Week 2! Time to stay away from plastic for one more week without any fails. Monday was easy, no lectures so me and my friends went out for some lunch in a small restaurant. No plastic packaged meals for me here! That night we were going out for dinner again which posed a bit of a problem for my challenge: I had no time to cook lunch for the next day. I decided I would wait for Tuesday and see if I could come up with a solution on the spot. It was like a test to see how I could save a situation where I did not bring any lunch like last week.

Tuesday came along and during lunch I went on an expedition to find a meal that was not packaged in plastic. I found a bakery that served panino’s in paper bags. I survived! This was my day. I was so excited that I did not drink a single cup of coffee at uni that day. Another plastic cup not used. When I went to get groceries later that night of course I got some for lunch the next day. In the last post I forgot to mention that when getting groceries I also stopped putting fruit and vegetables in plastic bags when it was not necessary. I was going to wash the tomatoes either way so the bag was not going to make a difference. I accidentally made the challenge easier for myself when I was cooking since I made way too much. In Holland I was used to cook for 6+ people so cooking for one was already a challenge here in Milan. I ended up cooking 4 quite large portions so I got two more days covered.

For the sake of the diary: Wednesday I ate Tuesdays dinner

Thursday: also Tuesdays dinner. Easy peasy lemon squeezy.

Even though I thought the challenge was quite easy, I still managed to fail since bringing lunch was something that was not in my system. Apart from that I quite enjoyed the challenge and I think I can keep it up in the future. Of course every now and again things will not go as planned but I think the overall goal has bee achieved. One added bonus was my bank account. I had the feeling this challenge would have me spend less money on food since cooking yourself is always cheaper and that is exactly what happened. I did not know how to measure it exactly but I estimated that I saved about 10 euros a week (if I would bring lunch everyday).

All and all it was a good challenge and I got some amazing lunch sitting in my fridge for Friday.

Ciao!