It's getting to be that time of year again: the time of year where you suddenly realize that a major gift-giving holiday is approaching and you have NO! IDEA! WHAT! TO BUY! Let alone how in the heck you'll afford it. In response to this feeling, when Shannon found something that was both cheap and looked like it might make a good present, he grabbed it. I won't say what it is, or who it's for, but I do bring it up for a reason:
Shannon bought it online - at woot! no less.
And it was made in Poland.
So, point #1: Shannon needs to know that I'm only buying American again. I know we're separate people and all, but I was kinda hoping we would be doing this together, especially considering as how I spend less than 1% of the money in this house. (Until tomorrow...Then I get to be in charge of grocery shopping again!)
But point #2 is more interesting. After I made the mental note to talk to Shannon about buying domestic, I wondered where on earth he would have found out where this particular product was made. I mean, I found out by looking at the packaging, but he didn't have the packaging right there in front of him when he ordered it. All he had was the website.
A quick look at the website reveals that they don't include information about country of origin on their products. Although I'm looking at a different product because they're not selling what Shannon bought anymore, I should imagine that the information they provide is pretty consistent from product to product. So if the website where I'm buying doesn't tell me where the product is made, where could I find it?
Do you really have to ask?
I asked Google.
And Google didn't know! (How is there something - anything! - that Google doesn't know? Are the Evil Overloads slipping? Maybe I shouldn't have said that...)
Okay, so maybe woot! doesn't list country of origin. But maybe they're weird, right? So I checked Amazon.
Nope.
I wanted to check other places, but I guess I'm either totally out of touch, or just too old for the internet, because I couldn't think of any other popular places to buy stuff online. (*shakes cane* Darn-new-fangled-inter-webs!) I did think of eBay and etsy, but since their products are sold by users who post their own product descriptions, country of origin information would be inconsistent at best.
But it still seems crazy to me that there's no listing like this on internet storefronts. The reason we have country of origin labeling is so that we can make more informed choices as consumers, and although it's all well and good for that information to be provided on the packaging, having it on the packing does absolutely nothing for us if we're buying online. I suppose that I could buy something just to get a look at it and return it if it's foreign; or maybe I could find the same thing in a brick-and-mortar store to check the packaging; or maybe I could research the hell out of it online and maybe Google would eventually be able to show me what I'm looking for. But all of those seem REALLY HARD, and doesn't that negate the entire point of shopping on the internet? You're buying online because it's easier and faster to research, find, and buy products online than it is in stores. But if I can't figure out where my stuff is coming from when it's being ordered online, how is that making my life easier?
Question of the day: what do you think is the best way to handle this situation? Stop buying online? Crazy mad online research? Buy and return? Brick-and-mortar research? Or do you have another idea? Comment, my pretties, comment!
Showing posts with label conundrums. Show all posts
Showing posts with label conundrums. Show all posts
September 30, 2010
May 05, 2010
Locallectual and Rechargeable Batteries
My friend Patrick just introduced me to a very useful website today: Locallectual.com. It's a listing of companies that make and sell their products locally or domestically - perfect! Although it seems that there's not much listed for Salem, I fully intend on filling it up with business I find as I find them. I think this is a resource with a lot of potential, and we just need to support it to help it fulfill that potential.
Also, my apologies for the lack of posts lately: Shannon and I just moved into a new apartment, and getting everything settled with it has been a pain (like moving is). Also, my lovely, American-made nieces are in town, and I can't help but go visit them when I have free time, being as how they live in Idaho and I only get to see them once every couple of months. I'll hopefully have time in the near future to get back to it - we're going to be buying plenty with Spawn on the way!
But to make it up to you now, let me present you with the following:
Question of the day: if the only domestically-produced product option is less environmentally sustainable than product options produced by another country, should one buy the American option anyway?
Story behind the question: Shannon and I are big fans of rechargeable batteries. Although they're a little more expensive up front, they're cheaper in the long run and help us reduce the waste going out of our home. Being as how batteries are toxic waste and can't ethically be thrown away, and since reusing is better than recycling, we feel that even if they were more expensive and less convenient they'd still be worth it - so it's even better that they're cheaper and more convenient! However, we've been looking for rechargeables, and the only ones we can find are made in Japan. On the other hand, all the batteries made in the US are non-rechargeable. So which way to do we go?
Also, my apologies for the lack of posts lately: Shannon and I just moved into a new apartment, and getting everything settled with it has been a pain (like moving is). Also, my lovely, American-made nieces are in town, and I can't help but go visit them when I have free time, being as how they live in Idaho and I only get to see them once every couple of months. I'll hopefully have time in the near future to get back to it - we're going to be buying plenty with Spawn on the way!
But to make it up to you now, let me present you with the following:
Question of the day: if the only domestically-produced product option is less environmentally sustainable than product options produced by another country, should one buy the American option anyway?
Story behind the question: Shannon and I are big fans of rechargeable batteries. Although they're a little more expensive up front, they're cheaper in the long run and help us reduce the waste going out of our home. Being as how batteries are toxic waste and can't ethically be thrown away, and since reusing is better than recycling, we feel that even if they were more expensive and less convenient they'd still be worth it - so it's even better that they're cheaper and more convenient! However, we've been looking for rechargeables, and the only ones we can find are made in Japan. On the other hand, all the batteries made in the US are non-rechargeable. So which way to do we go?
April 16, 2010
Starbucks and Free Coffee!
That's right, yesterday Starbucks was giving away free coffee for anyone that brought in a travel mug.
Question of the day: if I get something for free, does it have to made in America? Or does free stuff fall under the "Goodwil principle?"
Question of the day: if I get something for free, does it have to made in America? Or does free stuff fall under the "Goodwil principle?"
April 14, 2010
The Meat.....
I love WhereIsMyMilkFrom.com so much, I wish that there was a corresponding site for every kind of food product. I've been trying to track down similar sites, but to no avail.
Finally, I just gave up and decided to do a little research with some of the bigger companies. I think it's pretty obvious that our local eggs came from down the road, our local pork is from just out of town....But what if it's not Saturday, so I can't get something I know was grown and raised within 20 miles?
I wrote to Foster Farms to see where their farms are. Although I'm always a little leery about non-organic (or, in the case of fish, non-wild caught) meat, I know it's not always the easiest thing to find or cheapest to buy. One bonus for Foster Farms: a cursory glance at their FAQ shows that any protein that goes into the feed comes from the US, which is a start. We'll see what they have to say about everything else.
Finally, I just gave up and decided to do a little research with some of the bigger companies. I think it's pretty obvious that our local eggs came from down the road, our local pork is from just out of town....But what if it's not Saturday, so I can't get something I know was grown and raised within 20 miles?
I wrote to Foster Farms to see where their farms are. Although I'm always a little leery about non-organic (or, in the case of fish, non-wild caught) meat, I know it's not always the easiest thing to find or cheapest to buy. One bonus for Foster Farms: a cursory glance at their FAQ shows that any protein that goes into the feed comes from the US, which is a start. We'll see what they have to say about everything else.
April 12, 2010
Weekend Recap
I had the perfect balance of busy and relaxing this weekend: Shannon's sister had her baby shower on Saturday, and it was good to see his family again; then on Sunday, Shannon and I relaxed at home.
Stuff bought: a box of lemon sorbet cups from the Dollar Tree, burger and fries for each of us and a beer for Shannon at Golden Valley Brewery in McMinnville, a bottle of Squirt, and a bottle of Langers Cran-Ras juice.
The Dollar Tree surprised me. We went in to buy supplies for the baby shower, but everything was made in China. In the end, Shannon remembered that they carry these yummy lemon sorbet cups that I really like, and we found that they're (surprisingly) made in America. Sweet!
I was happy about dinner at the pub - the menu showed that they're ingredients are local (thank you, Oregon!) and since it's a brewery, we knew that the beer came from the pub itself. Come to think of it, I'm a little curious where they got their ingredients for the beer...But I'll track that down later.
The annoying thing about the weekend was, oddly enough, the juice buying. Shannon and I had decided to go on a drive to break up the monotony of the day, and before leaving grabbed some drinkage. I made a beeline for the juice and tea.
Ocean Spray: no country of origin labeling
Lipton: no country of origin labeling
Tazo: MADE IN THE U.S.A!
I grabbed a bottle of Brambleberry and took a closer look, reveling in the little "Made in the U.S.A." marking.
At which point I noticed it also said: "from imported ingredients."
Damn it, Tazo! Why do you have to be so scrupulously honest?
I consoled myself by looking at the ingredient list, where I knew I'd find "pure cane sugar" as the number two ingredient, which it was. (I hate drinking teas that are full of sugar, a shoe that Tazo sadly fits entirely too well.) In the end I grabbed a bottle of Langers Cran-Ras juice and went back to the car.
Where I discovered that it's second ingredient is sugar as well.
I'm wondering now if I shouldn't have bought Tazo instead. After all, at least they were honest enough to mention that their ingredients may be imported.
Any opinions on this? And does anyone know where I can get American made juice and tea without a ton of sugar?
UPDATE: I looked into Ocean Spray, but couldn't find anything about where they source their ingredients. I did, however, find the MSDS for their cranberry puree. *nerdglee*
Stuff bought: a box of lemon sorbet cups from the Dollar Tree, burger and fries for each of us and a beer for Shannon at Golden Valley Brewery in McMinnville, a bottle of Squirt, and a bottle of Langers Cran-Ras juice.
The Dollar Tree surprised me. We went in to buy supplies for the baby shower, but everything was made in China. In the end, Shannon remembered that they carry these yummy lemon sorbet cups that I really like, and we found that they're (surprisingly) made in America. Sweet!
I was happy about dinner at the pub - the menu showed that they're ingredients are local (thank you, Oregon!) and since it's a brewery, we knew that the beer came from the pub itself. Come to think of it, I'm a little curious where they got their ingredients for the beer...But I'll track that down later.
The annoying thing about the weekend was, oddly enough, the juice buying. Shannon and I had decided to go on a drive to break up the monotony of the day, and before leaving grabbed some drinkage. I made a beeline for the juice and tea.
Ocean Spray: no country of origin labeling
Lipton: no country of origin labeling
Tazo: MADE IN THE U.S.A!
I grabbed a bottle of Brambleberry and took a closer look, reveling in the little "Made in the U.S.A." marking.
At which point I noticed it also said: "from imported ingredients."
Damn it, Tazo! Why do you have to be so scrupulously honest?
I consoled myself by looking at the ingredient list, where I knew I'd find "pure cane sugar" as the number two ingredient, which it was. (I hate drinking teas that are full of sugar, a shoe that Tazo sadly fits entirely too well.) In the end I grabbed a bottle of Langers Cran-Ras juice and went back to the car.
Where I discovered that it's second ingredient is sugar as well.
I'm wondering now if I shouldn't have bought Tazo instead. After all, at least they were honest enough to mention that their ingredients may be imported.
Any opinions on this? And does anyone know where I can get American made juice and tea without a ton of sugar?
UPDATE: I looked into Ocean Spray, but couldn't find anything about where they source their ingredients. I did, however, find the MSDS for their cranberry puree. *nerdglee*
April 07, 2010
Bulk Food Makes Me Crazy
I suppose I should have thought about this before starting the blog, but Shannon and I don't really buy a lot of anything except food. So I'm sure you've noticed that I do a lot of talking about food.
This post is no different.
Bulk Food Makes Me Crazy.
When I was a kid, bulk food made me crazy because my mom would spend forever in the bulk food aisles, picking out the cheapest stuff. With no fancy packaging or bright colors, it was the most boring part of the whole grocery trip, which was already the most boring part of my whole life at that time.
When I grew up, bulk food made me crazy because I realized - as my mom had - that bulk food tends to be SO MUCH CHEAPER than the packaged stuff, and if you recycle the bags, there's less environmental impact! Woot!
Now that I've started this Buying American experiment, bulk food makes me crazy because NONE of it has country of origin labeling! Some has info on the distributor, but most of the time even that's missing. Not only do I not know where any of the individual ingredients are from, but I can't even research where the ingredients were combined. I want bulk food because it's cheap, but I don't have the time or energy to scour the internet for information that probably doesn't exist for public consumption. At Life Source, the natural foods store in town, they at least say (sometimes) that distributor info is available by request, but as we've seen, that doesn't really help either.
Why, bulk foods? WHY???
This post is no different.
Bulk Food Makes Me Crazy.
When I was a kid, bulk food made me crazy because my mom would spend forever in the bulk food aisles, picking out the cheapest stuff. With no fancy packaging or bright colors, it was the most boring part of the whole grocery trip, which was already the most boring part of my whole life at that time.
When I grew up, bulk food made me crazy because I realized - as my mom had - that bulk food tends to be SO MUCH CHEAPER than the packaged stuff, and if you recycle the bags, there's less environmental impact! Woot!
Now that I've started this Buying American experiment, bulk food makes me crazy because NONE of it has country of origin labeling! Some has info on the distributor, but most of the time even that's missing. Not only do I not know where any of the individual ingredients are from, but I can't even research where the ingredients were combined. I want bulk food because it's cheap, but I don't have the time or energy to scour the internet for information that probably doesn't exist for public consumption. At Life Source, the natural foods store in town, they at least say (sometimes) that distributor info is available by request, but as we've seen, that doesn't really help either.
Why, bulk foods? WHY???
Pumpkin-Eater
I cheated. :(
For my sister-in-law's baby shower, I was asked to bring a couple gifts for people who win the games, and bath salts came to mind first. I make my own bath salts, because they're cheap, they're easy, they're girly, and they're great. However, who in the heck wants plain old white salt?
So I bought Himilayan Salt.
Who wants to guess where Himilayan salt comes from?
That's right, the Himilayas!
NOTE FOR THE CURIOUS: The Himilayas are not in America.
:(
For my sister-in-law's baby shower, I was asked to bring a couple gifts for people who win the games, and bath salts came to mind first. I make my own bath salts, because they're cheap, they're easy, they're girly, and they're great. However, who in the heck wants plain old white salt?
So I bought Himilayan Salt.
Who wants to guess where Himilayan salt comes from?
That's right, the Himilayas!
NOTE FOR THE CURIOUS: The Himilayas are not in America.
:(
April 03, 2010
Buying American Day 1
What a heck of a day.
After our most recent grocery trip (a couple days before Shannon and I decided to buy US products only) we still had a few items we weren't able to find at Winco, and I was so excited to get started on this grand adventure that I decided today would be the day we'd go pick up those few missing extras. By the time we got back (4 1/2 hours later), we were exhausted and happy to not be in grocery stores anymore. We'd also discovered a few problem areas we're going to have to address.
But let's tell this story in chronological order.
Before we left, I pulled up my grocery list and began to write down the places we were going to get our food.
If I buy something that was produced locally that has several different ingredients (like bread), do I have to make sure that the place where I buy also uses ingredients only from the US?
It was a hard question to answer. I mean, the bread is made in the US - no question! - but do I need to be vigilant about where the ingredients came from? If I was buying generic bread from Winco, I wouldn't have a second thought about it: if it says "Made in the USA" on the bag, that's good enough for me. But because Great Harvest has a physical location where I can meet the people who made the bread I'm about to buy face-to-face, shouldn't I exercise more caution? Or should I instead be researching the bread I want to buy from Other Company to make sure they're using all domestic ingredients?
In the end, I decided that I'd ask at Great Harvest, then decide while I was there what was important. Decision neatly avoided. (Existentialism FAIL.)
When we arrived at Life Source for the cumin, though, I found that another question was waiting for me there. Life Source has a great bulk foods section, with tons of different teas, spices, salts, flours, etc. (Shannon and I later wondered why we didn't try buying sugar there...but were too exhausted to go back.) We made a beeline for the spices and found the cumin, only to discovered that because it was a bulk item, there wasn't any specific info about where it came from.
If bulk foods don't tell us where they come from, should we avoid them completely?
In the end, we decided that it was an American distribution company, so that should be close enough. But upon researching the distributor at home, I found that maybe that wasn't a good idea. Seems our cumin was distributed by Frontier Natural Products Co-op, a company that carries herbs, spices, teas, and other foods from around the world. They seem like a company I'd like - though the notably don't mention that they're products are fair trade, which raises a bit of a red flag for me - but sadly they don't get their cumin from the US. According to their site, their major cumin distributors are in Turkey, India, and China.
Sorry, US.
After Life Source, we headed to Saturday Market, which I was excited for. I mean, how much more sure can I be that something's grown in the US if it's just grown a few miles from where I live, right?
But when we got there, only a fraction of the whole lot was taken up, and only one stand had veggies: onions, potatoes, a few other things; all things we either already had or didn't need. We also found a gentleman who sells eggs, but since we just bought eggs a few days ago, there was no reason to buy from him either. In the end, the only thing we bought was a little honey bear full of blackberry honey from W.C. Kester Apiaries from Rickreall, OR. (Sorry, no site to link to.) And it wasn't so much that we needed honey as we needed info. The gentleman there told us that although there would be at least a smattering of people at the Market every week, we were unlikely to find any fruits or veggies there till mid-May at the earliest.
(On a side note, we also determined that he doesn't require the services of someone who really loves bees but is not a trained beekeeper, but that other beekeepers in the area might. He provided us with a URL for finding these people. Wahoo!)
So we decided to instead get veggies at Morrow & Sons Produce on Silverton Rd. (the veggie store across from Mom's veggie store, where they don't charge us to use a debit card, and which also don't have a site to link to), and headed to lunch at Prudence Uncorked, where the great and mystical Scott seems to be tending bar. It was closed, but it brought another question to mind:
Can we eat at restaurants that don't get their food from domestic sources?
They are, in fact, local business, but along the same vein as Great Harvest, do I need to know that they get their food only from domestic sources? Luckily for us in the Willamette Valley there's a reasonably good selection restaurants that source locally, but if we ever go out of the Valley, can we eat at local places that buy food from outside the country? If I'm trying to help the country, is it better to support local business that doesn't support American farmers, or is it better to support American farmers myself by cooking with their produce on my own and to hell with the local businesses that support foreign economies rather than the domestic one?
After the let down at the restaurant we headed to Great Harvest...and there was no parking. We were still cold after our trip to Saturday Market and didn't want to deal with parking blocks away for a loaf of bread we could buy on Monday, so we passed it up for now. However, according to their website, the wheat at least comes from Montana, so that's a start. But where do they get their yeast? Their salt? Is the "something sweet" in their five ingredients actually a local honey when you buy from the Salem location? And the bigger question: should I care?
We headed to Safeway next, and I was dubious about my ability to find what we need there. I mean, everything so far had been little local stores; Safeway's a national chain. If anyone, they should be cowing to The Man over in China, right?
Milk first. Shannon likes the O Organics brand, and luckily it says right on the label: Made in the US. Sweet! (Of course, Shannon said I shouldn't be surprised our dairy is domestic. I guess that's true. How totally dead would milk be if you had to wait for it to come from Indonesia?) Next was butter, which was a little more tricky. There was nothing telling me where it had been made, only distributor information. I saw that the O Organics butter is distributed by Lucerene, and looking at their butter I saw that it's made in the US, so I decided that this info combined with the "dairy principle" Shannon mentioned was enough reason to believe the butter was made in America, too. I've since confirmed on the internet that the O Organics butter comes from cream produced by the same cows that make our milk, so we're in the clear.
Next up, edamame. For those who weren't aware, edamame is just soybeans. Being as how the US is the main producer of soy in the world (almost a third!), I figured this would be the easy one. Wrong. Every package I found: Made in China. But according to Wikipedia, China only produces 7% of the total world consumption of soybeans! So where are the American soybeans going? In the end, I had to pass them up; I just couldn't find a package that wasn't made in Chine. (Also, upon returning home, I found that my last remaining bag, bought at Winco, was also made in China. WTF?!)
Next, sugar. I made a beeline for C&H - if anyone has American sugar, it would be them! Turns out no. They had sugar from all over South America, but nothing from the US. In the end, the only sugar we could find from the US was the Safeway brand, but since it's finely granulated, it's not what we need. (In that moment, Shannon and I both realized why Alton Brown always says to measure by weight rather than volume. I almost suggested we buy a scale....but decided that would take us from the task at hand. Maybe a scale another time.)
Lastly, Saltines. This time we could only find distributors - no one would tell us where the crackers were made. Except Safeway brand. Which was made in the US again. I have to say that I'm gaining a little more respect for them, big chain or no. In the end, though, we decided that Shannon would make them from scratch, like he's been promising to do for a couple months now. We'll see how it goes.
Finally, off the the veggie store. Going here scared me almost as much as going to Safeway. Although the Valley is a great place to get fresh local produce, we're just coming off the winter, so nothing's growing yet. When we walked up, I just prayed that California would cover us on this one: I hear they're already up over 80 degrees in L.A. Here's what I found:
Mangos: Mexico
Filipino mangos: Mexico
Mandarin organes: California! Woot!
Pineapples: Hawaii! Woot!
Tomatoes: Mexico
Avocados: California!
All others (broccoli, zucchini, cabbage): who knows?
I can already tell that this produce thing is going to be difficult.
We grabbed some oranges, avocados, and a pineapple and headed home. As we went, I came up with another question:
Can I buy products from companies that aren't American, if their products were made in the US?
This isn't something I ran into today, but an important question. For example, if I find a chocolate bar made in the US, but produced by Nestle (a Swiss company), is it okay to buy?
I have to admit that I wasn't expecting this whole thing to be quite so difficult. Maybe it's just food that's this difficult, but I doubt it. Looks like this'll be an interesting year.
After our most recent grocery trip (a couple days before Shannon and I decided to buy US products only) we still had a few items we weren't able to find at Winco, and I was so excited to get started on this grand adventure that I decided today would be the day we'd go pick up those few missing extras. By the time we got back (4 1/2 hours later), we were exhausted and happy to not be in grocery stores anymore. We'd also discovered a few problem areas we're going to have to address.
But let's tell this story in chronological order.
Before we left, I pulled up my grocery list and began to write down the places we were going to get our food.
- Bread (Great Harvest)
- Whole Cumin (Life Source)
- Veggies (Saturday Market)
- Milk (Safeway)
- Edamame (Safeway)
- Sugar (Safeway)
- Butter (Safeway)
- Saltines (Safeway)
If I buy something that was produced locally that has several different ingredients (like bread), do I have to make sure that the place where I buy also uses ingredients only from the US?
It was a hard question to answer. I mean, the bread is made in the US - no question! - but do I need to be vigilant about where the ingredients came from? If I was buying generic bread from Winco, I wouldn't have a second thought about it: if it says "Made in the USA" on the bag, that's good enough for me. But because Great Harvest has a physical location where I can meet the people who made the bread I'm about to buy face-to-face, shouldn't I exercise more caution? Or should I instead be researching the bread I want to buy from Other Company to make sure they're using all domestic ingredients?
In the end, I decided that I'd ask at Great Harvest, then decide while I was there what was important. Decision neatly avoided. (Existentialism FAIL.)
When we arrived at Life Source for the cumin, though, I found that another question was waiting for me there. Life Source has a great bulk foods section, with tons of different teas, spices, salts, flours, etc. (Shannon and I later wondered why we didn't try buying sugar there...but were too exhausted to go back.) We made a beeline for the spices and found the cumin, only to discovered that because it was a bulk item, there wasn't any specific info about where it came from.
If bulk foods don't tell us where they come from, should we avoid them completely?
In the end, we decided that it was an American distribution company, so that should be close enough. But upon researching the distributor at home, I found that maybe that wasn't a good idea. Seems our cumin was distributed by Frontier Natural Products Co-op, a company that carries herbs, spices, teas, and other foods from around the world. They seem like a company I'd like - though the notably don't mention that they're products are fair trade, which raises a bit of a red flag for me - but sadly they don't get their cumin from the US. According to their site, their major cumin distributors are in Turkey, India, and China.
Sorry, US.
After Life Source, we headed to Saturday Market, which I was excited for. I mean, how much more sure can I be that something's grown in the US if it's just grown a few miles from where I live, right?
But when we got there, only a fraction of the whole lot was taken up, and only one stand had veggies: onions, potatoes, a few other things; all things we either already had or didn't need. We also found a gentleman who sells eggs, but since we just bought eggs a few days ago, there was no reason to buy from him either. In the end, the only thing we bought was a little honey bear full of blackberry honey from W.C. Kester Apiaries from Rickreall, OR. (Sorry, no site to link to.) And it wasn't so much that we needed honey as we needed info. The gentleman there told us that although there would be at least a smattering of people at the Market every week, we were unlikely to find any fruits or veggies there till mid-May at the earliest.
(On a side note, we also determined that he doesn't require the services of someone who really loves bees but is not a trained beekeeper, but that other beekeepers in the area might. He provided us with a URL for finding these people. Wahoo!)
So we decided to instead get veggies at Morrow & Sons Produce on Silverton Rd. (the veggie store across from Mom's veggie store, where they don't charge us to use a debit card, and which also don't have a site to link to), and headed to lunch at Prudence Uncorked, where the great and mystical Scott seems to be tending bar. It was closed, but it brought another question to mind:
Can we eat at restaurants that don't get their food from domestic sources?
They are, in fact, local business, but along the same vein as Great Harvest, do I need to know that they get their food only from domestic sources? Luckily for us in the Willamette Valley there's a reasonably good selection restaurants that source locally, but if we ever go out of the Valley, can we eat at local places that buy food from outside the country? If I'm trying to help the country, is it better to support local business that doesn't support American farmers, or is it better to support American farmers myself by cooking with their produce on my own and to hell with the local businesses that support foreign economies rather than the domestic one?
After the let down at the restaurant we headed to Great Harvest...and there was no parking. We were still cold after our trip to Saturday Market and didn't want to deal with parking blocks away for a loaf of bread we could buy on Monday, so we passed it up for now. However, according to their website, the wheat at least comes from Montana, so that's a start. But where do they get their yeast? Their salt? Is the "something sweet" in their five ingredients actually a local honey when you buy from the Salem location? And the bigger question: should I care?
We headed to Safeway next, and I was dubious about my ability to find what we need there. I mean, everything so far had been little local stores; Safeway's a national chain. If anyone, they should be cowing to The Man over in China, right?
Milk first. Shannon likes the O Organics brand, and luckily it says right on the label: Made in the US. Sweet! (Of course, Shannon said I shouldn't be surprised our dairy is domestic. I guess that's true. How totally dead would milk be if you had to wait for it to come from Indonesia?) Next was butter, which was a little more tricky. There was nothing telling me where it had been made, only distributor information. I saw that the O Organics butter is distributed by Lucerene, and looking at their butter I saw that it's made in the US, so I decided that this info combined with the "dairy principle" Shannon mentioned was enough reason to believe the butter was made in America, too. I've since confirmed on the internet that the O Organics butter comes from cream produced by the same cows that make our milk, so we're in the clear.
Next up, edamame. For those who weren't aware, edamame is just soybeans. Being as how the US is the main producer of soy in the world (almost a third!), I figured this would be the easy one. Wrong. Every package I found: Made in China. But according to Wikipedia, China only produces 7% of the total world consumption of soybeans! So where are the American soybeans going? In the end, I had to pass them up; I just couldn't find a package that wasn't made in Chine. (Also, upon returning home, I found that my last remaining bag, bought at Winco, was also made in China. WTF?!)
Next, sugar. I made a beeline for C&H - if anyone has American sugar, it would be them! Turns out no. They had sugar from all over South America, but nothing from the US. In the end, the only sugar we could find from the US was the Safeway brand, but since it's finely granulated, it's not what we need. (In that moment, Shannon and I both realized why Alton Brown always says to measure by weight rather than volume. I almost suggested we buy a scale....but decided that would take us from the task at hand. Maybe a scale another time.)
Lastly, Saltines. This time we could only find distributors - no one would tell us where the crackers were made. Except Safeway brand. Which was made in the US again. I have to say that I'm gaining a little more respect for them, big chain or no. In the end, though, we decided that Shannon would make them from scratch, like he's been promising to do for a couple months now. We'll see how it goes.
Finally, off the the veggie store. Going here scared me almost as much as going to Safeway. Although the Valley is a great place to get fresh local produce, we're just coming off the winter, so nothing's growing yet. When we walked up, I just prayed that California would cover us on this one: I hear they're already up over 80 degrees in L.A. Here's what I found:
Mangos: Mexico
Filipino mangos: Mexico
Mandarin organes: California! Woot!
Pineapples: Hawaii! Woot!
Tomatoes: Mexico
Avocados: California!
All others (broccoli, zucchini, cabbage): who knows?
I can already tell that this produce thing is going to be difficult.
We grabbed some oranges, avocados, and a pineapple and headed home. As we went, I came up with another question:
Can I buy products from companies that aren't American, if their products were made in the US?
This isn't something I ran into today, but an important question. For example, if I find a chocolate bar made in the US, but produced by Nestle (a Swiss company), is it okay to buy?
I have to admit that I wasn't expecting this whole thing to be quite so difficult. Maybe it's just food that's this difficult, but I doubt it. Looks like this'll be an interesting year.
April 02, 2010
Begin the Experiment!
So Shannon (my husband) and I were walking through Wal-Mart today to get laundry bags. We picked up the kind that we like and headed to the register. As we were waiting in line, I remembered the old days when Wal-Mart was popular at least in part because they sold only items made in America. I checked the laundry bags. Made in China.
I've always been a little disappointed in Americans in that we're so willing to support another economy, and of late I've been even more disappointed because it's preventing us from supporting our own economy - and I don't think anyone would disagree with me that it could use the help. I thought how great it would be to buy only American...and then I thought how hard it would probably be. I mean really, is there anything that's made in America anymore? When I look at packaging, I actually find it surprising when I find something made in America, which is just sad. When our unemployment is through the roof, wouldn't it make more sense for us to be creating jobs in our economy instead of someone else's?
So I decided to try a little experiment: buying only American for a year. It's sort of along the lines of Living Plastic Free and I think a good idea, if probably a hard one to achieve.
I'm already beginning to wonder what I'm going to do about certain things. For example, food. I know that it's reasonably easy to get produce in the spring, summer, and fall from American sources, especially if you're buying locally. But what about the winter? And what about food that's not local? Living in Oregon there are plenty of tasties that grow here naturally, but certainly not all the tasites that exist. How will I know where the food comes from if it's not marked? Also, there are the things that aren't necessarily marked for where they're from. Case in point, my cereal. I buy the bulk granola from Winco for my cereal, but it's impossible to tell where it's from: were the ingredients in the granola grown in America, or just combined in America (if any of it's from America at all)? Where does that info come from?
So wish me luck. Just thinking about the challenges has my stomach flipping, but I've created a blog so I'm committed now! Wish me luck, because I have a feeling I'm going to need it.
I've always been a little disappointed in Americans in that we're so willing to support another economy, and of late I've been even more disappointed because it's preventing us from supporting our own economy - and I don't think anyone would disagree with me that it could use the help. I thought how great it would be to buy only American...and then I thought how hard it would probably be. I mean really, is there anything that's made in America anymore? When I look at packaging, I actually find it surprising when I find something made in America, which is just sad. When our unemployment is through the roof, wouldn't it make more sense for us to be creating jobs in our economy instead of someone else's?
So I decided to try a little experiment: buying only American for a year. It's sort of along the lines of Living Plastic Free and I think a good idea, if probably a hard one to achieve.
I'm already beginning to wonder what I'm going to do about certain things. For example, food. I know that it's reasonably easy to get produce in the spring, summer, and fall from American sources, especially if you're buying locally. But what about the winter? And what about food that's not local? Living in Oregon there are plenty of tasties that grow here naturally, but certainly not all the tasites that exist. How will I know where the food comes from if it's not marked? Also, there are the things that aren't necessarily marked for where they're from. Case in point, my cereal. I buy the bulk granola from Winco for my cereal, but it's impossible to tell where it's from: were the ingredients in the granola grown in America, or just combined in America (if any of it's from America at all)? Where does that info come from?
So wish me luck. Just thinking about the challenges has my stomach flipping, but I've created a blog so I'm committed now! Wish me luck, because I have a feeling I'm going to need it.
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