Our participants were on the whole quite concerned about waste, which included being leery of too much packaging, and trying not to waste food.

C10 said that she wouldn't shop at certain stores because they had too much packaging, and that she preferred buying in bulk because she's “not creating all the waste that goes into it.” C4 said that she was more likely to buy a food item if it “doesn't have a label or a box.”

Not wasting food seemed to be a high priority for many of our consumers. Several mentioned that they were not members of CSAs or stopped being members because they simply received too much food, and much of it would go to waste (C1,C3,C4). C11 told a story about “having a fridge that was just full of melons” and many of these melons going to waste because he couldn't eat all the melons that came in his CSA box. C2 said that she grew lettuce on her porch, not particularly because she liked to garden but because it was “a waste issue.” She said that when she bought lettuce at the store she could never go through it all, but when she grew it she could simply take what she needed.