Top 5 Favorite Sustainable Kitchen Products
I don’t know about you guys, but buying things makes me feel guilty. The waste, the GHGs, the poor working conditions…it all just really dampens the hype of buying stuff.
Below are my absolute fav kitchen products that I don't feel any guilt buying. I am in no way sponsored by or affiliated with any of these brands, I just use ‘em and love ‘em!
Bees Wrap wrappin' it up. Photo courtesy of Bees Wrap.
Bees Wrap
This stuff is SO. COOL. It’s basically a no-waste replacement for plastic bags that uses the magic of beeswax to seal itself. To use it, just wrap up your food and then use the heat of your hands to seal the wax to itself.
It comes in a bunch of different sizes, so you can use it on basically any solid food. I especially love to use it for homemade bread.
To wash this, you just rinse it under cold water with a little soap and then let it air dry. One of the coolest things about this is that beeswax has antibacterial qualities, so you don’t have to worry about it getting nasty over time.
Their website says this stuff will last for about a year, but I’ve had mine for a little over that and it’s still going strong. When it does give out, you can just compost it, which makes this product even sweeter!
BYO Bags doing what they do best. Photo courtesy of coolhats.biz
BYO Bags
These BYO Bags are made of superfine mesh material with a drawstring at the top. They’re perfect to use at the grocery store instead of those tear-off plastic bags that are basically the twins of jellyfish.
I love these bags because the mesh is thin enough that the grocery checker can see what you’re buying and fine enough that it can contain super small stuff, like the grains or seeds you might get from bulk bins.
These guys are also made and distributed by a super small company in Minnesota, so you don’t have to feel bad supporting some rando mega-company (*ahem*Amazon*ahem*).
Vejibag in action. Photo courtesy of vejibag.
VejiBags
These VejiBags are softer and thicker than the BYO Bags. I like to use these two baggie brands in tandem: I put produce in BYO Bags at the grocery store and then transfer those puppies to VejiBags to store them in the fridge.
The thicker fabric of the VejiBags keeps produce safe from little jostles and bumps they might encounter in the fridge. Also I’ve noticed that these thicc and fluffy VejiBags keep produce from getting frosty in the fridge, which is supes necessary if your fridge is anything like mine.
To keep things extra fresh and crispy in these bags, all you have to do is get the bag a little damp. This will help keep stuff like leafy greens uber happy for as long as possible.
Making these bags even more special, they're made from 100% organic cotton, which is grown and hand sewn in the U.S.!! No guilt here.
Steel straw sippin'. Photo courtesy of Bed Bath and Beyond.
Steel Straws
I’m with Starbucks: plastic straws are pointlessly wasteful and I think our whole society just needs to ditch them. Steel straws avoid plastic waste, last forever and are non-toxic.
My only qualm with these Bed Bath and Beyond straws is that they’re not super portable unless you're down with storing a full sized straw in your dirty purse.
I’ve heard of collapsible stainless steel straws that you can keep on your keychain, but I haven’t actually tried these. Let me know if you have and what you think of them! Despite the portability issue, these straws are a straw-lovers dream.
Only the best dish soap ever. Photo courtesy of Method.
Method Dish Soap
Method brand is one division of People Against Dirty, which is a B Corp! This is awesome because it means the folks over at Method are required to meet certain social and environmental standards and be transparent in and legally accountable for their policies and actions. (That’s fancy talk for they’re super cool.)
The thing about this dish soap that I love most is that once it’s empty, you can buy refills that use less plastic and fewer production resources than buying a whole new bottle. I like the lemon mint scent because that’s how I roll, but they also have clementine and sea minerals scents.