Anyone else feel morally exhausted after grocery shopping?

[JoshandJamie]

I am having a really hard time trying to shop these days. I am usually fairly exhausted after shopping anyway with two small boys in tow, but these days I find it an impossible juggling act trying to balance:

• cost
• health
• locally produced
• fair trade
• ethically produced
• free of excess packaging
• convenience

For most of my life I can honestly say that I have chosen products based on how convenient they were (particularly packaging) and how good they tasted.

Now I find myself spending hours reading labels to check that the food products don't contain x, y and z nasty ingredients or that someone (human or animal) hasn't been exploited in making it and that the packaging isn't going to ruin the environment.

At the same time I'm a busy mum, running my own business and looking after two children without too much free time. If I could go to local markets to get good quality, cheap, locally produced, non packaged goods, I would, but I don't always have the time, particularly as the markets only run on certain days here and I invariably have the kids with me on those days I trying to hold onto a three year old and a 17 month old and carry groceries is equally knackering.

On a related subject, I find eating anything these days an unenjoyable experience. The little colour wheel saying how high fats, salts etc are in a product seriously puts me off, even something that is largely green but has an orange in one of the boxes makes me not want to eat it. I keep thinking that whatever I put in my mouth is either unhealthy or created in a bad way.

Everything that we have come to know in the past has been turned on its head. So previously, low prices or two for one offers or new easy pour box or longer lasting products were all selling points, they now seem like bad things because you know that something or someone must be getting hurt in the process to make it cheaper or more convenient for you.

I know that heightened consumer and environmental awareness is a good thing, but it is making me exhausted. Sorry for the long garbled rant. Just needed to get that off my chest because my head feels like it's going to explode. Anyone else feel the same?

a quote: "buy organic, destroy the rainforest"

unfortunately you have to have a subscription to read the article but the new york times wrote an article about the article.

I saw it Whiffywarthog - see the Kenyan Snow Pea dilemma post at Mon 26-Feb-07 17:44:59. It was such an interesting and provocative article I briefly thought of summarising it for an MNet thread, but thought I'd get shouted down!

sorry i missed your post issymum.

interesting how things are never clear cut. i've really been put off fair trade now!

I haven't got time to post at length now, but I wouldn't necessarily be put off Fair Trade - The Economist isn't always right . There are rules in even the most open-market economies to protect wider interests - health and safety, environment, employee rights, competition. There is no reason why there should not also be rules to provide short term protection to small and vulnerable producers in developing economies as they find their feet in the global market place. Admittedly, the current structure for Fair Trade is too crude to assist those producers in reacting to competition, but even The Economist admitted that there are or could be more effective structures. However, the adherents of Fair Trade will only be encouraged/pressured to refine the current structures if they are confident that there is a sustainable and even growing market for Fair Trade products and that means that we all have to keep buying this stuff, imperfect though the system may be.

fair point but i do find it off-putting along with aid being given to these countries so that their own economies can't compete with free stuff and are relying on hand-outs all the time. i'm sure there are exceptions... before anyone shoots me.

I try to buy local and seasonal, keep food simple,avoid Tesco's if at all possible, grow a bit of veg and try not to worry too much!

I can't afford to be any more fussy than that.

Avoiding Tesco may be good for the environment but it's bad for my mental health. Sorry.

That's why I said if at all possible

simply because I spend too much if I go there!

tesco is disgusting. did you see that programme on them last week? they are the devil incarnate.

Yes. Every thing you ssaid JandJ'sMum. Had same convo with DH a few weeeks ago. Personally I struggle with cost and excess packaging.
Brilliant new shop has opened locally (bit miffed that they have got there first though as it is the same shop I dream of running in a few years time). It's an organic shop that sells everything, including Moltex nappies and eco cleaning stuff, make up, beauty products and sanitary products. Can't bloody afford it though.

In many ways shopping here in Nigeria is easier than in the UK because there's so little choice. It certainly takes less time! But I stood in a shop quite recently agonising over whether it was better to buy ordinary sugar which was produced in Brazil but packaged in Nigeria or Fair Trade stuff which was grown in Malawi. Nigeria used to produce all its own sugar but has let farming decline so much that they need to import sugar as well as rice and even cocoa.

I went for the FT stuff in the end but when I got home and read the small print, it had been packed in the UK so ecologically I'd probably have been better to buy the Brazilian stuff.

I buy local fruit and veg, the expat stuff is an extortionate price.

brilliant thread.... was in tanzania in small town for 2.5 years - limited food choices but all local and fresh. On coming back what struck me about food here was how tasteless it often is and about how much c**p is sold to us under the guise of choice - when in fact if u want local, seasonal stuff it is not in the supermarket,it is often costly & you have to go out of your way to get it!

too true rhj. why is it so hard to get nice local organic stuff??

although i get a fabulous organic box every week.

i'm often struck by how bad our fruit and veg taste. and the strawberries sold invariably are elsanta, which are sharp, not pleasant to eat at all, but have a long shelf life so that's what we get. if i ever see a pack of driscoll jubilee i snap them up.

let's stage an embargo on elsanta strawbs!

i think this is a fab title - excellent in fact i can see a newpaper nicking it instantly.

the answer i have is no.

we're all gonna die someday. everyone kinda knows whats healthy and whats not.

everything could be too exhausting if you look into it too much.

i'm eating icecream - yum. i haven't got a clue whats in it yum

I tried to buy Fair Trade sugar once -it was supposed to be ordinary granulated sugar but the whole bag was solid as a rock - I had to chisel it out! Is that normal????

JandJ - are there any online shops where you can get most of your stuff, or would this be much more expensive and not worth it ? I know there are companies that deliver organic fruit/veg. boxes. I don't do it because I have looked at a few that looked far more expensive than organic stuff I get in the supermarket.

I like fairtrade because of what it stands for, but fairtrade is very different from organic.

I try to give my son as little that is non-organic as is poss., so buying organic for me is more important than anything else, as at least it has far fewer chemicals than other products.

FAIRTRADE & ORGANIC are in my view the best products, but they are rare unless you are buying coffee, tea, choc, etc. I don't often see it labelled on fruit and veg, so for example I can get fairtrade bananas OR organic bananas in my local Tesco or Asda.

I am hoping this kind of dual certification will increase, but it probably costs the producers too much money to do both at the moment so they don't bother.

Somerfield do bananas that are both organic and Fair Trade - about the only good thing that shop does!

Sainsburys is also planning to make all its bananas Fair Trade by the end of 2007, so presumably that will mean its organic range too.

thanks portonovo - bananas are not ds favourite fruit he just likes apples - but am shocked Somerfield do them of all people - usually I would only go into one if needing milk or bread - never thought the one I had near me years ago had fresh enough fruit/veg. obviously they are trying to improve.