The blog formerly known as   Fake Plastic Fish

Category Archives: Sweet Treats

March 14, 2014

Truly Plastic-Free Chewing Gum in Plastic-Free Packaging!

Almost all chewing gum is made with plastic, plastic which hides in a secret ingredient called “gum base.”  The few gums that don’t contain plastic as an ingredient come in plastic packaging. Finally, there’s a U.S. company — Simply Gum — offering a completely natural, GMO-free chewing gum made with organic ingredients and without any plastic gum base or plastic packaging.

Simply Gum is made from only 6 ingredients: organic raw cane sugar, all natural chicle (rubber from a tree), cinnamon, organic vegetable glycerin, organic sunflower lecithin, and organic rice flour.… Read the rest

September 25, 2013

Another Trader Joe’s Rant. This Time It’s Ice Cream.

Okay, before you read my ice cream rant, please sign the petition asking Trader Joe’s to reduce its plastic produce packaging. After my own produce packaging rant last year, I didn’t have time to start a campaign, but luckily others at the Plastic Pollution Coalition did!

Okay… the ice cream…

Usually, my home ice cream consumption looks something like this…… Read the rest

April 13, 2010

How Fair Is Your Sugar? And How ‘Bout All That Plastic?

I want to talk about the plastic packaging in the sweeteners we choose, what trade offs we have to make to create less plastic packaging waste and still keep it organic and Fair Trade, and why reducing our intake of cane sugar is probably the best choice in the first place.

Cane Sugar

Here’s my situation. I go to Whole Foods with my own containers to buy sugar from the bulk bin. Zero packaging waste, right? But what I find is…

Organic sugar that is not Fair Trade…

Conventional sugar that is not organic OR Fair Trade…

I do find organic Fair Trade sugar packaged in plastic.

I’ve written about how ironic it is to put organic food in plastic packaging.

Why Fair Trade?

Here’s what Fair Trade USA, the organization that certifies products as Fair Trade, has to say about cane sugar production:

Dignity for sugar farmers

The US is an important sugar grower, growing over 80% of our domestic consumption. But the small amount of s… Read the rest

February 8, 2010

Eating Ice Cream for Breakfast — Plastic-Free & Zero Waste

Did you know that Saturday was International Eat Ice Cream for Breakfast Day? Well, it was. Unfortunately, since I’m trying to avoid ice cream packaging waste (All ice cream containers are lined with plastic), I didn’t have any in the house.  And I could tell my freezer was feeling a little sad.

So, remembering Steve L.’s comment here last week, I called Ici, one of the awesome ice cream shops in my neighborhood, to find out if they would handpack a pint in my own container. “No,” they said. “We can only use our own containers. But our containers are compostable.”  Not good enough.  I was looking for a zero waste experience.

So I tried Tara’s Organic, the amazing ice cream shop I wrote about on this very blog a year and a half ago. I called and asked. The answer: An enthusiastic, “YES. Of course you can!” So I did.

… Read the rest

December 16, 2008

Homemade Chocolate Syrup: Delicious & Plastic-Free

Hershey’s. Nestle. Santa Cruz Organic. Ah!Laska. Dagoba. What do these syrups have in common? (Besides some form of chocolate?) Some are conventional. Some are organic. Fair trade. But all of them are packaged in plastic squeeze bottles. How can products can be labeled organic when they are packaged in plastic? Shouldn’t chemicals from plastic packaging be considered in organic certification?

Well anyway, Michael and I need our chocolate syrup in order to be happy. So I found a very simple recipe and have tweaked it to perfection.

Homemade Chocolate Syrup Recipe

1 cup cocoa powder (unsweetened) (Purchased from bulk bin in my own container.)

2 cups sugar (From bulk bins — I use 1/2 dark brown sugar and 1/2 granulated sugar.)

1/4 teaspoon salt (Bulk bin.)

1 cup cold water (Tap, of course!)

1 tablespoon vanilla (Glass bottle with small plastic cap.)

Combine cocoa and sugar and blend until all lumps of cocoa are gone. Add water … Read the rest

October 1, 2008

Amish Friendship Bread: Skipping the Ziploc bag.

I’d never heard of Amish Friendship Bread, apparently the chain letter of baking, before receiving this bag of starter from my co-worker Jo Anne last week. For those of you who are as ignorant as I was, it’s a yeast starter that each person nurtures and “feeds” (adding flour, sugar, and milk on days 6 and 10) for 10 days, then, after quadrupling the original amount, divides it up, making bread with one part and passing the remaining three to friends who will repeat the process (and hopefully not give it right back to you.)

The thing is, the starter recipe that’s been circulating through my office requires that each portion be placed in its own Ziploc bag. Each day, the starter is kneaded through the bag until day 10. But certainly the Amish people (if they are indeed the ones who came up with this recipe… that fact is apparently in doubt according to a few Internet sources) wouldn’t have started out using pla… Read the rest

August 19, 2008

Tara’s Organic Ice Cream – Their trash can is empty!

Michael was terribly excited last week to tell me that a new shop had opened in our neighborhood combining two of our biggest passions: ice cream and zero waste. “You have to come see and bring your camera so you can write about it!” He’s not often so emphatic about what I post on my blog, so I figured this must be serious!

We joined up with a couple of other ice cream-lovin’ friends on Sunday and headed up the street to Tara’s Organic Ice Cream, which just opened a week ago on College Avenue (near where Safeway wants to build its mega monstropolis.) And sure enough, the boy was right! The ice cream is awesome, certified organic, but even better, the shop offers only durable or compostable containers and utensils.

The spoons are metal (for eating in the shop) or made from potato starch (for taking to go.)

Even the little tasting spoons are made from metal.

The bowls and containers are either durable dishes, like this one that … Read the rest