it toa different container when you
get home. So you take yourreusable container and that's
the one you're going to store itin and you use that to buy your
(14:18):
cinnamon, whatever, then youdon't have to come home and put
it in the cinnamon jar and youknow, so that can save you time
and you know, I think Have youever watched those videos where
people like come home from thestore and put all of their
spaghetti in like a glass thingand yeah, it's like but it looks
prettier. So if you just use thecontainer you're going to store
(14:39):
it in.
Yeah, that makes sense. Iusually when I haven't done it
in so long but they have thelittle plastic baggies. They can
put the spices in Yeah, and youknow, it would be better to not
use those stupid plasticbaggies.
So Iagree I'm gonna get into that
down there too. But it alsogives you the opportunity to buy
smaller quantities. have newstuff to try. So for instance,
(15:00):
you're like, oh, I want to tryusing cumin but I don't want to
buy a $10.02 ounce thing of it,I can just get a quarter of an
ounce for 50 cents. And if Idon't like it, I'm wasting less.
Yeah, very cool. Yeah. So thoseare the reasons I came up with
for why you would bulk food shopnow why you wouldn't bulk food
shop. And I think you'vementioned a lot of these
already. Time. Go ahead. Yeah,it's okay. I mean, it's hard to
(15:25):
talk about the pros and thecons. So it adds time on your
shopping trip, right? If you'redoing I mean, maybe not at
Costco. I'm sorry, my dog ismaking very cute noises in the
background. He say, Yeah, rollon his back fest. So if you hear
groaning, that's the dog, blah,blah. You know, you have to go
away the thing and put thesticker on it, it's a lot easier
(15:45):
to just walk down the spiceaisle and grab McCormick's,
whatever, you know, so there'stime, hassle, you have to clean
all those jars or refillableitems, or, you know, transfer it
to the new jar when you gethome. So that's annoying.
Availability. So a lot ofgrocery stores do have bulk
options, but not all. And again,yeah, if you don't have a co op,
(16:08):
a hippie co op in yourneighborhood, they might not
have bulk shampoooptions. You know? Do some of
your grocery stores have bulkshampoo?
Yeah. I haven't seen bulkshampoo. I haven't looked very
hard for bulk shampoo. Okay,because I've done I was gonna
say you are you gonna talk aboutrefilling worries at all?
I had not talked about refillReese.
(16:29):
research about it. Go for no. IfI say something about it, you
won't be annoyed.
No pleased. We should talk aboutthat. Well, I
was just curious, because Ihaven't been to one but I found
one that's maybe it's like agood probably 40 minute drive.
But if I do it and combine itwith other things that I'm
already going to do in the area,then it might be worth it. But
(16:51):
they have shampoo they have onedrew dish soap I think like all
these things that I could use.
So I want to try it. I canreport
back. So yeah, maybe like anepisode or something. I didn't
even think to look up refill orOh, no, I mean, grocery store.
Oh, my goodness dog. Well,they're so rare. I
mean, that's the thing. Yeah.
Like I said, it'sa big city thing. Yes, exactly.
(17:13):
And it seems like it's kind oflike, lush, or, you know, one of
those kind of Yeah, brands thatdoes sustainable. You know,
whatever they do bulk. You canbuy bulk there too, I
think okay, I didn't know thatactually. Yeah. Because they
just refillit. And I mean, they, you if you
bring your container and you getthey reuse the containers. So
(17:35):
that's an example. Okay, yeah.
Okay, so one of the other thingsthat was mentioned is that your
eyes may be bigger than yourneed. So you may buy things in
bulk and not use them andthey'll spoil. Yes. You also
have to consider cost per unit,if you really want to do the
(17:56):
math, some things are moreexpensive in bulk than others.
So it may add up. And you haveto do it you have to know
beforehand. Like you do a reallygood job at that of like
calculating per ounce how muchstuff is but that's more work,
you know, I know it is. Well, Iwill
give you a tip. And this may notwork with bulk shopping. I'm not
sure what the labels look like.
But if you look on the other,Greg, any grocery store has a
(18:19):
little label with the price. Andit should say either cost per
unit cost per ounce, whatever. Ialways compare those two because
it's true, like sometimes thebigger item, like if the smaller
item is on sale, it might stillbe more cost effective to get
the bigger one even if it's noton sale or vice versa. Like it's
kind of surprising sometimes.
(18:42):
Yeah, it's weird how it's like,it's because it's such minutiae.
I don't even think the grocerystores do though. Oh my
goodness, this dog. What are youdoing over there? He's just
having fun out, man. Good time.
He's just rolling around on hisback up. Nobody wants to get up.
I'm sorry. I know. I have to lethim out. I'm sorry, folks. One
second. Okay. Are you ready? Areyou done in here?
(19:17):
He turns 14 Next week, and so Iindulge his whims. Oh, but
anyway, that dog Okay, so sorry,where were we?
I was gonna talk to myself, butthen I don't really have the
energy tonight.
Now he's working. We're justgoing to plow through this.
Okay. So yeah, cost per unit. Idon't even think grocery stores
know what most of the time it'sbecause it's so complicated.
(19:39):
It's so much math. Right. So andyeah, the difference between
like, concentrated things costper unit. You know, like, okay,
if I'm buying 12 ounces ofconcentrated Windex, which we
have talked about you shouldn'tdo versus 12 ounces of already
made windex like The cost perunit is different because I'm
(20:01):
gonna be adding water to thisand it's gonna last longer and
all those things, right? That'sa bunch of Yeah, for the most
part, though I have found itselflike with diapers or something,
I should do it and be like, Oh,wait, what is the small one?
So yeah, yeah, that's fair. Youalso need storage to buy in
bulk, you need to have room forit. You can't keep 30 rolls of
(20:21):
toilet paper in a tiny linencloset and your one bedroom in
New York, you know? Yes. And youneed to have the right
containers, which can be ahassle to figure out. And you
may also have to buy some. Sofor instance, if you decide to
be a bulk shopper, are you gonnajust gonna get rid of everything
that's in your cabinet already?
And buy new bulk shopping items?
You know, that's annoying. Youhave to figure out how to
(20:43):
transport it. So you can't it'snot easy to carry a bunch of
bulk items on your bus, on yourbike or on the bus, you know?
Oh, yeah. So that's one of thoseyou spent 10 years with backpack
groceries?
Oh, my God. I did that so much.
And that was a definite just buywhat you need twice a week. Oh,
yeah. You're like no milk today?
(21:05):
Yeah, it's too hot out. And Ihave a brewery to get to. Yeah,
for sure. Can't fit it. And it'stoo heavy. Yeah. Investopedia
had an article about why youwouldn't want to do bulk
shopping. So. So other economicreasons. Include, if you have a
surplus of an item, say shampoo,you bought a lot of it in bulk.
(21:25):
You might use more of it thanyou normally would, because you
have so much. Ah, so that giantjar of mayonnaise, you're gonna
like, Oh, I gotta use this. Soyou're just going to slather it
on. And and and I believe thatyou end up using more. So you go
through it faster than youthink. Because of
overconsumption. We're Americanslove overconsumption.
Yeah, I can't believehow many candy bars these days
(21:46):
are. Only in King size. Have younoticed this? I'm like, why in
God's name? What happened?
I want 20 m&ms. I don't want 200m&ms.
Exactly.
What Yeah, hell yeah. So yeah,you don't need, you know,
sometimes it's better to buy thesmall thing, you don't need it.
Yes, you might not have themoney to bulk shop. So for
(22:06):
instance, if you're looking at agiant, the bigger bottle of
shampoo is $24. And your, youknow, quarter sized bottle of
shampoo is $12. Well, yourgrocery bill at Costco is always
going to be more than yourgrocery bill at regular grocery
store. So you might end up usingyour credit card and then
racking up interest fees if youcan't pay it off in time. So
(22:28):
that's a consideration too. Itmight not be economically viable
for you to buy in bulk. Yeah.
Now the other thing is, if youbuy bulk from a store that
doesn't let you bring your owncontainers, you're probably
going to have to use theirplastic baggies anyway. So that
kind of avoids the plasticpackaging bonus that we were
talking about. So you're justgetting more plastic packaging
anyway. So those are the consthat I found mostly agony. And
(22:51):
that's what I call it whenanything's hard to do agony.
Time, money, hassle.
Yeah, it sounds like it reallydepends on your individual
situation. Yeah,exactly. I definitely recommend
it for large families. You know,if you if you have the room in
your house to do it, and youhave the time to do it, I think
(23:12):
it's worth it. Yeah, especiallyif you're going to be replacing,
or reusing jars or littleplastic bottles and things that
you would otherwise just throwaway. You know, buying a half
ounce of cinnamon, that's notgoing to go bad before your
cinnamon goes rancid because youonly use it once a year, you
know? Yes, much better to buy asyou need it. Okay, so some tips
for bulk food buying that Igleaned from all of those
(23:35):
sources. Storage is key. Makesure you have space in your
house for storing bulk stuff.
Clean out that cabinet clean outthat pantry, find places for
things because otherwise likefor instance right now I just
have I buy my protein shakes inbulk and I just have like boxes
of protein shakes around theliving room. It's very
attractive. Yeah, Ihave a bunch of toilet paper
(23:56):
rolls. So yeah, yeah, like if amI gonna put these?
Yeah, laundry cabinet and mylinen closet. They're all over
the place under the bed. Yeah.
Get the right jars are reusablecontainers. This is especially
important for things that needto be in airtight containers. So
that's like any of yourperishables glass jars, steel
jars and glass. I call it GlassTupperware, there are good
(24:19):
options. You can also savecontainers from items that you
use regularly like spices andjust refill them. This is
another thing that I've seen thelittle like soup containers you
get like the little plasticones. We save those here I mean
we will store soup in them andstuff you know but also you can
use those to go buy spices andstuff instead of using their in
their light, right? Light littleplastic things that you can
(24:43):
bring with you. They clean upeasily and and you can buy bulk
stuff that way. And then if youhave to transfer it into a jar
or whatever, that's easy, butthere are also bulk product bulk
shopping products available outthere so that you have like your
gear and you To get the storeand then you come home and
transfer it, they make it easyto pour stuff out and stuff. If
you don't, I don't know want togo through the house if you
(25:05):
don't want to bring yourcinnamon jar because the other
thing is you have to know theweight of each of your
refillable containers to do thetear. Yeah,
that's the other tricky thing,but I guess you had to know
depends on how much more itwould cost. But yeah,
well, they, they, I think mostplaces will let you do the tear
on the scale you so you put thevessel on the, the container,
(25:31):
sorry, I couldn't think of theword the container on the scale,
hit tear. And then, but youknow, taking taking glass jars
can be a hassle because they'reheavy, you break so you might
want to take lighter stuff andthen transfer it when you get
home. Right? You You have toknow the the weight of the
package to tear properly. Don'tbuy bulk items that are
(25:51):
perishable that you won't use.
So don't buy a huge amount offruit. You know from my salad
bags from Costco because it'sjust like, now Yeah, exactly.
You nobody's even gettingthrough their small bags. Let's
be honest people. Yeah,yeah, we aren't. We talked about
food waste a couple of weeksago. And this is one reason you
wouldn't want to buy in bulk.
(26:12):
Like where you can determine howmuch you get those. It's the
second kind of bulk buying fromthe whole foods, you can
determine how much you get soyou buy less you know, that's,
that's one of the pros. One ofthe websites, I think her money
recommended that you put stufflike flour in the freezer for a
day or two to kill off pests,which I thought was interesting.
(26:35):
And they even do that when theyjust buy regular flour from the
store. Interesting two poundbag. Yeah, freeze your flour. It
kills off weevils and things,huh? I used to freeze mine just
because I've heard that it lastslonger that way, but I don't do
it anymore because I don't havea good freezer.
It depends on the thing.
Freezing can brings the oils outfrom things so I mean it it puts
(26:56):
them in stasis, but they can gorancid quicker or go back
quicker. Okay if you take themout of the freezer and it also
can introduce condensation andthings
Yeah, and I know there are somethings you shouldn't freeze that
I was always surprised about. Iwant to say like sausage or I
don't know like something meatthat I was like what you're not
(27:18):
supposed to freeze thatis probably because of the oils
I don't know. I don't I freezemy meat most of the time. I
usually do too just because Idon't use all of it. Yeah.
Attitude living recommendedcreating a refill station in
your home. So like for me itwould be where my washer dryer
is if I could just clean out ontop of the shelves on top of the
washer dryer if I just hadeverything in there and then
make a refill station. So whenI'm out of shampoo, I could go
(27:39):
and you know refill it from thebig big been there. You know?
That's super smart. Because man,is it a pain in the ass? Yeah,
if you know like everything. Idon't know. It's like a mental
block because I have a hand likea dish. Not dish soap Hand Soap
Dispenser that's been empty forlike a week.
Yeah, because it's just I don'twant to do it. Yeah, exactly.
(28:01):
Okay, and then the lastrecommendation is buy bulk items
that you're going to measureout. More specifically like
laundry detergent, instead ofstuff you may just overuse
because you have more of it. Solike shampoo, okay, and mayo,
you know, like if you knowexactly how much you're gonna
use or or start measuring howmuch shampoo you use, you know,
always do a dime size orwhatever. Yeah, then just make
(28:21):
sure that you're not splashingit on. Yeah, falling prey to the
American overconsumptionproblem.
Hmm, that's good advice.
Yeah. So now we get to thegranola rating. Told you this is
short. I'm giving bulk. So Iguess I should talk about our
granola rating. It goes fromnine which is soggy to five
(28:44):
which is crunchy breaker two'soff crunchy has a better because
we're hippies and we like ourcountry granola.
We're not really hippies werebad. No, we're bad. And yeah,
we pretend to be like, I don'teat granola either. So
you don't know. Oh, that'shilarious. I love her doll.
Actually.
There's times it's just verysweet for me usually.
Oh, I get the one that's like,this is so hippie dippie. I get
(29:06):
like a local granola that's sogood. And it's so crunchy and
crispy. But anyway, loveit. Well, I mean, that's another
thing they say if you're buyinga bunch of stuff in bulk, learn
to mix it all together. So makeyour own granola if you're
buying notes and things. So, butOkay, so I give it a four out of
five, which is crunchy, notforgive Jews off. It's still
good. I think it's worth doing.
(29:27):
But the expense and the hassleand the unavailability of it in
some places. And its propensityto make people overuse. Yeah.
And the fact that it's noteverybody has that much storage
space. I gave it a forum. Yeah,it's definitely not a one size
fits all solution.
And I think that's true of a lotof things we talk about, like
you got to do what works foryou. Yeah, I think if you if
(29:51):
you're committed to a zero wastelifestyle, you're not going to
care about how much more acertain item might cost. You're
just going to be willing to goget the net On prepackaged
version of it, and I think thatthat's admirable. And you can
just make a habit out of it. Youknow, you go once a week and you
get all your spices and all yourthings and you know, and you
bring all your you can, youknow, just like me, I've started
(30:13):
bringing my reusable bags in thecar every time. You know, it's a
habit I have. So it is possible.
And I like I think if you can doit, and you're willing to do it,
go for it. But yeah, if you'reshopping for a family and you
your grocery time is limited,and you know, nobody's here
already,like crying because you have to
put a grocery list together.
It's probably maybe not worth itfor you.
(30:36):
It's fine. It's fine to buy.
It's fine to buy the prepackagedstuff if you have to. Yeah,
don't throw eggs at me. So okay,I so I am interested in trying
to do more books. I mean, Iobviously do Costco, I buy, you
know, my dog food in bulk. I buythose things, but it'd be
interesting to do like, oh,oatmeal, you know, just refill
my little oatmeal barrel.
(31:00):
Whatever. Yeah, you know,yeah, I'm actually gonna get
there's a hippie dippie grocerystore about 10 minutes away from
me. I'd never go in there justbecause it's really expensive,
but I want to go check out theirbulk section because I know it's
pretty big.
Yeah, I'm wondering if anywheredoes Dr. Bronner's because
that's when I buy a lot of and Ibuy the big bottles, but I'd be
really great if I could just gorefill it.
(31:21):
You know? Yeah, that would befantastic. Dr. Bronner's Hello,
Dr. Bronner's. Yeah, they shouldtotally buy that.
Yeah. But okay, so if anybodyknows anything I didn't, I know,
I should have gone to read itand been like, what's wrong with
bulk shopping, but I didn't rundown a rabbit rabbit hole
tonight. But if anybody knowsanything more detrimental than
(31:42):
what we've already listed aboutbulk shopping, or if you have
more solid numbers on how muchwaste it actually reduces,
because it, you know, 118containers a year that you're
not throwing in a landfilldoesn't feel like much. I mean,
it's better than nothing, butit's less than I would have
expected. Yeah, let's thinkabout it. Like, how often do I
go through peanut butter? Well,yeah,
(32:02):
I think that's the thing. It'snot every week. Yeah. And like
cinnamon lasts for a year? Yeah.
At least two. I mean, I only useit like to bake at Christmas
time. So I'll put it on mycoffee sometimes. But yeah. So
if you missed it, maybe I shoulduse my cinnamon more.
Maybe? You gotta get through it.
Us. Us us consume, consume,consume, consume.
(32:29):
All right. All right. Well,cool.
Thank you so much. Yeah, thatwas interesting. Because I I'm
really, I've been intrigued totry it. And yeah.
It's interesting, kind of thedifference between like the
Costco version or the Sam's Clubversion, big box store. Yeah.
Which I think is what it's soingrained in America that we
(32:49):
most of us just do it anyway,you know? Uh huh. And we don't
think about how it couldactually be better. It's
probably a saving us money.
Yeah, it's true. Like as, as youlisted all those things. I was
like, Oh, I do that. Oh, I dothat, or I do that.
Yeah. It's something we youknow, it's probably something
you could pat yourself on theback for already doing?
Yeah, you would think and Yeah.
And it's interesting, becauseit's not really a thing
(33:11):
elsewhere. Besides, no. America,probably Canada. They do too.
But in Europe, it's verydifferent. Right? You definitely
go and go to the store every dayand get ready for dinner.
Exactly. It's also just easierbecause you can walk to the
frickin story, right?
We have to drive our giant SUVs40 miles. So I think we live
(33:33):
drive or it has cheese, ifyou're gonna live the American
lifestyle where exactly like todrive everywhere. I
think it's worth doing bulk forsure. And you have to have an
SUVobvious. So you're gonna get all
your kids to soccer with all oftheir stuff.
Cool.
So next week, we have minimalismon the docket, which we are
(33:56):
going to record tonight. So it'skind of a misnomer to say next
week, butit's fine though. It will come
out the following week. Okay.
Yeah, I'm, I'm pumped about thisone because it really led me
down a shocking rabbit holewhere I was like, why I didn't
exploit this and I think you'regonna have a strong reaction.
(34:17):
I'm really excited.
I'm a maximalist. So for sure.
It's not even that I thinkyou're gonna have we'll get into
it. You'll have a differentreason. Excuse me.
Wow, okay. Okay,I'm predicting maybe you'll
prove me wrong.
Oh,I'm just impassive completely.
I'm like, okay, whatever.
(34:39):
Sounds fine.
Which are, what do you mean?
Yeah. All right. Well, if you'relistening to us on YouTube,
please subscribe. Like us. Ifyou're listening anywhere else.
Give us five stars. We could useit. It's the only way to get the
word out. Unless you share uswith a broad swath of your
friends. We appreciate all ofyou who do share our podcast and
some ofyou have told me that you do and
it's fantastic. It makes me soHappy
(35:00):
makes me glow inside. Yeah, wedo. We don't make money off of
this yet. Yeah, but we're, we doit as a labor of love and it's
really, it's really great tocreate something that other
people vibe with so totallykicks karaoke out of the water
for sure. Nobody likes karaoke.
Just like that's false. I lovekaraoke. Yeah, it wasn't the
(35:20):
issues. For people who don'tknow cat. She's like karaoke.
I haven't been in like sixmonths or something. Oh, no, no,
what's wrong with me? All right.
Well, thanks, everyone. Have agreat evening or whatever time
of day. You're listening to thisand we will see you next week.
Hi, Tiffany, how you doing?
Pretty good.
How are you? I'm flying high onthe fact that I figured out how
to put us on YouTube. But it'sso excited. We're wearing the
future we live in. What are thepresent? I guess we've joined
the present. We're no longer inthe stone age. Yeah. Podcasting
(00:25):
from from covered wagonsanymore. Yes. But yeah. So now,
if you're listening to us onYouTube, thank you like and
subscribe, like and subscribe. Ithink people don't understand.
It's really hard for us to tell.
who's listening to us? Becauseyour podcast stats are very not
they're not very good. They'renot expensive. It's very
(00:47):
difficult to see. You're justdoing
Yeah, so it's like, how, howmany people are downloading,
which I never, I only downloadpodcasts if I know I'm going to
be like on an airplane anddon't.
That's how I used to be, youknow, yes. A lot of people don't
download because of that. ButI'd now download everything
(01:08):
partially because I know itmatters for the podcaster. But
also partially because I don'twant to use up my data when I
because I listened to it inthe car. But yeah, that's that's
my thing. Yeah. Yeah.
So downloads are great if youhave the bandwidth on your
phone.
Yeah. Like giving us a five starreview on Spotify helps or
liking us. Wherever you listento us. That helps too. But most
(01:30):
of the great thing about YouTubeis they're very transparent
about how many views you get andhow many people are subscribed,
so Oh, cool. That's, that's it'sgiving me hope. Because I'm
like, nobody likes us. And I'mlike, No, people like us. Thank
you for liking us. If you don'tlike us. Send us a note because
we would love some controversy.
Yes. Oh, my goodness. We canhave a shitty review. Review.
(01:52):
Yeah,just Yeah. Read read the hateful
things people say about us. Butso far, it's just lovers. So
thank you lovers. Yeah, we loveyou too. But that I mean, okay,
I'm just going to jump into thisweek, then. Yeah, because we're
doing bulk food shopping. Andokay, I'm gonna be honest, maybe
I didn't spend enough timeresearching it. But it just
feels like this is very light.
(02:12):
It kind of reminds me of theRedwall episode where it's like,
I can't find anything bad.
And I think that's good. Yeah,episode was so enjoyable that
yes, it's kind of like our, ourepisode on laundry detergent to
it's like, hurray. Yes. Sohopefully, this is a hurray for
everyone. But I'll just get intomy shortlist of sources here.
(02:36):
And I was looking back since I'muploading all the old episodes
on YouTube. Like our firstepisode, we had like three
sources. And now we have like,really? Yeah, that's so funny.
He hasn't grown for that. Yeah,in 23 episodes, we have grown.
So that makessense. Our research is
improving, I suppose. Yeah,I guess we're getting out of the
Dunning Kruger. Oh, no. See, nowI'm going down a rabbit hole
(02:58):
here. Dunning Kruger is thetheory that the less you know
about something, the lesscapable you are of knowing how
little you know. So I thinkwe're maybe yeah. But I think
we're getting into a phase wherewe're very aware of how little
we know. And how littleYes, okay, I get it now. So it's
sort of like that. That's whyyou get frustrated when you're
(03:20):
doing something new.
Yeah, well, it's that well, whenyou first start out, you think
you're Oh, wow, this is amazing.
And I'm really good at this. Andit's because you don't have the
experience to know how bad youactually are. Yeah. Okay. How
little you know, and that's whylike the difference between
someone who's like, like, thethe more you know about a
subject, the more of an expertyou are, the more you doubt
(03:42):
yourself. Yes. And and the moreyou're willing to admit you
don't know, because you have abroader view of the subject. So
you don't have just thisintroductory, like, oh, yeah,
this is this little world, likethe bubble grows, and you
realize how small you are in thebubble of No. Right. So
that is definitely happening.
Because our I feel like ourrecent episodes have been much
more complex. Yeah. And wait,it's like, yeah, we're not hard,
(04:06):
or it's just harder to just,it's just reality. So
Right. And I was thinking aboutthat I listened to a scientist
on some Instagram posts, andthey're, like, when you hear
somebody say, Well, I'm anexpert. And I know x, it often
it's like, that's not realscientists will be like, from
what I can tell. This could betrue. You know, the evidence
(04:30):
says, why when people say it'sdefinitely X than you, you
should doubt them a little bitmore. Oh, yeah, totally. But
yeah, anyway, we, I guess, couldalso say, Welcome to greening up
my act. We are not scientists.
We are two marketing writers whowant to figure out what we can
do to impact sustainability andthe ecology in our world full of
(04:53):
climate change, what we can doas individuals, and so we do
research on on products andservices and rate them on a
scale of one to five granolas byhow crunchy they are. Because
the crunchy are the better. Andwe rate them based on how well
they work, how money economicalthey are, and how much of a
(05:14):
hassle they are. And also ifthey're actually better for the
environment. Yeah. So but we aremarketing writers, not
scientists. Yes.
We're amateur sciencejournalists.
Yeah, right. Not even I won'teven say that. Because there are
some real science journalists.
Are you like, I think I could doscience journalism. And then I
get into it. I'm like,Absolutely not. I know, right? I
(05:35):
wouldn't. That's always anamateur. Yeah, this is an
entertainment podcast, but we dothe research. We do the
perfunctory research that youjust don't have time for and
answer your questions on theseproducts and services. So yeah,
andwe'll be open if there's just
not an answer, easilyaccessible. And if we're wrong
dives, we go deep dives. Andwe're like, I don't know. I just
(05:58):
don't know. Yeah. And if we'rewrong, we're willing to say that
so if you know something aboutthese subjects, please let us
know. Yes, please. We are soopen. My scientists sister often
will correct me on things whichis nice. I love it. Yeah. But
okay, so this this week bulkfood shopping. My sources, I
just a few have a small list ofseven I think, or eight, green
(06:22):
foot mama. Attitude. Living Iknow, these are all just, you
know, friendly blogs, her money,apartment therapy Investopedia.
The good trade and supermarketguru all had information on the
benefits or non benefits of bulkfood shopping.
Okay. I'm really interested inbulk food shopping, because I
(06:46):
don't know it just Yeah. It'sseems like there could be some
drawbacks.
Yeah. All right. So what is bulkfood shopping, there's two ways
to think about this. There'sCostco buying, you know, or you
just buy large amounts of stufffrom a big box store. So that's,
(07:07):
you know, I buy 50 rolls oftoilet paper at a time. You
know, things like that, if youhave a big family that that kind
of bulk shopping. That's onetype of bulk shopping that a lot
of people do. And probably whenyou don't think about very much,
because you probably justalready do it. But yeah,
maybe like yeah, if youYeah, I definitely I kind of
avoided to be honest, because Idon't like storing all that
(07:28):
stuff that I do have too muchtoilet paper. So there are
certain things that Yeah, Imean, it's just for me, I just
don't want to have to thinkabout it. You know, no, I get
that. I buy a lot of batteriesand it also well we'll get into
that it can save you money inthe long run. But the other type
of bulk food shopping is onethat we think about maybe less
is those items that come inprepackaged the smaller items
(07:51):
that come prepackaged that youmight not realize you can buy in
bulk from the bulk section ofthe grocery store like nuts or
spices, rice, lentils, flour,peanut butter, even that you can
just buy smaller amounts of inyour own packaging and that can
save you money, etc. And we'llget into kind of that kind of
(08:14):
bulk traffic. There's alsothings that use a lot of plastic
for instance shampoo,conditioner, soap, you know
laundry soap, well, maybe wetalked about laundry detergent,
but yeah, you could buy bulkwashing soda. About Well, here's
a list of things that you canbuy in bulk. And that maybe you
should her money had a list of awhole bunch of them that they
(08:34):
say are more cost effective. Soshampoo, soap, shower gel,
laundry detergent, like ourrecipe you can bulk buy washing
soda and Dr. Bronner's cleaningproducts. White vinegar for
instance. Toilet paper, bread,you can bulk buy cereal, you can
bulk buy chicken breasts, likeany any large amounts of
(08:56):
protein, chicken breasts,salmon, cutlets, tuna, ground
beef, those can all be bought inbulk. hard cheeses like Parmesan
things that don't go bad.
Butter, you can freeze eggsapparently they can last as long
as a month after the sell bydate if you keep them
refrigerated. So as eggs don'tgo bad as quickly as you think
(09:16):
especially if you're using thema lot. Olive oil cooking oils
broths and stocks. Plant basedall dairy alternatives like oat
milk or almond milk, which wecould get into what that means
but right. That's a reallyinteresting one. Yeah, nuts and
seeds. Canned goods like dicedtomatoes, spices, cardamom,
(09:36):
cinnamon, any of those like seedpods, spices that might you
might buy like sesame, you know,chili pods, things like that.
Those you can all buy in bulk,and they're more cost effective
generally to do that. Yeah,yeah. We talked about that.
Going to the spice aisle of likeWhole Foods. Yeah. You pay like
10 cents for something thatnormally would cost right? I get
like right now or half a cent?
(10:00):
And you're like, yeah,yeah. So. Okay, so that's the
number one reads. Okay, if we'regoing to why would you bulk food
shop? Number one, it's lessexpensive. Usually. So
supermarket Guru said you cansave 30 to 50% on buying bulk as
opposed to prepackaged foods.
Okay, wow. So ish. Do you knowif they're referring because I
(10:22):
feel like they're so different,like going to Costco, right?
Going to your, because I feellike it's more like a health
healthy, fancy grocery storethat has the bulk section
often, yes. And so that they'regetting that's the difference.
When you're doing, you know, thebulk food aisle at Whole Foods,
it's usually hippie dippiepeople who don't want the
(10:42):
plastic packaging. So they maynot care about the cost as much.
Yeah.
Interesting. I'm just curious toknow if that's like crazy
expensive, or if it actuallysaves money, but
you know what, it depends on theitem around you get it? Okay, so
that's okay, that's one of thewe'll get into the why you
wouldn't bulk Bucha up andthat's when you already probably
(11:02):
do it with your produce yourtoilet paper, cleaning products,
etc. You probably already buy,you don't buy like, five
dishwasher pods at a time.
Right? You buy 50 And you mightbuy you know, those things that
don't go bad if you have theroom to store them, you might
buy the bigger Costco thing ofit, you know, a Costco makes it
easy to bulk shop. Right, youdon't necessarily have to go to
(11:23):
the food Co Op and do bulkshopping that way. It still is
less plastic packaging, it'sless shipping. I mean, it's less
time that you're going to thegrocery store, you know, it does
save on that you can buy more atonce. So you have more of the
product at home, which makes iteasy. It saves you trips to the
store again, so less pollutionand transportation. If you're
(11:44):
doing the bulk shopping thatwe're talking about, like a
hippie dippie Whole Foodsstores, reusing jars saves on
plastic waste and landfillwaste. So supermarket guru says
bulk food reduces averageemissions by 48%. When you buy
from bulk versus traditionalpackaging. Nobody, I could find
nothing on how much plastic itsaves. Like I couldn't get, like
(12:05):
48% on emissions, that thatincludes the shipping costs and
the you know, it includeseverything. So I don't know how
much plastic you're saving. Andagain, I think it's because
you'd have to get into case bycase basis. Like right. How much
of my saving buying paper. Yeah,bulk paper towels versus one
paper towel at a time. I don'tknow. Because that's those still
(12:27):
come individually wrapped inplastic. Right? Yeah,
they do sometimes.
It's very annoying, right. Butthe emissions? Yeah,
I know, like you're already aplastic wrap, but the emissions
that you're saving are on it,transportation costs, things
like that, okay. So you canreduce the amount of plastic you
use, especially plastic bags,when your food shopping, and
(12:47):
packaging Nice. Okay, so theydid say, if you average 10
products and your grocery cartthat you've refill over, over
the year, you save 118 pieces ofpackaging from a landfill. Okay,
whenever I repeat that, so ifyou get, let's say 10 items that
you buy normally, okay, let'syou know, peanut butter,
cinnamon, shampoo, conditioner,10 of those. If you refill those
(13:14):
and do bulk, rather than justevery time you go to the store,
you buy a new bottle of it. Overthe course of the year, you will
keep 118 pieces of plastic orother materials out of the
landfill. Okay. So, you know,over a year 118 pieces might not
sound like much. But if you'redoing more than 10, maybe that's
(13:36):
a good thing. bulk products arerefreshed more often in the
store than prepackaged. Sothey're often fresher.
Whoa, which I didn't thinkabout. Now, I would have thought
the opposite to be honest.
Yeah. And what I wondered aboutthat was how much of it they
throw away, because I think it'syou know, bulk items are, I
don't know, if they're, they'rerefreshed more often because
(13:56):
they're, they go through themfaster. Or if it's because
they're exposed to the air andthey have to be thrown out
because they go bad faster, youknow, I wonder. So I don't know.
But you can use the same jar inthe store that you buy it in. So
you don't have to transfer it toa different container when you
get home. So you take yourreusable container and that's
the one you're going to store itin and you use that to buy your
(14:18):
cinnamon, whatever, then youdon't have to come home and put
it in the cinnamon jar and youknow, so that can save you time
and you know, I think Have youever watched those videos where
people like come home from thestore and put all of their
spaghetti in like a glass thingand yeah, it's like but it looks
prettier. So if you just use thecontainer you're going to store
(14:39):
it in.
Yeah, that makes sense. Iusually when I haven't done it
in so long but they have thelittle plastic baggies. They can
put the spices in Yeah, and youknow, it would be better to not
use those stupid plasticbaggies.
So Iagree I'm gonna get into that
down there too. But it alsogives you the opportunity to buy
smaller quantities. have newstuff to try. So for instance,
(15:00):
you're like, oh, I want to tryusing cumin but I don't want to
buy a $10.02 ounce thing of it,I can just get a quarter of an
ounce for 50 cents. And if Idon't like it, I'm wasting less.
Yeah, very cool. Yeah. So thoseare the reasons I came up with
for why you would bulk food shopnow why you wouldn't bulk food
shop. And I think you'vementioned a lot of these
already. Time. Go ahead. Yeah,it's okay. I mean, it's hard to
(15:25):
talk about the pros and thecons. So it adds time on your
shopping trip, right? If you'redoing I mean, maybe not at
Costco. I'm sorry, my dog ismaking very cute noises in the
background. He say, Yeah, rollon his back fest. So if you hear
groaning, that's the dog, blah,blah. You know, you have to go
away the thing and put thesticker on it, it's a lot easier
(15:45):
to just walk down the spiceaisle and grab McCormick's,
whatever, you know, so there'stime, hassle, you have to clean
all those jars or refillableitems, or, you know, transfer it
to the new jar when you gethome. So that's annoying.
Availability. So a lot ofgrocery stores do have bulk
options, but not all. And again,yeah, if you don't have a co op,
(16:08):
a hippie co op in yourneighborhood, they might not
have bulk shampoooptions. You know? Do some of
your grocery stores have bulkshampoo?
Yeah. I haven't seen bulkshampoo. I haven't looked very
hard for bulk shampoo. Okay,because I've done I was gonna
say you are you gonna talk aboutrefilling worries at all?
I had not talked about refillReese.
(16:29):
research about it. Go for no. IfI say something about it, you
won't be annoyed.
No pleased. We should talk aboutthat. Well, I
was just curious, because Ihaven't been to one but I found
one that's maybe it's like agood probably 40 minute drive.
But if I do it and combine itwith other things that I'm
already going to do in the area,then it might be worth it. But
(16:51):
they have shampoo they have onedrew dish soap I think like all
these things that I could use.
So I want to try it. I canreport
back. So yeah, maybe like anepisode or something. I didn't
even think to look up refill orOh, no, I mean, grocery store.
Oh, my goodness dog. Well,they're so rare. I
mean, that's the thing. Yeah.
Like I said, it'sa big city thing. Yes, exactly.
(17:13):
And it seems like it's kind oflike, lush, or, you know, one of
those kind of Yeah, brands thatdoes sustainable. You know,
whatever they do bulk. You canbuy bulk there too, I
think okay, I didn't know thatactually. Yeah. Because they
just refillit. And I mean, they, you if you
bring your container and you getthey reuse the containers. So
(17:35):
that's an example. Okay, yeah.
Okay, so one of the other thingsthat was mentioned is that your
eyes may be bigger than yourneed. So you may buy things in
bulk and not use them andthey'll spoil. Yes. You also
have to consider cost per unit,if you really want to do the
(17:56):
math, some things are moreexpensive in bulk than others.
So it may add up. And you haveto do it you have to know
beforehand. Like you do a reallygood job at that of like
calculating per ounce how muchstuff is but that's more work,
you know, I know it is. Well, Iwill
give you a tip. And this may notwork with bulk shopping. I'm not
sure what the labels look like.
But if you look on the other,Greg, any grocery store has a
(18:19):
little label with the price. Andit should say either cost per
unit cost per ounce, whatever. Ialways compare those two because
it's true, like sometimes thebigger item, like if the smaller
item is on sale, it might stillbe more cost effective to get
the bigger one even if it's noton sale or vice versa. Like it's
kind of surprising sometimes.
(18:42):
Yeah, it's weird how it's like,it's because it's such minutiae.
I don't even think the grocerystores do though. Oh my
goodness, this dog. What are youdoing over there? He's just
having fun out, man. Good time.
He's just rolling around on hisback up. Nobody wants to get up.
I'm sorry. I know. I have to lethim out. I'm sorry, folks. One
second. Okay. Are you ready? Areyou done in here?
(19:17):
He turns 14 Next week, and so Iindulge his whims. Oh, but
anyway, that dog Okay, so sorry,where were we?
I was gonna talk to myself, butthen I don't really have the
energy tonight.
Now he's working. We're justgoing to plow through this.
Okay. So yeah, cost per unit. Idon't even think grocery stores
know what most of the time it'sbecause it's so complicated.
(19:39):
It's so much math. Right. So andyeah, the difference between
like, concentrated things costper unit. You know, like, okay,
if I'm buying 12 ounces ofconcentrated Windex, which we
have talked about you shouldn'tdo versus 12 ounces of already
made windex like The cost perunit is different because I'm
(20:01):
gonna be adding water to thisand it's gonna last longer and
all those things, right? That'sa bunch of Yeah, for the most
part, though I have found itselflike with diapers or something,
I should do it and be like, Oh,wait, what is the small one?
So yeah, yeah, that's fair. Youalso need storage to buy in
bulk, you need to have room forit. You can't keep 30 rolls of
(20:21):
toilet paper in a tiny linencloset and your one bedroom in
New York, you know? Yes. And youneed to have the right
containers, which can be ahassle to figure out. And you
may also have to buy some. Sofor instance, if you decide to
be a bulk shopper, are you gonnajust gonna get rid of everything
that's in your cabinet already?
And buy new bulk shopping items?
You know, that's annoying. Youhave to figure out how to
(20:43):
transport it. So you can't it'snot easy to carry a bunch of
bulk items on your bus, on yourbike or on the bus, you know?
Oh, yeah. So that's one of thoseyou spent 10 years with backpack
groceries?
Oh, my God. I did that so much.
And that was a definite just buywhat you need twice a week. Oh,
yeah. You're like no milk today?
(21:05):
Yeah, it's too hot out. And Ihave a brewery to get to. Yeah,
for sure. Can't fit it. And it'stoo heavy. Yeah. Investopedia
had an article about why youwouldn't want to do bulk
shopping. So. So other economicreasons. Include, if you have a
surplus of an item, say shampoo,you bought a lot of it in bulk.
(21:25):
You might use more of it thanyou normally would, because you
have so much. Ah, so that giantjar of mayonnaise, you're gonna
like, Oh, I gotta use this. Soyou're just going to slather it
on. And and and I believe thatyou end up using more. So you go
through it faster than youthink. Because of
overconsumption. We're Americanslove overconsumption.
Yeah, I can't believehow many candy bars these days
(21:46):
are. Only in King size. Have younoticed this? I'm like, why in
God's name? What happened?
I want 20 m&ms. I don't want 200m&ms.
Exactly.
What Yeah, hell yeah. So yeah,you don't need, you know,
sometimes it's better to buy thesmall thing, you don't need it.
Yes, you might not have themoney to bulk shop. So for
(22:06):
instance, if you're looking at agiant, the bigger bottle of
shampoo is $24. And your, youknow, quarter sized bottle of
shampoo is $12. Well, yourgrocery bill at Costco is always
going to be more than yourgrocery bill at regular grocery
store. So you might end up usingyour credit card and then
racking up interest fees if youcan't pay it off in time. So
(22:28):
that's a consideration too. Itmight not be economically viable
for you to buy in bulk. Yeah.
Now the other thing is, if youbuy bulk from a store that
doesn't let you bring your owncontainers, you're probably
going to have to use theirplastic baggies anyway. So that
kind of avoids the plasticpackaging bonus that we were
talking about. So you're justgetting more plastic packaging
anyway. So those are the consthat I found mostly agony. And
(22:51):
that's what I call it whenanything's hard to do agony.
Time, money, hassle.
Yeah, it sounds like it reallydepends on your individual
situation. Yeah,exactly. I definitely recommend
it for large families. You know,if you if you have the room in
your house to do it, and youhave the time to do it, I think
(23:12):
it's worth it. Yeah, especiallyif you're going to be replacing,
or reusing jars or littleplastic bottles and things that
you would otherwise just throwaway. You know, buying a half
ounce of cinnamon, that's notgoing to go bad before your
cinnamon goes rancid because youonly use it once a year, you
know? Yes, much better to buy asyou need it. Okay, so some tips
for bulk food buying that Igleaned from all of those
(23:35):
sources. Storage is key. Makesure you have space in your
house for storing bulk stuff.
Clean out that cabinet clean outthat pantry, find places for
things because otherwise likefor instance right now I just
have I buy my protein shakes inbulk and I just have like boxes
of protein shakes around theliving room. It's very
attractive. Yeah, Ihave a bunch of toilet paper
(23:56):
rolls. So yeah, yeah, like if amI gonna put these?
Yeah, laundry cabinet and mylinen closet. They're all over
the place under the bed. Yeah.
Get the right jars are reusablecontainers. This is especially
important for things that needto be in airtight containers. So
that's like any of yourperishables glass jars, steel
jars and glass. I call it GlassTupperware, there are good
(24:19):
options. You can also savecontainers from items that you
use regularly like spices andjust refill them. This is
another thing that I've seen thelittle like soup containers you
get like the little plasticones. We save those here I mean
we will store soup in them andstuff you know but also you can
use those to go buy spices andstuff instead of using their in
their light, right? Light littleplastic things that you can
(24:43):
bring with you. They clean upeasily and and you can buy bulk
stuff that way. And then if youhave to transfer it into a jar
or whatever, that's easy, butthere are also bulk product bulk
shopping products available outthere so that you have like your
gear and you To get the storeand then you come home and
transfer it, they make it easyto pour stuff out and stuff. If
you don't, I don't know want togo through the house if you
(25:05):
don't want to bring yourcinnamon jar because the other
thing is you have to know theweight of each of your
refillable containers to do thetear. Yeah,
that's the other tricky thing,but I guess you had to know
depends on how much more itwould cost. But yeah,
well, they, they, I think mostplaces will let you do the tear
on the scale you so you put thevessel on the, the container,
(25:31):
sorry, I couldn't think of theword the container on the scale,
hit tear. And then, but youknow, taking taking glass jars
can be a hassle because they'reheavy, you break so you might
want to take lighter stuff andthen transfer it when you get
home. Right? You You have toknow the the weight of the
package to tear properly. Don'tbuy bulk items that are
(25:51):
perishable that you won't use.
So don't buy a huge amount offruit. You know from my salad
bags from Costco because it'sjust like, now Yeah, exactly.
You nobody's even gettingthrough their small bags. Let's
be honest people. Yeah,yeah, we aren't. We talked about
food waste a couple of weeksago. And this is one reason you
wouldn't want to buy in bulk.
(26:12):
Like where you can determine howmuch you get those. It's the
second kind of bulk buying fromthe whole foods, you can
determine how much you get soyou buy less you know, that's,
that's one of the pros. One ofthe websites, I think her money
recommended that you put stufflike flour in the freezer for a
day or two to kill off pests,which I thought was interesting.
(26:35):
And they even do that when theyjust buy regular flour from the
store. Interesting two poundbag. Yeah, freeze your flour. It
kills off weevils and things,huh? I used to freeze mine just
because I've heard that it lastslonger that way, but I don't do
it anymore because I don't havea good freezer.
It depends on the thing.
Freezing can brings the oils outfrom things so I mean it it puts
(26:56):
them in stasis, but they can gorancid quicker or go back
quicker. Okay if you take themout of the freezer and it also
can introduce condensation andthings
Yeah, and I know there are somethings you shouldn't freeze that
I was always surprised about. Iwant to say like sausage or I
don't know like something meatthat I was like what you're not
(27:18):
supposed to freeze thatis probably because of the oils
I don't know. I don't I freezemy meat most of the time. I
usually do too just because Idon't use all of it. Yeah.
Attitude living recommendedcreating a refill station in
your home. So like for me itwould be where my washer dryer
is if I could just clean out ontop of the shelves on top of the
washer dryer if I just hadeverything in there and then
make a refill station. So whenI'm out of shampoo, I could go
(27:39):
and you know refill it from thebig big been there. You know?
That's super smart. Because man,is it a pain in the ass? Yeah,
if you know like everything. Idon't know. It's like a mental
block because I have a hand likea dish. Not dish soap Hand Soap
Dispenser that's been empty forlike a week.
Yeah, because it's just I don'twant to do it. Yeah, exactly.
(28:01):
Okay, and then the lastrecommendation is buy bulk items
that you're going to measureout. More specifically like
laundry detergent, instead ofstuff you may just overuse
because you have more of it. Solike shampoo, okay, and mayo,
you know, like if you knowexactly how much you're gonna
use or or start measuring howmuch shampoo you use, you know,
always do a dime size orwhatever. Yeah, then just make
(28:21):
sure that you're not splashingit on. Yeah, falling prey to the
American overconsumptionproblem.
Hmm, that's good advice.
Yeah. So now we get to thegranola rating. Told you this is
short. I'm giving bulk. So Iguess I should talk about our
granola rating. It goes fromnine which is soggy to five
(28:44):
which is crunchy breaker two'soff crunchy has a better because
we're hippies and we like ourcountry granola.
We're not really hippies werebad. No, we're bad. And yeah,
we pretend to be like, I don'teat granola either. So
you don't know. Oh, that'shilarious. I love her doll.
Actually.
There's times it's just verysweet for me usually.
Oh, I get the one that's like,this is so hippie dippie. I get
(29:06):
like a local granola that's sogood. And it's so crunchy and
crispy. But anyway, loveit. Well, I mean, that's another
thing they say if you're buyinga bunch of stuff in bulk, learn
to mix it all together. So makeyour own granola if you're
buying notes and things. So, butOkay, so I give it a four out of
five, which is crunchy, notforgive Jews off. It's still
good. I think it's worth doing.
(29:27):
But the expense and the hassleand the unavailability of it in
some places. And its propensityto make people overuse. Yeah.
And the fact that it's noteverybody has that much storage
space. I gave it a forum. Yeah,it's definitely not a one size
fits all solution.
And I think that's true of a lotof things we talk about, like
you got to do what works foryou. Yeah, I think if you if
(29:51):
you're committed to a zero wastelifestyle, you're not going to
care about how much more acertain item might cost. You're
just going to be willing to goget the net On prepackaged
version of it, and I think thatthat's admirable. And you can
just make a habit out of it. Youknow, you go once a week and you
get all your spices and all yourthings and you know, and you
bring all your you can, youknow, just like me, I've started
(30:13):
bringing my reusable bags in thecar every time. You know, it's a
habit I have. So it is possible.
And I like I think if you can doit, and you're willing to do it,
go for it. But yeah, if you'reshopping for a family and you
your grocery time is limited,and you know, nobody's here
already,like crying because you have to
put a grocery list together.
It's probably maybe not worth itfor you.
(30:36):
It's fine. It's fine to buy.
It's fine to buy the prepackagedstuff if you have to. Yeah,
don't throw eggs at me. So okay,I so I am interested in trying
to do more books. I mean, Iobviously do Costco, I buy, you
know, my dog food in bulk. I buythose things, but it'd be
interesting to do like, oh,oatmeal, you know, just refill
my little oatmeal barrel.
(31:00):
Whatever. Yeah, you know,yeah, I'm actually gonna get
there's a hippie dippie grocerystore about 10 minutes away from
me. I'd never go in there justbecause it's really expensive,
but I want to go check out theirbulk section because I know it's
pretty big.
Yeah, I'm wondering if anywheredoes Dr. Bronner's because
that's when I buy a lot of and Ibuy the big bottles, but I'd be
really great if I could just gorefill it.
(31:21):
You know? Yeah, that would befantastic. Dr. Bronner's Hello,
Dr. Bronner's. Yeah, they shouldtotally buy that.
Yeah. But okay, so if anybodyknows anything I didn't, I know,
I should have gone to read itand been like, what's wrong with
bulk shopping, but I didn't rundown a rabbit rabbit hole
tonight. But if anybody knowsanything more detrimental than
(31:42):
what we've already listed aboutbulk shopping, or if you have
more solid numbers on how muchwaste it actually reduces,
because it, you know, 118containers a year that you're
not throwing in a landfilldoesn't feel like much. I mean,
it's better than nothing, butit's less than I would have
expected. Yeah, let's thinkabout it. Like, how often do I
go through peanut butter? Well,yeah,
(32:02):
I think that's the thing. It'snot every week. Yeah. And like
cinnamon lasts for a year? Yeah.
At least two. I mean, I only useit like to bake at Christmas
time. So I'll put it on mycoffee sometimes. But yeah. So
if you missed it, maybe I shoulduse my cinnamon more.
Maybe? You gotta get through it.
Us. Us us consume, consume,consume, consume.
(32:29):
All right. All right. Well,cool.
Thank you so much. Yeah, thatwas interesting. Because I I'm
really, I've been intrigued totry it. And yeah.
It's interesting, kind of thedifference between like the
Costco version or the Sam's Clubversion, big box store. Yeah.
Which I think is what it's soingrained in America that we
(32:49):
most of us just do it anyway,you know? Uh huh. And we don't
think about how it couldactually be better. It's
probably a saving us money.
Yeah, it's true. Like as, as youlisted all those things. I was
like, Oh, I do that. Oh, I dothat, or I do that.
Yeah. It's something we youknow, it's probably something
you could pat yourself on theback for already doing?
Yeah, you would think and Yeah.
And it's interesting, becauseit's not really a thing
(33:11):
elsewhere. Besides, no. America,probably Canada. They do too.
But in Europe, it's verydifferent. Right? You definitely
go and go to the store every dayand get ready for dinner.
Exactly. It's also just easierbecause you can walk to the
frickin story, right?
We have to drive our giant SUVs40 miles. So I think we live
(33:33):
drive or it has cheese, ifyou're gonna live the American
lifestyle where exactly like todrive everywhere. I
think it's worth doing bulk forsure. And you have to have an
SUVobvious. So you're gonna get all
your kids to soccer with all oftheir stuff.
Cool.
So next week, we have minimalismon the docket, which we are
(33:56):
going to record tonight. So it'skind of a misnomer to say next
week, butit's fine though. It will come
out the following week. Okay.
Yeah, I'm, I'm pumped about thisone because it really led me
down a shocking rabbit holewhere I was like, why I didn't
exploit this and I think you'regonna have a strong reaction.
(34:17):
I'm really excited.
I'm a maximalist. So for sure.
It's not even that I thinkyou're gonna have we'll get into
it. You'll have a differentreason. Excuse me.
Wow, okay. Okay,I'm predicting maybe you'll
prove me wrong.
Oh,I'm just impassive completely.
I'm like, okay, whatever.
(34:39):
Sounds fine.
Which are, what do you mean?
Yeah. All right. Well, if you'relistening to us on YouTube,
please subscribe. Like us. Ifyou're listening anywhere else.
Give us five stars. We could useit. It's the only way to get the
word out. Unless you share uswith a broad swath of your
friends. We appreciate all ofyou who do share our podcast and
some ofyou have told me that you do and
it's fantastic. It makes me soHappy
(35:00):
makes me glow inside. Yeah, wedo. We don't make money off of
this yet. Yeah, but we're, we doit as a labor of love and it's
really, it's really great tocreate something that other
people vibe with so totallykicks karaoke out of the water
for sure. Nobody likes karaoke.
Just like that's false. I lovekaraoke. Yeah, it wasn't the
(35:20):
issues. For people who don'tknow cat. She's like karaoke.
I haven't been in like sixmonths or something. Oh, no, no,
what's wrong with me? All right.
Well, thanks, everyone. Have agreat evening or whatever time
of day. You're listening to thisand we will see you next week.
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