I love, love, love, love shopping at organic grocery stores. They make finding ways to live cleaner almost effortless.
It is not just about local, organic produce. It is not even about the gluten free baking, the organic, raw chocolates (but holy crap does it come close!), the fairtrade coffee, organic cat food, the refill station for cleaning liquids, nor the relaxed and friendly staff.
It is about the innovation.
Regular grocery stores carry the same, tired old products. Trusted brands from our parent’s and grandparent’s time that have become stuck, immured in responsibilities to shareholders and the bottom line. Every decade or so they may tweak a few colours on the label, or redesign the shape of the handle on the bottle, but the contents remain the same.
Organic grocers stock their shelves with new ideas, new methods of doing things, new ways for me to clean my bathroom without having to wear gloves or worry about the health of my cat who believes the only water worth drinking in the house is in the toilet bowl.
I like to take my time doing the weekly groceries. I stroll up and down the aisles, scanning the shelves for new products to help me reduce my ecological footprint. I usually make a list ahead of time, but soon find myself filling my basket with additional treasures. I found a biodegradable toothbrush for crying out loud!
I can plant this sucker into the ground to be turned into dirt. Beyond cool.
Everywhere my wandering feet take me around the world I look for these markets. Some places have them in abundance (yay Vancouver!), others make me hunt harder. And I am sure there will be countries where people will look at me askance, as though I have suddenly sprouted a second head with purple hair, when I ask for directions to their organic grocery store.
No worries, I will find them and happily share my hunting strategies.
=)
Genevieve