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Comment by spodek | Hacker News Reader

One of the greatest joys of my life came from a couple small changes that made huge differences.

I recommend trying these two experiments:

1. For one week buy no food where you have to throw away packaging after. I didn't think I would be able to do it, but it profoundly changed how I eat and view food. Here is my experience: http://joshuaspodek.com/avoiding-food-packaging.

2. For one week, eat no food where fiber has been removed. Again, it seems challenging, but once you do it, you see food differently.

For most of human history, there was no food packaging nor did our ancestors take fiber out of nearly anything. The experiments should be simple. Actually, they are, once you lose the modern view of food being a product.

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"For one week buy no food where you have to throw away packaging after."

What would that be? Where I live, you can't even buy lettuce without a package. The only things I can think of that goes without packaging are potatoes, onions and some fruits and that's only if you don't count plastic bags to put them into, because I doubt a cashier would be impressed if you put a handful of dirty potatoes on a conveyer. Potatoes with fruits only doesn't strike me as a healthy diet anyway.

"For most of human history, there was no food packaging"

Yes, but contrary to my ancestors, I can't go hunting and have a nice, juicy steak afterwards with fresh greens I picked on my way back. Our ancestors lived in a different world, you can't compare apples to oranges.

> What would that be?

Fresh meat, potatoes, vegetables? Perfectly doable. You don't count the bag you take yourself, otherways it's absurd (and gross:) ).

> I can't go hunting

You don't have these shops where they cut pieces of meat from refrigerator and give it to you?

Anyway, I would just say outright - buy all raw ingredients and cook yourself, packaging or fiber is just a heuristic.

That Fresh meat your talking about is actually processed.

Cows don't show up as round balls of bloodless meat.

In the US, at least, butchers won't give you meat without wrapping it up in paper or plastic. Where do you live that they will just hand you a chunk of meat?

> What would that be? Where I live, you can't even buy lettuce without a package.

I thought like this before doing the experiment.

That's why I'm suggesting doing the experiment, not just talking about it. This community is resourceful, full of entrepreneurs and engineers who take on bigger challenges than how to find the unpackaged food in a store. If you care about the answers, doing it will lead you to answer your own questions.

This response seems like a cop out to me. I, too, would like to know where one can buy meat without any packaging whatsoever. I suspect the answer is (legally), no where.

Buying only food without packaging seems to exclude a lot of things to which our ancestors had access. Eggs and dairy, meat, noodles (unless you want to make your own flour from bulk wheat), any liquids...

There is a concept store here in Berlin which only sells food without packaging, you're supposed to bring your own reusable containers of course.

http://original-unverpackt.de/

But I see this more as a political stance against the common package waste, not so much about about selling different food.

Try it and see what happens!

It's only a week.

As a matter of fact, I did start getting bulk wheat and grinding flour from it. When I started the experiment I had no expectation I'd end up making bread from scratch. Just one thing led to another and I started doing it. Now I can go from unground wheat berries to a hot loaf of bread in under an hour, so it's more convenient than buying, on top of being cheaper, healthier, and tastier. I haven't bought bread from a store since.

Getting a pressure cooker helped a lot too, which made cooking dry legumes quick and easy.

Which obviously depends on where you live; both in cities and in the countryside here (southern Spain) I can get eggs, meat, fish, dairy, water and many more things without packaging.

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