Ethics in the Supermarket

I've at last finished this book! I felt a real sense of achievement at the end of it. That's not to say that the book is hard to read- it's really not, it's fascinating but there's such a lot in it that I read it bit by bit. I learnt loads and  have been made to think a lot about our eating and shopping habits. There's not loads we can do to change by way of buying local food etc and we cook mostly from scratch anyway, there being not a lot of choice on that but I can definitely put more thought into the processes of shopping, cooking and eating.

Kingsolver:

Applying ethics in a modern grocery store can be daunting, but here are a few general rules that may help sort out the whole equation.

1 If items are available regionally, and are in season, get them from a farmer or ask a grocer to obtain them from a local source.

2 Do as much as possible of your own cooking or preparation. Make meal plans for the seasons, rather than starting with a recipe and having a treasure hunt for its ingredients.

3 Food processing uses energy in two main ways: (1) extracting, dicing, mixing, and cooking the ingredients; (2) transporting each individual ingredient. Products with fewer ingredients have probably burned less gas. For example, the oatmeal box on our pantry shelf lists one ingredient: rolled oats. With some local walnuts and honey, it makes a great breakfast. By contrast, our Free-range Happy 75% Organic Cereal Chunks box lists seventeen ingredients, all of which had to be transported to the processing plant. Who even knows how much fossil fuel it took to make it 75% Happy?

4 For fresh fruits and vegetables, consider travel distance.

5. Consider how you feel about using energy to move water. All fresh produce contains a lot of it... If you care about this, when considering world travelers, favor dried fruits or vegetables, dried spices, nuts, coffee beans, dry beans, and grains.

6 If produce or a processed item needs to be refrigerated (or frozen), energy was used to keep it cool from its point of origin to you.