![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.hyogoajet.net\/hyogotimes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/IMG_2471.jpg\" "\\"IMG_2471\\"")
<\/a>Part of the reason I decided to start writing for the Times was to hold myself accountable for my beliefs. And I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not ashamed to say that a huge obstacle lies between my proclaimed dedication to the art of sustainability and its practice: I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m a lazy bastard. Well, I guess I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not\u00c2\u00a0that<\/em> lazy. I fill my post-work time with physical activity nearly every day, I clean….\u00c2\u00a0pretty<\/em> regularly, and I manage to complete tasks at work without issue, even if they take a while.<\/p>\nBut all of this moving and working and, um, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153cleaning,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d takes a good deal of time\u00e2\u20ac\u201dtime that I should be spending cooking, especially as a vegetarian. For us herbivores, striking the balance of a meal that is both nourishing and palatable requires research, finesse and innovation. In the Japanese culinary world where\u00c2\u00a0dashi<\/em> and\u00c2\u00a0umami<\/em> <\/em>permeates everything (and bacon! Why is bacon in every damn pasta dish?), we can rarely find complete satisfaction in commercial dining experiences. We generally just scrape by out of the house, and find more gastric satisfaction within it.<\/p>\n This quandary, with lack of time on one side and lack of satisfying quick options on the other, leaves me on a near-daily basis at the entrance of a\u00c2\u00a0combini<\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u201dthe veritable gateway to ecological hell. Everything single-serve, everything shelf-stable, everything disposable, everything….. plastic. Yet, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m here every weekday morning, after hitting snooze 20 times and barely making my train, to pick up my bag of cashews and yogurt drink, a plastic-wrapped banana and cereal bar. The cashiers may not know my name, but they sure as hell know that I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want a register bag.<\/p>\n But the invention of plastic, accompanied by the innovation of disposability, has hit our addictions\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 sweet spot and brought detrimental results to our environment. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Recyclable plastic\u00e2\u20ac\u009d is a misnomer\u00e2\u20ac\u201dused plastic can only be\u00c2\u00a0down<\/em>cycled into lower grade, non-recyclable plastic, which ultimately ends up in landfills to live out its eternity, or burned for our carcinogenic consumption. Or in the ocean! Have you been to the Tottori sand dunes in the winter when the cleanup volunteers don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t come to gather all the junk that floats over from Korea? It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s eye-opening. Bottom line: to deem oneself environmentally-conscious, one must avoid plastic. Always. So….I am living a lie.<\/p>\n My new year\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s resolution is to live up to my role as a hippy and break up with the\u00c2\u00a0combinis<\/em> (except for paying for utilities and online shopping… that was the best idea ever).<\/em> The Thanksgiving cooking schedule agrees with my general laziness, and pre-packing in glass tupperware (I recommend Snapware\u00c2\u00ae, available at Costco) means that I can get out in time for my train\u00c2\u00a0and<\/em> avoid plastic. The key is to prepare nutritious meals that I won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t grow tired of by Wednesday. That Paula Deen pineapple casserole is so amazing; if I ended up on death row, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d only want a kilo of it on a plate as my final meal, but with its 7 lethal ingredients (sugar, Ritz crackers, white flour, and butter being the real culprits), it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d surely kill me before I ever made it that far.<\/p>\n Part of the reason I decided to start writing for the Times was to hold myself accountable for my beliefs. And I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not ashamed to say that a huge obstacle lies between my proclaimed dedication to the art of sustainability and its practice: I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m a lazy bastard. Well, I guess I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not\u00c2\u00a0that lazy. I fill…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":73,"featured_media":2357,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false},"categories":[318,308],"tags":[322,323,300],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/www.hyogoajet.net\/hyogotimes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/IMG_2474.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hyogoajet.net\/hyogotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2354"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hyogoajet.net\/hyogotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hyogoajet.net\/hyogotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hyogoajet.net\/hyogotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/73"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hyogoajet.net\/hyogotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2354"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.hyogoajet.net\/hyogotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2354\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hyogoajet.net\/hyogotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2357"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hyogoajet.net\/hyogotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2354"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hyogoajet.net\/hyogotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2354"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hyogoajet.net\/hyogotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2354"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a>But what is that register bag compared to the mountain of plastic that I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve just acquired? Why can I\u00c2\u00a0refuse<\/strong> that<\/em> <\/em>bag but not the ones containing the food? Well, that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just the degree of my convenience addiction. Hello, my name is Ulu, and I am a convenience addict. All living things are. The human race would not have developed agriculture or industry without this addiction. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the same reason why bears tend to move into cities instead of away from them, because dumpsters provide an easy, reliable food source.<\/p>\n<\/a>This past Thanksgiving I hit on something that might help me. I hosted a Thanksgiving potluck for 45 people. Of those 45, I wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t sure how many would be bringing food, so I had to cook as if we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d be short. Leading up to the party, I dedicated about twenty minutes each night to food prep (shredding cheese, chopping veggies, etc.), minimizing cooking time on the day of. At the end of the night, there was far, FAR too much food, and I brought home 40, near-full, serving platters of tofurkey, mac and cheese, and pineapple casserole, which provided me with every meal for the following week.<\/p>\n<\/a>Wanna try it with me? This month, I invite you to challenge yourself to a<\/strong> <\/strong>combini<\/em><\/strong>-free week <\/strong>(But really, I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t just mean combinis! I mean avoiding all pre-packaged single servings). Write about your results (things you learned, advice, challenges, etc), and send them to me at misogreenht@gmail.com<\/a> or leave them in the comments to this article on the website. Do it by January 31st, and you will be entered in a chance to win a<\/strong> bokashi starter kit<\/strong> for composting in your apartment! And don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t worry if you don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know how to use bokashi\u00e2\u20ac\u201dit\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll be discussed in February\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s issue. Good luck! I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll stay strong if you will<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"