So, recycling is not necessarily an efficient way to try to combat the excessive amount of waste we produce as a planet. Driving the trucks and powering the machinery still relies heavily on fossil fuels. Hopefully one day we’ll have a more efficient fuel system, but until then we recycle to primarily keep things out of landfills. And – theoretically – cause less things to need to be produced from scratch, but we produce so much CRAP on this planet that gets thrown away, recycling is not really making a dent in that.
But we do it anyway because – again – if we improve our energy sources for our trucks and our machinery, the effects will be more positive.
What we’ve been trying to do more in our family the last two years is simply to create less waste. We started with something easy – we try to avoid buying individually wrapped items as much as possible. We’re not 100% clear of that yet but we’ve at least rid ourselves of it in our lunch boxes 90% of the time. We do this with an assortment of storage all found at Target last year and we kept with this habit for the entire school year. We went shopping for school supplies this weekend (school starts TOMORROW here) and it seems that this is a trend because there are a lot more of those types of storage options now. Another way we know it’s a trend? There are a LOT more options for LARGE lunch boxes this year.
This pictures shows all of our storage with last year’s lunch boxes. It was a tight squeeze and mostly the kids had to carry their water bottles separately and if I wanted to use slightly bigger containers for anything I had to remove a different container. There wasn’t much flexibility. But when we hit up the lunch box section there were LOADS of huge lunch boxes now! And tons of cute storage containers! So maybe this is catching on which means we are finally in the lead of a trend instead of jumping on right as everyone else is getting off the bandwagon.
SO! We are buying a lot of items in bigger bags and cans and just making our OWN single servings. Yesterday Wes decided he wanted to try some fruit cocktail in his lunch, so I bought a few cans and was joking with the kids on the way home about how I hadn’t thought of fruit cocktail in years and how we used to eat it all the time growing up. And then the flashback came and I started laughing.
Oh. I just remember how we ate it. And I think it’s probably pretty gross.
How?
ON SLICED BREAD.
That sounds disgusting.
But to me it sounded HEAVENLY because I remember it so fondly and it being such a delicious treat so I immediately came home and made some AND IT WAS AS HEAVENLY AS I REMEMBER.
I posted the pictures on instagram and Facebook to see if this was a weird Zoot House thing or if anyone else did it and it seems it was unique to us. One other person did it and then one person mentioned eating Dinty Moore Beef Stew that way and we did that as well, so I’m thinking maybe my Dad just put EVERYTHING on white bread. But – in the survey process it seems everyone ate SOMETHING weird related to canned fruit and/or bread and/or mayo. So! I thought I’d survey you guys. Did anyone else eat this? If not – what was your weird thing you at growing up because it seems we ALL had something!
Ketchup sandwiches! When we were out of sandwich fixings, my brother & I ate ketchup sandwiches.
No fruit cocktail on bread here. I think the weirdest thing I remember is “graham cracker mush”. Break up a bunch of graham crackers (blue box only!) and add milk. Stir around until it’s all mushy.
I made it for my kids once but I waited until they were too old and they thought it was disgusting.
Nope… I ate fruit cocktail the usual way, and for me, that meant picking out the pears and just eating that. (WEIRD, I know.)
My strange food is one I still eat when I get a hankerin’ for it: peanut butter and dill pickle sandwiches. Have no idea why I started eating that particular combination of food, but dill pickle slices are the only thing I will put on a peanut butter sandwich; none of that jelly or banana stuff for me.
I ate graham crackers in milk too! Although, I didn’t completely mush it up.
I ate peanut butter and brown sugar sandwiches every day in junior high school, heavy on the brown sugar. Everyone in my family ate cornbread in milk, which I still love. Unfortunately, I can’t make good cornbread.
A local sandwich shop makes a wrap with peanut butter, bananas, honey, yogurt, and granola. It is very tasty.
I would butter some white bread and lavishly sprinkle Kool-Aid mix (the kind with the sugar already added) all over it and then eat it. My parents were horrified when they caught me doing that, so it didn’t last long.
In elementary school, I would crush my potato chips and put them on my pbj sandwich. Is this weird? It tasted like crunchy pb with jelly.
Ah white bread. It was present at every meal when I was growing up. Didn’t matter what was being served. White bread was a side option. We always ate Wonder Bread.
Weird combos: My dad ate peanut butter and bologna (baloney) sandwiches. He also put cornbread into a glass of buttermilk and ate/drank it. So gross. I used to make spaghetti sandwiches. On white bread, of course!
I’d eat that!
I used to do that with graham crackers too!
Just white bread, butter, and cinnamon sugar. My dad used to put cottage cheese and smoked oysters on white bread or saltine crackers though. Ugh, it smelled so gross I never tried it.
My dad does the cornbread and milk thing too. That’s what we left for Santa. I always thought that was weird!
My husband and his brother would put sugar on white bread and roll it into a ball. They called it Amflay Soufflé.
Buttered white bread covered in King (brand) syrup….YUM. Poor man’s pancakes, and I still enjoy it as a guilty treat every now and then! 🙂
My Dad always made Jam Sandwiches. He would take two pieces of white bread and “jam” them together.
No fruit cocktail on bread in our house, we ate it out of a bowl.
I was a purist eater as a youth, but Mom made this hideous peanut butter and (white) Karo syrup sandwiches. You could get pre-diabetic just looking at them. I could also mention pan-fried Spam but everyone ate that, so I don’t know that it counts as weird.
Oddly enough, in my old age I have taken up one weird eating habit, which is peanut butter and garlic dill pickle with a dash of hot sauce. Delicious! Try it!
Weird things I ate as a kid: peanut butter on hot dogs on a bun & peanut butter and marshmallow cream sandwiches. I ate fruit cocktail out of the can. It was often dessert with our common travel meal – spam straight out of the can & cottage cheese!
Kraft mac and cheese with ketchup. 😛
White bread with creamy Italian dressing.