Healthy Habits - Shopping

This weeks healthy habit is all about where you choose to do your food shopping.  Your choice of shop can affect your health enormously. Where you shop determines the quality of the food you buy. Supermarkets take about one third of all the money spent on food in this country. They have a huge influence on the market, and their priorities are profits and shareholders, not health or even quality. Therefore the stuff you buy there is the lowest quality available. They exploit our weaknesses and addictions, providing far more processed 'food' than fresh. Yet they survive by selling convenience. They have a version of everything, so it's a no brainer.  For many years now I have been systematically reducing my dependence on them. I find it difficult, sometimes more expensive, but endlessly more rewarding to shop anywhere but at the supermarket. I have not yet broken my reliance completely, but I'm getting closer!

Here are the food products (stuff other than toilet paper and dish washing liquid!) that I still get at the stuipidmarket:

yoghurt
cheese
coconut cream
tinned beans
rice

I'm working towards not going there at all, ever, and in fact even the above list is just laziness. I should not need tinned beans, I must get more organised at meal planning and legume soaking. Coconut cream is a tricky one because I only know of one brand who don't use thickeners and water down, but if I find it elsewhere... The dairy will soon be produced at home by my man, from raw milk. He has been taking cheese-making classes so we can supply ourselves. And the rice is just a lot more expensive from the organic shop. I should probably just cut down my consumption!

Everything else I need I buy either from my local organic shop, my local (truly) independent grocer, (not IGA) and my local farmers market, where we get our biodynamic eggs and organic meat from Robyn at Redtail Ridge. We buy our milk from a raw milk supplier.

So in essence we have to spend a lot more time shopping, because it's not a one stop affair, but so worth the bother! My first stop in the week is always the organic shop. It's a family owned business and they now know me and my boy, so shopping there is a social event! (It's made even more special as the owners' daughter is an ex Masterchef star! Her sugar free cakes and salads are always a treat.) I get as much as I can there, in terms of fruit and veg, then, if need be, I top up at my local independent grocer. But I try not to. If you can't get to your local organic shop because of work, most will deliver a mixed box in various sizes to your door. On Saturdays we go to see Robyn at the Subi Farmers Market. She knows us too, so it's another social occasion, the way shopping was until the evil, impersonal supermarkets took over. Very olde worlde!

Buying most of my food from the organic shop automatically ensures that my food is healthy. I hardly need to think about it. Most food is not even in a packet, and there are few 'ingredients lists' to read or 'nutrient profiles' to interpret, simply because most things there are whole foods, and a whole food doesn't have an ingredients list. At the organic shop I'm also able to buy good quality natural salt, bulk nuts, seeds, oats and legumes, dairy, frozen berries and peas, various types of flour....And best of all, if I'm feeling lazy, I can get a masterchef quality lunch!

Ideally though, in the long run I'd prefer to grow as much of my own fresh food as I can. Currently we aren't set up to do so, but working towards that too. If you do have the space to grow food, I envy you! Get outside and plant some!!

Meat and eggs raised ethically, organically/biodynamically have higher nutrient profiles and don't contain antibiotics or any other nasties. I feel much safer feeding them to my toddler, than their supermarket counterparts, and I know that they are providing him with awesome nutrition. The same is true of raw milk. This is a whole food, while pasteurised milk is a highly processed, very damaged food. Of course, you don't have to drink cows milk at all, but if you like to, raw is the only healthful way to do so.

These habits aren't just healthy, they're ethical too. Supermarket corporations are pretty evil in general, and I feel good when I support the 'little guys'. It's also more ethical to buy organic vegies, because they're farmed using sustainable practices, and as far as animals are concerned, biodynamic eggs and ethical AND organic meat (one does not equal the other, hence I don't buy organic meat from the supermarket) is obviously the best choice for an omnivore.

Finally, I'd like to quote Tom Hodgkinson, from the great work, "How To Be Free", which I highly recommend you read. "The supermarkets have sold us a myth of cheapness, convenience and variety. But the reality is none of those: they are expensive, a hassle and you are forced to buy from someone else's selection...I would like to bomb them, but it's probably more effective to boycott them."