Anyone out there food shopping with a conscience?

Just wondered if anyone out there is trying to food shop in a more 'ethical' way?   Organic?  Free-range?  Green?  In an effort to reduce my shopping bill,  carbon footprint and support local producers at the same time my latest venture is to try and source as much of my food as possible from nearby rather than relying on dreary old supermarkets to trunk it over vast distances.  So far I've found a fantastic local farm/shop selling excellent quality meat and eggs.  And I'm getting my bread flour from an 18th century water mill (of all places) that I didn't even know existed until a month ago.  All the grain comes from a 2 mile radius.  Struggling to find locally produced fruit & vegetables because the land here isn't veggie-friendly and all the fruit is from places like Kent and Worcestershire.   So for now I'm settling for buying home-grown produce rather than imported.  But I'll keep looking

Anyone else doing this kind of thing?

Most deffinetly. I find the food tastes fresher. I live in an agricultural area though, so it's a bit easier. Veggies are easy to find, and fresh fish, beef, eggs, and deer (when season opens). I learned a long, long time ago that fresh meat tastes a million times better than store bought. I'd rather not eat meat then eat it at a restraunt or grocery store that ships it in.

I think it's excellent that you're taking that step and doing your part!

In the spring, if you have a few flower pots and a bit of room to spare, you should try growing your own vegetables, or if nothing else just a few spices. It's my daily zen. I really enjoy gardening, and it's a great way to eat healthy and exercise (if your plot is big enough).

i do, but the growing season around here is very short, so it's difficult.  we have a market that does its best to stock local/regional/organic products, but it's further away than my neighbourhood grocery store, so i have to balance the cost/benefit of the drive.  i don't go there unless i'm passing nearby or can combine it with one or more other stops.

the reality in canada is that, eight or nine months of the year, "buying local" means "buying provincial" or even "buying national."  but i do that.  and i choose products with less packaging. 

i try to be aware of the impact of production internationally.  my coffee is fair trade, shade grown, and organic, so it's not exploiting workers and farmers.  since i learned about the mangroves being chopped down to make room for prawn farms in thailand, i don't buy thai prawns anymore.  and while i've never been much of a tofu eater, i avoid soy products because of what's happening in the amazon basin.

when it comes to clothes and shoes, i buy good quality, mostly canadian-made stuff and wear it for years - sometimes decades. 

i also produce very little garbage: often just one small kitchen bag a week.  when i see my neighbours huge garbage cans overflowing (often with recyclables), i want to barf.

I buy food local for the most part. My mother always bought from famers markets and local stands when I grew up so it never really occured to me to shop anywhere else for produce and some meats. For me it's less about the carbon footprint idea and more about supporting local businesses and farmers.

I'm lucky though, that I live where I do. The variety of produce and it's availability astounds me every year. I get a good selection of different fruits and veggies throughout the winter too, especially since one of the largest hydroponic farms in Ontario is located in my region. (Niagara, if anyone wants to know) I also get fresh, local peaches in the mid-summer (mmmmm my favourite)

I also buy free trade coffee, like pgeorgian.

Some meats, and packaged stuff I buy at my local grocery store. If I can afford it I try and buy Canadian or North American made stuff, but I'm perpetually short on cash being a student and all.

I actually worked for a stand in my local farmers market for a couple years and it really opened my eyes. I adored that job, despite the 5am start up. My stall sold fresh local bread and Italian smoked meats and cheeses (also local). I ate soooo well.

I don't really buy into the organic fad as much as others may.  Do I want to eat pesticides?  No.  Do I want to eat chicken that was sick and never given antibiotics so it died?  Not really.  I'm fair weather about that.

I'm am pretty strict about buying local when it's possible.  Canada does not grow bananas, ok, I can buy someone else's.  Canada does grown garlic, potatoes, apples, so I see no reason not to buy the produce from the Holland Marsh (home to the richest soil in the world and 20km from my home), organic, fair-trade, or not.  Local is always my go to.  I certainly don't see the need to buy Idaho potatoes because they have less dirt on them and look 'prettier' (no offense to the US or any other agricultural country, I just see no reason not to use the resources at hand).

We buy organic on the foods it's worth going organic for. Fresh fruit and veg, beans, meats, some grains, mostly. Chicken and eggs, free range. And we also aim to buy as locally as possible, going to farm shops and otherwise for what we can, where we can, as well as bulk buying dry cupboard staples to result in less trips to the supermarket in the long term.

I buy Canadian produce (esp. Ontario) whenever I can.  I would love to find a well stocked farmer's market around here, but I find that many of the stalls buy the same produce as the grocery stores (sometimes FROM the grocery stores) and sell it at a higher price.  This is even during the summer... so it's frustrating.  Actually, if anyone is from Niagara and has some suggestions of where to go, I'd be thrilled :)

Original Post by meima:

I buy Canadian produce (esp. Ontario) whenever I can. I would love to find a well stocked farmer's market around here, but I find that many of the stalls buy the same produce as the grocery stores (sometimes FROM the grocery stores) and sell it at a higher price. This is even during the summer... so it's frustrating. Actually, if anyone is from Niagara and has some suggestions of where to go, I'd be thrilled :)

Port Colborne market on Fridays starting at 6am-12pm. Only in summer. Located on Clarence across from City Hall

Welland, Saturdays from 6am-2pm? I think. Only in summer. Downtown. I know where it is but I forget the street.

St. Catharines, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturdays (Saturdays have the most vendors) 6am-2pm. All year round. Closest intersection is King and James. Downtown

The Beamer family farms usually have amazing produce, including apples in the fall and a variety of fruits and veggies in spring and summer. Bry-ann farms has amazing strawberries and berries in general. These are people who grow their own food on their own family run farm. The Cheese guy is at all the markets and has amazing cheese. I know there are those that run stands and buy produce from the wholesalers in TO, you can avoid them easily. Ask the people running the stands where the food is from if its not marked.

Considering Niagara has pretty much the most diverse availability of fruits and vegetables in Ontario, maybe even Canada, I'm surprised that you've had a hard time finding places to buy local.

The cost, is not surprising. The price of local food includes the cost of living here. It costs far more to live here comfortably and grow produce than it does to buy a farm in a third world country and charge workers dollars a day to cultivate it.

EDIT- I just remembered this- Here is a link to the Niagara Culinary Trail. It offers a list and a map of farms that sell their own produce like Duffin Appleworks, Nokara Farms, Beamer Family Farms, and Bry-ann etc. It also includes restaraunts that use local foods, wineries, markets and shops that offer local food.

That's the one thing my town lacks, really. We have a bi-weekly market but the fruit and veg stall is tiny! Farmers markets, harder to come across. I envy Leeds - there is a MASSIVE market there daily. I used to love going there when I would visit my ex. ;_;

Some stuff, I buy at the grocery store. Anything packaged...either Kroger or Earth Fare (I live in the southeast). We do however have the most fabulous little market that coincidentally opened up just when I moved here. They have all local produce, meat, eggs, milk, cheese even local honey and premade stuff like sandwiches and muffins. It's all organic and none of the meat/seafood has been treated with antibiotics or growth hormones, or fed corn, and about a million other things that they list on a sign that I forget.

But...it's expensive! Not the produce or stuff like eggs, that's pretty cheap. The cheeses are though, and the meat/seafood is way pricey. And if you buy a bottle of salad dressing there, you're probably going to pay at least $6. So I just get that elsewhere. I did pick up a jar of chili-flavored mayo this week....so good.

Count me in too. I am trying to buy as many of vegetables as I can from local farmers markets and the quality is better in addition to supporting the local economy. There are many farms in the area that do the fresh produce delivery service and I'm going to start doing that soon. I'm excited to try new vegetables and new recipes for them. I make my jams and jellies and I get my honey from friends who keep their own bees.  When I go grocery shopping I go to an Oregon owned chain (Market of Choice) which also has all of the healthier things I want to buy that Safeway would never carry such as my greek yogurt and many many more including a wheat grinding machine where I grind my own flour as I make all my bread every day from scratch. I also use the reusable bags so that I don't need to throw away paper or plastic.

Here in western Oregon where I live this is the norm rather than the exception though, we're all a bunch of crazy health nut hippies

I agree that if you have to choose between organic and local ALWAYS choose local, it's just better and better for you. Growing up we grew all our vegetables in an ENORMOUS garden. Weeding for 2 hours every day as a child cured me of wanting to grow anything but my own herbs and tomatoes. Thank heaven for local farmers markets.

gijane, you would love it around here, southern Ontario is the land of farming.  Local orchards; apples, peaches, pears.  Home grown maple syrup.  Leamington is the tomato captital.  Lots of grape farms and too many wineries to count.  We have the best corn in the world.  Two mushooms farms.  Many types of squash and too many other crops to name. 

Take a ride through our county and you can stop at many local fruit and veggies stands from May until January. 

Wheat, soya beans, tomatoes and corn are a major crops around here.

We have a local Emu farm.  Lots of beef, chicken and pig farms.  Many local butchers.  A turkey farm, where you can pick your own bird.  Many fresh egg stands.

Fishing galore,  we are surrounded by fresh water here.

A lot of our farm are going to greenhouses that are acres long.

All of this within fifty miles of my house.  Too bad that the local farmers are selling their farms to developers that are using the land for subdivisions, because farming is not the greatest living in the world right now.

Yes, for sure. I try to buy everything "made in America" food and other items.

I look for free range eggs, organic milk, local produce and meat. I always check shampoo and makeup for the products not tested on animals. Containers that can be recycled and so on. In the summer I shop at farmers markets and local produce stands.

Thanks everyone, you've made my day.   So nice to think that people are flying the flag and doing their best to make a difference.    And it's fantastic that so many are championing 'real food'.... bit of a soap-box subject for me.  Ontario sounds absolutely lovely and I'm very jealous....  Spent a wonderful few weeks once travelling through some beautiful parts of Canada and would go back in a heartbeat.  Although you make me smile with the 50 mile radius reference as still being local. For us Brits, 50 miles is a major distance!  We could end up in the ocean....

Well, that'd make seafood local, at least... XD

No.

Original Post by gi-jane:

Thanks everyone, you've made my day.   So nice to think that people are flying the flag and doing their best to make a difference.    And it's fantastic that so many are championing 'real food'.... bit of a soap-box subject for me.  Ontario sounds absolutely lovely and I'm very jealous....  Spent a wonderful few weeks once travelling through some beautiful parts of Canada and would go back in a heartbeat.  Although you make me smile with the 50 mile radius reference as still being local. For us Brits, 50 miles is a major distance!  We could end up in the ocean....

Fly the flag proudly. We all need to work together to "keep it in America" If we don't we are in huge trouble. Look at our jobs. Everything is going over seas and that is a crime.

I strictly stick to things that are healthy for me... and they just so happen to be locally grown/raised - then that is a double wammy... I don't go out of my way to buy local produce but I DO go out of my way to buy free-range/grass-fed & finished red meat products because they are so very healthy! Oh and I also try and bring my paper bags with me to the store so I can reuse them! I get really excited when I remember! ha ha! I am bad though when it comes to the seafood section because I buy for the deliciousness factor... not the humane factor! Whoops! 

Returning bags is a whole new thing for the UK!  I've now got a car-boot full of sturdy jute creations from Tesco and I'm starting to look at people funnily if they help themselves to plastic bags at the checkout... (I need to get out more...)  According to a good friend who is connected to our local council's recycling and waste department the people most likely to recycle are older people and families with children.  The worst responses she gets are from younger couples and single person households - male or female. 

I'm preferring local/home-grown produce to organic, actually.  Having heard that the organic meat producers are having to ship organic grain/feed in from thousands of miles away I'm wondering if that's really a net benefit.  Similarly a lot of organic vegetables.  If you look at the country of origin, it can be very exotic.

I buy almost all produce from the local farmers market, as well as fish, eggs, and some cheese.  Much of it is organic, and most is no-spray, farmers who don't use pesticides or fertilizers but haven't been certified.  I am fortunate to live in the California Bay Area, so there is fantastic farmers market food available year round.

Outside of the farmers market, I prefer organic. It's not just for health reasons, but for the environment and farm workers. When the pesticide doesn't affect the food, e.g. bananas and oranges, the chemical spraying and fertilizer runoff is toxic to people and animals and water.

I just finished a book on the largest cotton producer in California. Cotton production is hard on the environment, using 10 percent of agricultural chemicals and 25 percent of insecticides on 3 percent of farmland. It's making me want to look into organic cotton too.

Ahh! I have lots of reusable bags too.  I take my reusables with me every time I go shopping, heh. I also aim to walk to the shop wherever I can and when it's sensible depending on how much or how weighty it'll be. One of my favourite shops in the town centre won't give you bags - they don't even stock plastic carriers! So you have to take your own, there, regardless.