Corn husk or food wrapper?

Tomales!

Why are tomales a green food?  Well, the ones I enjoyed at lunch today had green peppers inside, but that’s beside the point.

It’s the wrapping! Check out the steamed corn husk being used to wrap tomales!  While munching on my tomales today at work (yum!), I found myself admiring the continued use of corn husks to wrap food.

It seems as if this is an age-old practice that has been passed down over time (and has somehow been preserved as common practice) and, well, why not?  The husks are otherwise going to be tossed and this way they get another use before making their way back into nature — with their fully biodegradeable goodness!

We had a whole bag of tomales brought in at work, and while the bag was not biodegradeable (it was plastic) imagine any other fast food — or food from the store — coming in a bag and most likely, it would be wrapped in paper, plastic, foil, or styrofoam — all of which are not nearly as green as using the corn husk as wrapping.

It’s green, it works, and did I mention, “yum!”?

This brings me to my point: we keep complicating our lives with new ways to do things, like package our food.  Certainly, there are often advantages to wrapping foods in plastic so that they keep for longer.  But the corn husks work great for this particular task.  What other facets of our lives, both regarding food storage and others, could we look to the past to simplify, and more importantly, green, our lives?

I can think of one that seems to be resurging: the backyard garden!

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