Most people buy ready-made pasta. If so, then choose brands sold in plastic-free packaging. Brand leader Barilla is the latest to remove the plastic windows, so the pastas are now sold in a cardboard box. This has amounted to them using 126,000kg less plastic each year. Although you can usually recycle the plastic at supermarket bag bins, obviously it’s best not to have to at all in the first place.
Keep fresh dough away from pets (can expand in the stomach, along with salt, garlic, onion. Read more on food safety for people & pets.
The Yorkshire Pasta Company offers ‘pasta nothing like you find on supermarket shelves’. Made in 2 days (not 2 hours) to allow the flavours to develop, each piece has a rough surface to cling to your sauce, and it’s made with British wheat (92% grown locally). At end of use, just recycle the packaging with your newspapers. Restaurants and hotels can even buy paper sacks of pasta – just like potatoes!
No eggs, this mixes locally-milled flour with cold water in a secret ratio to produce a slow-dried pasta pressed through bronze dies (big makers use Teflon) to create a rough surface on each piece, making the pasta perfect to absorb delicious sauces. Serve with grated vegan cheese (artisan brands are found in indie health shops and farm shops). Know that Parmesan is not even vegetarian (it contains calf rennet by law).
Cornwall Pasta Co is sold in biodegradable compostable packaging, and Northern Pasta Co offers pasta made from wheat grown locally using regenerative farming practices.
Also look in stores for Mr Organic pasta. Served with their own organic plant-based sauces (many contain protein from tofu or seitan), with some fresh veggies from your garden, this is a completely-balanced and zero waste meal. Mangia!
Look in indie health stores and farm shops for Suma’s organic wheat pastas. Not only are they made from organic wheat (produced by an Italian farming co-operative using renewable energy), but they are also sold in plastic-free paper packaging, even printed with water-based ink and solvent-free heat-sealing laqueurs. There are 8 pastas in the range (plus a new oat range) including:
- Spaghetti
- Macaroni
- Penne
- Fusilli
make your own homemade pasta
This is pretty simple if fiddly, but always keep fresh dough away from children and pets as it can expand in the stomach.
This 4-ingredient homemade pasta recipe (The Banana Diaries) includes a recipe for gluten-free pasta too. Or try making your own gnocchi (Ela Vegan). Italian for ‘knuckles’, this is even quicker to cook.