The reason we went to Sprouts today is because I thought I remembered the one down in San Marcos had green tea bags sold in bulk, rather than in a box. I may have been wrong, because the one we went to in Costa Mesa today didn't have that, though they had all the other things normally found in bulk at Sprouts.
So, while I ended up buying a box of 100 green tea bags and a box of 20 Earl Grey tea bags, as well as a bag of Bob's Red Mill brand (employee-owned!) guar gum, and a bottle of Sprouts brand rice vinegar, those are all things I had hoped to buy in bulk. Sigh.
We did buy some bulk items, though, and I used reusable cotton bags to do it! We picked up raw almonds, roasted (but not salted) macadamia nuts, and white peaches and put them in the reusable bags.
I wrote the PLU number on the bag using a Crayola washable marker.
Once the bags are empty, I will wash them and they'll be ready for re-use!
We also bought dark chocolate-covered macadamia nuts, cherries, and cranberries, but I used the disposable plastic bags to package them because of the chocolate.
Maybe next time I'll bring some lightweight plastic containers for those things. I specify lightweight because Sprouts doesn't seem to have a way to note the tare weight of your bring-it-from-home reusable containers and while glass containers are more environmentally friendly, plastic weighs a lot less. I don't want to pay for the extra weight when it's just packaging!
There is a market closer to home that features a lot of bulk items and that is WinCo (also employee-owned!). Unfortunately, they have signage indicating that they don't want you to bring your own containers for the bulk items. I'm not sure why that is. It can't be a health department regulation because Sprouts allows it, so it must just be corporate policy. Maybe because they don't want to deal with the tare weight? I should call the headquarters and find out. 🤔
In other news, I had a bag of mixed beans in the pantry which I've been avoiding. It's one of those 14 bean soup mixes, I think. I'm sure that when I bought it, I didn't notice that it had kidney beans in it. I HATE kidney beans! 😤 To me, they taste mealy and yucky. It's why I don't like refried beans: the mouth-feel is like dirty mud. 😖
So, knowing that I would never use this bean mix for its intended purpose, and not wanting to discard it, I have begun to sort it.
I am sorting out the kidney beans into one container, Lima beans into another, and garbanzo beans into a third. Then I am sorting non-sproutable beans such as red lentils and split peas (plus other broken beans) from sproutable beans such as white beans, Pinto beans, black beans, etc. There are some green lentils in there too, and while I normally sprout them, they are so small that I don't want to fuss with separating them out from the red lentils, so they are going into the container with the non-sproutable things.
I have sprouted Lima beans before, but it's a big PITA because when you soak them, their seed coat comes loose, so you have to remove it from each. and. every. bean. 😩 which I don't want to do, so they get a separate container. Plus, Brianne confessed to me today that she feels about Lima beans as I do about kidney beans. I had no idea, after 15 years of marriage! 😳 but as she said, she is not given to complaining about things like that, so whatever. 💁
Once I'm done sorting, I will sprout the mix of white, black, & Pinto beans, plus the separate garbanzo beans. I will use the non-sproutable beans in soup, or maybe stir fry, then I will give away the kidney and Lima beans (as well as some red and white quinoa I found in my pantry) to our local Buy Nothing group. I'm sure someone there would love to have them!
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