>You can safely transport meat, fish, seafood from source to home with basic hygiene measures.
You can, but it doesn't last nearly as long, which means more food waste due to spoilage. At my local supermarket meat that has been packaged in airtight bags have best before dates of 2-3 weeks. Meanwhile meat that's wrapped with non-airtight plastic wrap have best before dates of a week at most. The meats I get from the butcher counter do even worse.
> If you are consuming meat in 3 weeks either buy it and freeze it or buy it in three weeks.
Freezing ruins the texture of the meat. Buying it in 3 weeks is more expensive because it's no longer on sale. Given the choice between slightly more plastic and saving $1+/lb, I'm choosing latter every time. Also, you focusing on the consumer side entirely misses the retail side. According to the USDA 7% of meat/seafood is lost due to spoilage at the retail level alone. This is with plastic packaging. Going back to wrapping everything with pink butcher paper will certainly be worse.
I strongly disagree, plastic wrapping is the same as clorinating chicken.
You are introducing an extra industrial step to save the additional cost of maintain sanitary conditions throughout the supply chain.
> Freezing ruins the texture of the meat.
Unless you are grilling some very premium beef cut and eating it without any rub or marination, I strongly doubt the majority of people would even know the 'texture' difference in a blind test.
> I strongly disagree, plastic wrapping is the same as clorinating chicken.
>You are introducing an extra industrial step to save the additional cost of maintain sanitary conditions throughout the supply chain.
Vacuum packing meat increases shelf life because the lack of air halts aerobic decomposition. That's not something that can be replicated by "sanitary conditions".
It’s not just about the cost at the supply chain. If hypothetically 3% more food spoils, that’s roughly equivalent to 3% of all environmental impact of all farming and fishing. All the pesticides, land use, runoff fertilizer, fuel, methane production etc adds up to vastly more than the costs from plastics.
We think of costs in terms of money but shipping more crap means more fuel and thus more global warming etc.
I find I frequently end up throwing out expired unopened plastic packages of food that have been sitting in the back of my fridge for weeks. Whereas whenever I get meat from the butcher counter I eat it that very day or the next.
Why do you need a tight seal? You can safely transport meat, fish, seafood from source to home with basic hygiene measures.