How to Be a Conscious Eater

a difference in the total equation. At least with takeout you don’t

need all the infrastructure to keep the ingredients chilled, and

some municipalities let you compost take-out containers, but

how many people actually know the ins and outs of their waste

management company? They’re likely getting tossed. Takeout

often comes in plastic bags, sometimes with sub-components

in similarly wasteful packaging, like individually sized packets

of soy sauce that you don’t use, or lots of separate containers

for separate items. All in all, it seems a wash on sustainability— both are

equally wasteful. So the winner is only health, with the meal kit taking

this one.

WINNER: Meal kit

ROUND 3: MEAL KIT VS. PLANNING A WEEK

OF MEALS AND SHOPPING ONCE

The meals in the meal kit may be healthier and/or more bal-

anced than what you’d pick to make on your own, though it

depends on which service and which program you select, and

the same goes for the environmental and social responsibility

comparison.

But the biggest reason that regular cooking is the better

option is the overarching question of being a direct partici-

pant in the food system. A critical layer of conscious eating

gets lost in the meal kit transition: selecting your ingredients.

This book is about practical choices but also about aspirational

living, and although not that many people actually plan all

their meals and shop once a week anymore, that approach

wins: Health and environment are comparable, but planning and

shopping keeps you connected to where food comes from and the peo-

ple behind it—talking to farmers at the farmers’ market, say, or

doing your homework on which producers to support with your

grocery dollars in terms of animal welfare and labor practices.

With meal kits, you don’t get to make all of those critical

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