Camping, Baggies and Pop Tarts

Hey there –

What is it about camping that makes me throw every ideal I have about eating well and being kind to the environment right out the window? I mean, camping is supposed to be about enjoying the great outdoors, right? Camping, to me, is about appreciating nature, and living in it, basking in its wonder and beauty, and breathing the fresh air.

But if you took one look at my shopping cart the day before a camping trip you would think camping, to me, is about eating the crappiest kind of food you can find and purchasing these foods in the most wasteful, disposable kind of packaging there is.

Camping, to me, is apparently about convenience. What can I eat the fastest and how can it be disposed of the quickest so I can get back to my basking (read loafing) in the glow of nature?

As Henry (10), Arthur (7) and I made our way through the check-out at the grocery store, I found myself explaining the Pop Tarts, sugar cereal, red vines and Goobers peanut butter and jelly mixture to the nice check-out lady as she pulled each item’s bar code across the scanning machine.

“We are going camping this weekend,” I told her, turning my head to make sure the customer behind me heard my announcement as well.

The way I was acting you would think the food items were being announced over the PA system, or you might think that the check-out lady actually cared what we were purchasing, as if she doesn’t see people buy stuff like this every day.

As the three of us walked home, pushing our contraband food precariously balanced in the baby stroller I use as a shopping cart, we ran into an acquaintance (a very fit and active acquaintance) walking her dog. I felt an uncontrollable urge to explain to her why our baby stroller was brimming with boxes of food containing copious amounts of high fructose corn syrup and red food dye.

“That’s what camping is about, right,” she said.

She might have just been trying to make me feel better, but I don’t think so, it seems like a common belief: Get out in the woods and eat garbage, it’s the American way.

It’s not just what we eat either. Recycling becomes redefined as well.

Usually, I wash out my Ziploc baggies and use them again. I pride myself on the fact that my children come home from school with their baggies in their lunch boxes, and I dutifully wash them and hang them to dry on a fancy contraption I purchased just for such occasions. I feel good knowing that each one I wash is one less I buy and throw in a landfill. But when I pack the food for camping, I put lots of items in a Ziploc bag before placing them on ice in the cooler, even though most of them are packages already.

The cooler looks so neat and tidy when we leave the house, all of our baggies in a neat row.

Then, throughout the trip, we eat the food in the baggies and the ice melts and gets in the baggies and I have to admit, once we are done with a food item that was housed in a baggie, I cannot throw out that baggie fast enough. That baggie goes right into the garbage, no washing it out and reusing it, no way. ICK!

We collect what recyclables we can in a bag and place the bag in the recycling bin on our way out of the campground and, of course, the children LOVE to burn the cereal boxes, but I know we are not as vigilant about these recyclables as we are at home. At home, if a container of yogurt somehow finds its way into the garbage and not the recycling, there is something similar to a witch hunt until we find the offending party and show them the error of their ways.

And let’s not get started on what happens to the composting items when we camp.

I fretted about this wasteful phenomenon to my friend who we were camping with, the irony of the fact that when I camp, when I try to “get back to nature”, I seem to trash it, and my body to boot.

It is an odd juxtaposition.

Well, we had a fabulous time camping. In my opinion there is nothing better than kids and camping. I love seeing them run in the woods and interact with nature and jump off a boat into a lake and sit around a fire with their faces glowing and their marshmallows aflame at the end of their stick. And yes, part of me enjoys watching them devour Pop Tarts and Trix cereal in the morning.

We are home now, back to our usual routine. I just finished cleaning the kitchen after a fabulous dinner of farm fresh chicken seasoned with basil from our garden. Before concluding the cleaning, I took the compost down to our worm composter and I washed some Ziploc baggies and hung them on our contraption. It is the least I can do, at least until our next camping trip.

I wonder if there are any Pop Tarts left....

Thanks for checking in.

– Irene