A few things before bed

[mousme]

I went shopping at Loblaws yesterday.

1- Food is becoming stupidly expensive. I categorically refuse to spend $6.00 on American broccoli. Broccoli is not worth $6.00. I am going to go to my local fruit & veggies store and see if theirs is cheaper (and hopefully locally-grown!).

I am looking at the food I eat lately, in terms of how far it's had to travel to get to me, and it makes the mind boggle. Does anyone out there know of a good book which can tell me what kind of fruits (apart from apples) are grown locally? What the hell did people do before oranges and lemons were consistently available in cold climates?

Anyway.

2- I brought my two eco-bags with me, and am pleased to report that all my shopping fit in them, apart from potatoes, cat litter and cat food, for which I didn't use bags at all. Normally that would have taken at least six or seven plastic bags (and if I'd put the big stuff in bags too, it'd be more like twenty bags!).

More on this later. I am working out a plan in my head to get my grocery shopping done entirely without the use of a gasoline-dependent machine. However, I'm not there yet.

3- People are, fundamentally, pretty okay. I was trying to get the cat litter off a high shelf, and since it was almost all gone, the containers were wedged way at the back of the shelf. I am not short (5'7" which is the national average for women my age), but my fingers didn't *quite* reach that far. So I asked a woman taller than I if she could bring down a container for me, and she complied, although she looked a bit bemused. It was nice. :)

4- I bought a pot roast. They were on sale for something like $1.99 a pound. Tomorrow I shall stick it in my slow-cooker, or something like that, and have a lovely meal. Several lovely meals, more like.

Now I am off to bed. I've been getting to sleep far too late, these days.

Comments

[curtana.livejournal.com]

What the hell did people do before oranges and lemons were consistently available in cold climates?

They... didn't eat them? Or at least, only very rarely, as special treats. There's a reason getting an orange in your stocking at Christmas used to be a big deal.

Check out markets for locally-grown produce. I used to shop at a farmer's market in Toronto that was great, but I don't know where comparable places are in Montreal. Jean-Talon, I guess, though I've never actually gone there. The one I went to in Toronto was just one day a week, a much less formal sort of thing, just set up in and around a community centre.

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah if the question is what did people do for vitamin c, then the answer is that meat is packed with the stuff. Humans and guinea pigs are the only mammals which don't produce their own vitamin c, all other mammals do. That's why scurvy was only ever a problem on ships, when there was no supply of fresh mammal meat available.

[dizietsma.livejournal.com]

that was me, by the way...forgot i had logged-out earlier

[curtana.livejournal.com]

Not to mention much more readily-available non-meat foods like cabbage and spinach. Sauerkraut was a major preventative of scurvy both on land and at sea before citrus fruits were readily available.

[ladyiolanthe.livejournal.com]

In Louisbourg in the 1750s-ish, they got a lot of vitamin C from beer they brewed from spruce trees. I can't remember with certainty what part of the tree they used, but I suspect it was the young bright green needles.

[mousme.livejournal.com]

Makes me wish I liked Spruce Beer...

[dizietsma.livejournal.com]

True about the veggies, but the way that they were usually prepared tended to remove the vitamins. boiling veggies in water, the vitamins leach out into the water and then we pour all that goodness away. that's why soup is so wonderful.

[curtana.livejournal.com]

the way that they were usually prepared

You mean like... in soup? And the anaerobic environment of pickled/salted foods like sauerkraut means the Vitamin C is well-preserved too. There's a reason Captain Cook took it on his voyages!

[ai731.livejournal.com]

Sauerkraut also prevents cancer. I've started buying and eating it as a side dish vegetable.

[mousme.livejournal.com]

Really? Cool. Must learn to make sauerkraut. Is it the sauerkraut specifically, or the cabbage itself?

[ai731.livejournal.com]

Both. Cabbage is generally very good, and fermenting is generally very good, so fermented cabbage is excellent. KimChi (Japanese/Korean spicy fermented cabbage with extra fish sauce) is up at the top of the list of anti-cancer foods. There's a good book by a local doctor who has done a ton of research into food: "Les Aliments Contre Le Cancer" I keep meaning to look for it in Chapters or Indigo.

[mousme.livejournal.com]

If I see a copy anywhere, I'll be sure to let you know.

Chapters and Indigo have a disheartening dearth of John Seymour books, except a $50 hardcover version of "The Self-Sufficient Life." Would you be willing to lend me your copy until such time as I can get my hands on one which won't bankrupt me? :)

[ai731.livejournal.com]

I'm not surprised they don't carry many of his books. A) they're very UK-focussed, and B) except the most recent edition of The Complete Guide to Self-Sufficiency, I wouldn't be surprised it they are all out of print. You're welcome to borrow the afore-mentioned recent edition, since I have one each of the most recent edition and the edition prior.

[mousme.livejournal.com]

Brilliant, thank you! :)

I am sad that they're likely out of print. Some of them look really interesting, especially the "Lost Arts & Crafts" ones.

[mousme.livejournal.com]

Mmm... soup.

[mousme.livejournal.com]

Yeah. Atwater market is devolving into yuppie-prices, but I may check out Jean-Talon next time I'm in the area.