Grocery and Green-ing

Mr. Pleasant and I love to cook. We love to cook delicious, wholesome food and we love to try new things. For us, that frequently means trips to multiple grocery stores and our local farmers market. As the recent USDA beef recall has reminded me, I think it's important to buy (generally, but especially) meat that has been raised humanely, locally, sustainably and organically. Which, unfortunately, frequently comes with a higher price tag - which, for us, generally means fewer meat dishes. However, we are lucky enough to be part of a group that orders meat, dairy and some baked goods directly from a local Amish farm. The price is quite reasonable and the products are AMAZING. There are many similar programs for both meat and dairy as well as more commonly known "Community Supported Agriculture" or CSA's that allow you by a share in the farm and you are provided with farm fresh fruits and vegetables throughout the growing season, and they are becoming more and more popular as people are becoming more and more aware of food security issues.

That said, we don't always get our order in time in which case we call on one of our local grocery stores. While our closest store has an okay general selection, they carry no organic meats. Whole foods (known to some as 'whole paycheck') is frequently where we end up buying much of our meat and produce. Whole Foods happens to be going the Ikea route and as of Earth Day 2008 are no longer providing disposable grocery bags. One of my new year's resolutions this year was to reduce my use of plastic and paper disposable bags. Enter Baggu (although there are a whole host of options out there)- sturdy little reusable grocery bags that hold more (and more securely) than your average double-bagged plastic bags and stuff down into tiny bags that fit easily in my purse.


I bought six, along with reusable produce bags , and haven't looked back! I augment them with a rag-tag collection of canvas and conference bags I've collected over the years, and they do marvelously! In fact, I probably could've done with just the old rag-tag troupe, but the small size of the baggu bags wooed me. I've gotten some admiration and no dark looks or angry bag-stuffing from any of the cashiers I've presented with my bags. It felt silly the first time I did it, but now I really feel good about using them :)

They are small changes that really add up to big changes.