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

[speedking162.livejournal.com]

I think that you could find out through farmers' markets around you, if there are them in Canada. They should have locally grown produce and they should be similarly priced but I am unsure.

[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.

[moskevyu.livejournal.com]

I adore slow-cooker cooking. :o)

I unfortunately cannot weigh in on the vitamin c debate, but broccoli! Yipes. I've never seen it cost that much.

[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.

[whiskeygirl8.livejournal.com]

Is the broccoli different over here or do they just import it? If they just import it, why would they do that? If it is different over here, how is it different? (I doubt it is different, but I've heard of stranger things and that is the first thing that pops into the mind when one read, "American broccoli." Although, I strongly suspect it's just imported.)

[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!

[silly-imp.livejournal.com]

$6 broccoli! Outrageous. I don't even think I've seen organic broccoli that high!

Try Atwater Market for local produce. They also have a local organic farm that has a booth there. I'm not sure who's there in the winter though. The only thing is, a lot of the booths sell produce imported from other farms in addition to their own stuff (and probably exclusively "imported" stuff in the winter. Just ask if it's local and they'll tell you.)

[curtana.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah, I meant to add - I'm fairly sure that at the Loblaws we go to, the produce says (roughly) where it's from - Quebec, Canada, US, or wherever. Look closely on the little signs that also tell you the price - it may be in fairly small print. Or if it's something that's usually sold boxed, like berries, it should say on the label.

[mousme.livejournal.com]

Sorry, I meant "imported from the US." It was just easier to say "American."

Although I've noticed our broccoli (as far as I've seen) has shorter and thicker stems and more flowers.

[mousme.livejournal.com]

Yep. I couldn't find a single damned local vegetable at my Loblaws. It was most disheartening.

Next time, I'm going to try my local place. ai731 and baronscartop tell me that it's quite good and very reasonably priced.

[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.

[mousme.livejournal.com]

Neither have I, hence my shock.

[mousme.livejournal.com]

Makes me wish I liked Spruce Beer...

[mousme.livejournal.com]

Mmm... soup.

[curtana.livejournal.com]

couldn't find a single damned local vegetable at my Loblaws.

's cause it's January ;)

[ai731.livejournal.com]

There are two main large farmer's markets in Montreal. One is very far away by public transport and the other is more expensive than it needs to be. owldaughter and I were kicking around the idea of car-pooling to the far-away one regularly come spring/summer...

[ai731.livejournal.com]

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

[ai731.livejournal.com]

Not necessarily. There's sometimes quite a lot of local greenhouse-grown vegetables. And since the greenhouses are heated with electricity from renewable sources (leaving asside the ecology of building massive hydro dams), they're probably more environmentally sound than vegetables trucked here from California. In my experience, IGA is better at stocking local stuff than Loblaws.

[ai731.livejournal.com]

I also bought a $1.99 pot roast and will be slow-cooking it in my wonderful slow-cooker.

[curtana.livejournal.com]

My point was not that there's no local produce in January, just that I've generally seen more of it at Loblaws in the summer and fall.

[mousme.livejournal.com]

They didn't even have stuff that might've been preserved from the autumn harvest. Even ridiculously overpriced, I might've considered that. :P

Oh well. :)