I posted this photo last week on instagram of a moment during my snack packing session for the week. I like to buy food in bulk when it saves money, then package it up myself for the kids to grab and put in their lunches. It only takes a few minutes and helps with portion control and limits waste.
I almost didn’t post the photo, because I was afraid of the backlash of the plastic baggies. There’s a movement out there away from baggies and I jumped on for about a month (6 years ago) then abandoned ship and never looked back. Here’s why:
- Cloth reusable baggies range in price from $4-$10 each. I have 6 kids who pack their lunches daily, using about 3 baggies each. That means we’d need 18 baggies a day (If I managed to wash them every day) ranging in an initial investment of $72-$180.
- I live in Missouri where the air wishes it were water. If I put food in a velcro or zipper sealed cloth baggie, even a PUL or Nylon lined one, the food will be stale/soggy and inedible within a few hours.
- Not all fabrics are food safe. Some even contain lead, BPA or formaldehyde. I started to sew my own baggies until I figured out there was a real danger and I would have to be very careful which materials I used. The cost in safe materials made it almost as expensive to sew them myself as it was to buy them.
- Plastic baggies are cheap, around a penny apiece.
- Baggies ARE reusable containers. Plastic bags can be washed and reused as long as raw meat hasn’t been inside.
- Plastic bags are recyclable, reducing land fill waste.
- It would take 1,000 uses before one cloth bag paid for itself (about 4 school years,) comparing with the cost of a plastic baggie that is only used once (See #5) and hoping that my child doesn’t lose it or it wears out in the wash before its 1,000 uses are up.
- If my child loses their lunch box, I only lost 3 cents in plastic bags. If I was using cloth bags, I’d lose about $30. (Not that my kids ever lose their stuff, ahem.)
- Plastic bags have already been tested to be food safe and are BPA free.
- Plastic bags are easier to store and take up less space than cloth bags.
The one thing that resuable cloth bags have going for them is that they are ADORABLE. If I’m totally honest that’s the whole reason why I wanted to love them so much. I quickly learned that looks alone wasn’t enough.
Thanks for posting this. I have tried to use plastic containers, but recently gave up do to the overwhelming frustration of washing lunch containers for our family of 7. And, the expense of buying all those containers, the. The enormous amounts of room it took to try to pre-bag food for a week. It just wasn’t working. I switched to plastic baggies and it really works much better for me. I reuse what the kids return, and don’t worry about the rest. While I hate the waste, the lack of stress is so worth it to me. Thanks for posting and making another working momma feel better!
Yes, Rejena! If we’re going to keep up with our families we have to keep things as simple as possible and focus our energies on the things that make the biggest impact.
I’m with you. I do have a few cloth ones (like you said – they are adorable) but I use them mostly for storing things around the house. I don’t have to pack school lunches, so it’s still fairly reasonable for me to use plastic containers when we pack sandwiches for at the park or something. My fave “technique” is to put the same food item in the same bag – then sometimes it doesn’t have to be washed. Your cheese crackers, for example. If a kid comes home with the empty bag in the lunch box, just put more cheese crackers in it. Voila – bag/water/time saved. I also keep a quart zip bag in the freezer for chopped onion (I always chop a whole onion, even if I only need a part of it – the rest goes in the freezer for when I need onion and don’t have time/feel like chopping), but I have been known to leave the empty bag in the freezer, ready and waiting for the next “spare” chopped onion. I’ll get a new bag when it finally gets holes in it 😉
That’s brilliant to reuse the bags for the same food, especially when they are shelf stable.
I use plastic baggies too for lots of things. I also save all my bread bags from store bought bread and we use those for sandwiches. We also wash and re-use the plastic bags when we can.
So much agree. I have always loved the convenience but your price comparison makes it so much easier for me to put my mind at ease. We don’t pack lunches often and have a few containers, but I am not going to sweat my plastic bag use as much, especially when it saves me so much headache and time and waste of food.
I always think about the amount of water it takes to wash these baggies. While we have a well & don’t pay for water, when precipitation is low, I’m not wasting precious water on washing plastic bags.
I would be interested in what you buy in bulk in order to make small treat bags. Looking for new snack ideas. Thank you!
Thank you for posting this. It makes me feel better about using the plastic. With 3 kids at home (one in college and 2 in high school) packing lunches and loosing or sometimes forgetting it makes it so much easier. I actually go to Dollar Tree and pick up containers for lunches and at only $1 or less each I don’t stress over having to throw them away (because lets be honest sometimes they are just too yucky to try to clean because someone didn’t empty their lunch box over vacations) or if they accidentally get thrown away :0)
I love plastic baggies as well. Sometimes I wash and reuse them (especially the big ones, which are more expensive), sometime I rince and put in the recycling bin. It’s convenient and cheap. That said, I usually use reusable containers, but I have no shame using baggies.
We use plastic baggies as well, but we also reuse containers that other food came in. Our favourites are plastic Gerber baby food containers. If you have an empty Pringles can, it can hold a whole sleeve of saltine crackers and keep them from getting crushed.
We use plastic snack bags too. I just don’t have time to wash cloth ones. Plus, like you, we reuse them. I only use them for Cheese-its, Goldfish, graham crackers, etc. so really, all I do is shake out the crumbs and reload. I have a basket in the pantry for snacks so once a week I refill the bags. After about 2-4 uses, I throw out and get new bags. It really doesn’t cost much at all! (visiting from This Is How We Roll)
Thanks for visiting, Julie! I love that most of the stuff we put in the snack bags can shake out to be reused, great idea!
When I make batches of pancakes, waffles, and French toast, I always make extra to freeze.
I write on the bag (French toast or blueberry pancakes). When I take them out to heat up in microwave for kiddos, I remove the frozen food and put in microwave dish and shove the plastic bag back into a container on the freezer door, for the next batch of French toast or pancakes/waffles. It cuts down on the bags, as I usually have to use quart size, and 3 or 4 pancakes can fit into one quart size bag.
Susan, that is brilliant!