Think Globally Act Locally | The Power Of R

So I've given these re-useable produce bags a try the last few times I've been grocery shopping. They definitely work well and turn a lot of  heads in the broccoli isle. I'm actually very impressed with these little bags called TazzyTotes. I use them for a majority of my shopping in the produce section and I even put a couple  Chorizo sausages in one to see how well it worked for deli stuff. The woman behind the deli counter was confused, "can we use this... is this legal... is it food safe?" "That's an interesting question," I replied. "I promise I won't sue you for living on the edge."

It's really amazing to look around the grocery store and see all of the packaging, I mean, actually see it for what it is. It's insanity. When I got home with my reusable bags and put them in the fridge, I went out to the garage and perused my overloaded recycling bins. About 95% of the stuff in my bins is food packaging. I'm not sure what to say about that except I think something is wrong with this picture.

Food security is a huge issue in our country and you only have to contract dysentery once to figure out why. Clean food is not something we really have to think about every day, save the listeria outbreak last year in Maple Leaf meat products.  The thing that bothers me the most though is our obsession with wrapping foods, even vegetables, into a state of total plasticity. Fancy plastic packaging is taking over what used to be a very natural and  "organic" daily routine.

When the woman at the deli counter contemplated the possibility of being fired for giving me two pieces of dried meat in my own bag, I had to give my head a shake. Our society is so safe that we can walk around like a bunch of lemmings and never really worry about falling over a ledge. It is possible to go through the day to day in Canada without actually being present until American Idol comes on and you need to wake up and become an expert singing judge for an hour. The Canadian legal system has done a very efficient job of separating our own consciousness from reality. Especially when it comes to grocery shopping.

For me, the grocery store is like a zombie land most of the time. I walk around there, buy stuff, and I don't really know where I've been until I arrive home. It's at that point I snap out of my consumer hypnosis and remember the organic green onions in the thick plastic bags saying ,"buy me I'm organic and pretty," the cauliflower saying "I can double as a bowling ball and I promise that I'm tasty," the California strawberries saying "we're flavorless and watery so that's why we need a plastic fish tank to keep us together in shipping... buy us anyways"  Really, where's the choice when the produce talks to you. Our brains are being buried in synthetic marketing.

We just need to wake up and make the experience of shopping a discerning process again. At the very least, talk back when we're being told what to do by a pile of plastic wrapped cucumbers. Maybe if we peel all of the plastic off the vegetables before we buy them, the stores will put pressure on the suppliers to stop sending veggies wrapped in petroleum products.  The grocery store would amass so much garbage that things would have to change. Give a reusable bag a try next time you go shopping, they don't talk back I promise.