I am a lard eater! Yes, I know… sounds strange right?
Until now I have always used a liquid vegetable oil for cooking thinking it was better for me.
Now I am not so sure. But health benefits aside, it is the plastic element of oil that bothers me.
Pre-packed oils always have a plastic element – if it comes in bottles it will have a plastic lined cap and probably a plastic pouring widget in the bottle top. Buy it in cans and there will be more plastic caps plus the cans are plastic lined. Some places will do refills but they are few, far between and very expensive.
And apart from rapeseed oil, most oils are imported. Product miles and plastic!

Read more about vegetable oils here. And here is something on product miles….

Dripping 

It started with dripping – that’s the gateway fat!  I saw some beef dripping, in a paper wrapper, on the shelves in Tesco’s. I didn’t know beef dripping still existed.
And it was made in the U.K. ….. but I felt uncomfortable with the idea! We have been told for so long that animal fats are bad for us. Even now, when it turns out that hydrogenated vegetable fats are probably worse and soya is something of an environmental disaster, the prejudice still holds. I could not shake the idea that cooking with lard would lead to an instant hardening of the arteries but it was cheap which always sways me.
So I  bought it and cooked my way though a block of dripping using it where I would have cooked with oil.
I thought it might be heavy and greasy but it wasn’t. And it fried really well.  So I went to buy some more. They had run out. All they had was lard.

Lard? 

LARD!!! now that has to be piggy… (it is of course made from pigs), and oily and.. well,  lardy?!
It wasn’t. It was fine, better than fine it was really easy and made great roasties.
I have cooked with it for months now – but in secret. Then the other day I got caught and the kitchen rang with squeals of horror. But, quickly forgetting my own early misgivings,I leapt to lards defence.
I told them if we eat meat so we eat the rest of the animal including the fat, we hardly ever shallow fry, never deep fry and for weeks no one noticed.
It’s really cheap, plastic-free, made in the U.K. Plus it may even be better for you.
So now we eat lard and dripping. And we are happy!

Buy

You can get lard from Tesco’s and the Co-op and everywhere else I bet. It comes in what is (possibly), plastic-free, greaseproof paper. It’s really hard to tell!  Read more about that, here.

N.B foil is definitely  plastic lined!

More 

Lots more plastic-free food here.
What are  oils, waxes and butters?

Look out for these other sneaky plastics

 

Turns out I love butter.
I use it for spreading and cooking
It is of course an animal fat.
It is U.K sourced.
It comes in what  is (possibly), plastic-free, greaseproof paper. 

Back in my more innocent days I used to think that butter and margarine wrapped in foil was plastic free. Till the day I didn’t have a butter dish to hand (!) and butter was served, as bought, in the wrapper. Over time the foil wrapping began to crack, crack but not break.  Strange I thought …  and closer investigation showed it was  not breaking up because it was foil  lined with plastic. You can find out more about plastic lined foil here

So began the search for paper wrapped spreads.
This is what I have found. Salted butter is more likely to come wrapped in paper than unsalted. Why? I have no idea.

The paper that looks like old-fashioned greaseproof paper but is probably not. Greaseproof paper used to be just paper but the modern version is almost certainly either plastic lined with a very fine liner  or  chemically treated  You can read about that here.

But taking all of the above into account, paper wrapped butter and margarine is the best we can do.

N.B. More companies are switching to foil wrapped products. Many that used to supply paper wrapped no longer do so. Consequently this info may be out of date. The Plastic Is Rubbish Facebook group is good for updates and latest info.

Butter

this is what we got…

Good news from a FB plastic is rubbish grouper has found butter in paper wrapping. Home Bargains, Meadow Churn butter, 250g for £1.39.

I found some considerably more expensive butter in paper in out of this world health food shop Leeds http://www.outofthisworldonline.com/

The Cheese Stall in Queensgate, Huddersfield, (only salted)
Barbican in Chorlton Manchester, (only salted).
Sainsbury’s,  Huddersfield Town Centre do unsalted butter in paper but you can only find it on the cheese counter not in the self service aisles. The wrapper definitely has a paper component but is marked mixed materials which means it is probably plastic lined. See above notes.
MArks & Spencers sell some very expensive butter in paper.
Waitrose – No longer do so
Iceland – apparently still sell butter in paper – salted.

Many thanks to the Plastic Is Rubbish Facebook group for their input and updates

Disputed

Sainsbury and the Co-op used to wrap their cheap, salted, butter in paperboy no longer do so.

Morrisons – I heard they used to sell some butter in paper. There are now reports that this has been discontinued.

Waitrose – No longer do so

Online

The modern milkman delivers butter in paper

https://themodernmilkman.co.uk

Alternatives

Margarine

I have found myself falling out with margarine – it is slithery, weird and synthetic so I only use it very occasionally. Read up about Margerine HERE

Oil

You can often use vegetable oil in place of margarine or butter. Cheaper than butter healthier than margarine.  It  isn’t  entirely plastic-free either but I do what I can

Lard

And what about lard! always an option. And comes in paper.

Go back to the oil index to read about the other fatty acids we eat.
What are  oils, waxes and butters and which do we use.?

Health

Before the boycott I ate margerine because I thought it was healthier option but you cannot get decent margarine plastic free. It all comes in plastic tubs.
So I went back to butter. But what about the risks? You ask? seems butter is not so bad for you after all and some margarines are poison!
” there never was any good evidence that using margarine instead of butter cut the chances of having a heart attack or developing heart disease. Making the switch was a well-intentioned guess, given that margarine had less saturated fat than butter, but it overlooked the dangers of trans fats.”
And this
“butter is on the list of foods to use sparingly mostly because it is high in saturated fat, which aggressively increases levels of LDL. Margarines, though, aren’t so easy to classify. The older stick margarines that are still widely sold are high in trans fats, and are worse for you than butter. Some of the newer margarines that are low in saturated fat, high in unsaturated fat, and free of trans fats are fine as long as you don’t use too much (they are still rich in calories).”
From Harvard Health 

More

Go back to the oil index to read about the other fatty acids we eat.
What are  oils, waxes and butters and which do we use.?

Lots more plastic-free food here.

Find more sneaky plastics here….

N.B.

lines changes, products get removed. For more information why not ask the Plastic Is Rubbish FB group for updates. They are a great source of tidbits, personal experience and the latest news. Why not join them and share the plastic free love x

And before you go…

If you have found the #plasticfree information useful, please consider supporting us. It all goes to financing the project (read more here) or

So I gave up margerine in plastic tubs and scoured the shelves for an alternative. Back in my more innocent days I used to think that marge wrapped in foil was plastic free. But that foil is lined with plastic.You can find out more about plastic lined foil here

You can get cheap Marge wrapped in what looks like greaseproof paper. Even that may not be what it seems. It could be plastic lined or  chemically treated rather than natural greaseproof paper. You can read about that here.
But taking all of the above into account, paper wrapped margarine is the best we can do.

Buying Paper Wrapped Margerine

I have found myself falling out with margarine – it is slithery, weird and synthetic so I only use it very occasionally. This information may well be out of date. Last time I looked Sainsburys & Tescos do paper wrapped.

Alternatives

You can often use vegetable oil in place of margarine or butter when baking cakes. Cheaper than butter healthier than margarine.  It  isn’t  entirely plastic-free either but I do what I can.

and then of course there is butter. Before the boycott I ate margerine because I thought it was healthier option but you cannot get decent margarine plastic free. It all comes in plastic tubs.

So I went back to butter. But what about the risks?  Isn’t that an instant heart attack?  seems butter is not so bad for you after all and some margarines are poison!
” there never was any good evidence that using margarine instead of butter cut the chances of having a heart attack or developing heart disease. Making the switch was a well-intentioned guess, given that margarine had less saturated fat than butter, but it overlooked the dangers of trans fats.”
“butter is on the list of foods to use sparingly mostly because it is high in saturated fat, which aggressively increases levels of LDL. Margarines, though, aren’t so easy to classify. The older stick margarines that are still widely sold are high in trans fats, and are worse for you than butter. Some of the newer margarines that are low in saturated fat, high in unsaturated fat, and free of trans fats are fine as long as you don’t use too much (they are still rich in calories).”
From Harvard Health 

ANd some more research revealed that margerine is Hydrogenated Oil and these are not so nice.
Hydrogenated oil is made by forcing reactive hydrogen gas gas into oil at high pressure in the presence of a palladium catalyst.
Hydrogenated oil is more stable, does not go rancid as quickly
It has a higher melting point, so can be used for frying.
It is used to make liquid oils more solid. Margarine is oil solidified.

Concerns
Hydrogenating oil modifies the chemistry significantly.
The fatty acids in oils are unsaturated fats. They are unstable.
Hydrogenating oil turns these unstable fatty acids into new more stable fats known as trans fats acids.
There are concerns that trans fatty acids may increase LDL, or bad cholesterol, and decrease HDL cholesterol, the good cholesterol.
Because they are not natural the digestive system does not know what to do with them. They may actually bioaccumulate in the body.
Read more here

More

Go back to the oil index to read about the other fatty acids we eat.
What are  oils, waxes and butters and which do we use.?

Lots more plastic-free food here.

Find more sneaky plastics here….