Bulk Foods

One of the things that I worried about as I returned home to Oregon was the lack of Win-Co. Win-Co has provided me with bulk food bins within a ten-minute walk; here, the nearest Win-Co is about half an hour's drive. Now tell me: how "green" is it to drive half an hour to reduce the packaging I get with food? It was a dilemma that plagued me.

I saw three options:

1) Combine the Win-Co run with other Corvallis goodies, such as weekly ballroom dances. Perhaps I could carpool with others.

2) Utilize Vital Health's (a local co-op type place, with limited bulk goods) stale and often empty bins.

3) Do without bulk goods.

Then, today, I found out something amazing: the Fred Meyer in Albany has bulk foods!

Albany is still a fifteen-minute drive, but I will be going there once a week for my French class anyway. I can easily combine these trips. I am very excited to have this possibility available. Granted, Freddy's does not have as many bins as Win-Co, but I think it'll work out fine. They have a variety of grains and beans that form the foundations for healthy cooking. They don't so much have chocolate chips. Sigh.

Also, in light of this new "needing to cook" situation, I realized that I would need to buy more than a couple of things in bulk. I have been recycling three or four paper bags to get bulk goods, but the other day I bought some muslin (really cheap and utilitarian) and busted out a bunch of produce bags. I can use them for veggies or anything from the bins.

Karen and I are going to Corvallis tomorrow for other stuff (Michael's and Twilight, woot!), so I will get some of the stuff from Win-Co that Freddy's didn't have.