The Washington Post‘s Climate Coach column by Michael Coren quoted me today. Scroll down in the image or pdf below and you’ll see my comments on an app designed for packaged food and doof.

They had to edit for space (asking permission, of course). Here’s the full text I wrote:

Hi,

I recommend a solution I prefer to Yuka, which doesn’t work for me since I don’t buy packaged food. Fresh produce has no label to scan.

Fresh, local, in-season produce and nuts, grains, and other things from bulk have the added benefits of costing less, being healthier, funding local farmers over remote industrial conglomerates, and tasting better. Avoiding packaged food is the main reason I haven’t filled on load of garbage at home since 2019.

Even more valuable: hands-on practical experience dispels the common myths that cooking from scratch takes longer, costs more, or takes time from family or work. It gives time back.

Yet more valuable: it dispels the excuse that not since not everyone has access to fresh, it doesn’t help them. If you can do it, shopping local is the best way to bring access to those without. You help restore access to communities lacking it. It builds communities. When fresh costs more, it’s because of high demand and low supply. Shopping local helps grow channels like farmers markets. Once all markets were farmers markets.

So Yuka sounds like a nice bandage for a symptom, but not buying packaged food addresses the problem closer to the root (pun intended).

Josh

• ← Year 11, day 1 no flying