Change is never easy!

During the last few weeks I have been monitoring my consumption habits. I’ve been paying particular attention to what I purchase, when I purchase, and how I felt during that time. The following two weeks I have made some small personal changes in my consumption behavior. I always’s thought I was a semi-smart consumer, but after examining my behavior basically under a microscope it is clear there is always room for change.

Initial Two weeks: Monitoring Period

Food: I did not realize how much I’m thinking about food ALL the time or how conscience I was about planning my whole day around food.

I live in a small city called Red Deer. Grocery stores are easily accessible and can be seen in any direction that I look. My grocery shopping habits are ridiculous during this initial period. My partner and I go grocery shopping once per week on average. We always seem to go at the most inconvenient time. We always laugh and say “looks like everyone in town had the same idea”. It is always an experience we dread, rubbing shoulders to grab lettuce. We try to make the experience quick and as painless as possible. Once the food comes home we will order take out or whip up something quick usually unhealthy. (This is horrible I know-It’s like were too exhausted by the process that we can’t be bothered to cook) By the end of the week our fridge has a few old fruits or vegetables that we promised we’d eat “this time”. Our fridge drawers have been a vegetable graveyard a time or to. Upon further inspection of my wallet, I have a card or a membership to so many grocery stores! Some memberships have been purchased like my Costco card or CO-OP. I have three separate "points" cards on my key chain.

Water Consumption:

Chris and I drink so much bottled water! We live in a town with a great water supply. In two weeks we went through 7 cases of water between the two of us.

Festive Occasions:

During the monitoring period we were bombarded with ads about Halloween candy and Halloween décor. We caved and bought some candy for the trick or treaters and a pumpkin to carve together. However, we had to return back to the store to buy more candy TWICE because Chris is a candy monster and went through two boxes of chocolate. I’m really surprised to report he only had 1 tummy ache during this time. Yes you can laugh! I secretly did!

Time to make some changes

I asked my partner to do the following changes with me. We both agreed that we were mindful consumers but could still do more. We agreed to support each other as a team and hold each other accountable. It made me feel great knowing I was not alone in the process. It was an opportunity to educate ourselves and in the process, share some of our insights. Here is how it went.

The dreaded grocery shopping:

I have been hearing how micro-greens will be the way of the future and “coming to a grocery store near you in 2017”.It could very well be the next marketing scheme. However my boyfriend has been suggesting we try to grow some ourselves for awhile. It seemed perfect to incorporate an easy growing opportunity of vegetable and fruit sprouts for eating. 

I did some research and decided to grow what I could in my front bay window where we catch the most morning sunlight. Me and Chris purchased 10 000 GMO free micro green seeds for $5.00 CA . It has sparked an immense interest in growing small little greens that depending how our first few trial runs go-we may make this a long term idea! We grew some kale, a pepper, broccoli, etc.

Micro greens are little sprouts that you harvest after a week. It is grown very quickly and in a small container. See my little set up below. I used Asian jello cups (recycled) to use for mini growing pots. I cut a hole underneath to drain excess water. I left them by the window, adding water when they looked  a little dry. I have never excelled with the green thumb before so I felt I could handle this job. We thought we would supplement these sprouts to our existing diet. Mulligan (2015) argues the need for the re-localisation of food. (p.37) Our little window set up is a far removed from large scale factory farms.

We decided we would significantly reduce beef in our diet. We weren’t huge beef eaters anyway, but decided we simply purchase if we needed for a specific dinner occasion. Chris is a hunter so we are hoping to fill our freezer with deer and moose meat for the winter as an alternative.

I watched “Before the Flood” with Leonardio Dicaprio this week. He does an incredible job of modeling how methane is realized into the atmosphere when cows burp while eating. The methane is much more harmful to the atmosphere than carbon dioxide. I’ve been raving to everyone about how much I loved this documentary. If you get some spare time it is a documentary worth watching.

National Geographic

Water Consumption:

Since making the changes we agreed not to purchase any more bottled water. It is simply unnecessary since we have perfectly safe & clean drinking water. This was a challenging task for me! I have had this habit as a child. Growing up on the reserve and not having the option of clean drinking water. I had to consciously think each time I wanted water. There have been multiple times where I reach for a bottled water.

I adopted the  “yellow let it mellow” concept. If anyone is unsure about this basically if you go #1-don’t flush until the next #1. MAJOR RULE: Make sure you fill in your boyfriend that we’re doing this. Sure makes for an interesting conversation when you did not previously discuss it.

Festive Occasions:

In order to make some changes in our consumption behavior for the Halloween season, we upcycled some wine bottles for some house decoration. It was great doing a new activity with my partner. We had some great discussions while trying something new. It was a great bonding activity.

Normally we’d pick up a few things for the indoor and outdoor Halloween decorations. Etzioni mentions how people can get out of control and buy unnecessary things like blow up Santa’s. I am normally one of these people. My neighbor across the street and had an elaborate set up. I noticed the kids were drawn to the other side of the street and I was sad we did not get as many trick or treaters this year. If I had to guess I’d say it was because we did not purchase any decorations this year.

On Halloween day while we carved our pumpkin we learned that there was a shortage of pumpkins in Alberta. We felt slightly guilty knowing we got ours weeks before.

Here is our pumpkin. We named it  the “Toothless Tim”. Along with the pumpkin shortage, some who were out of pumpkins carved other fruits. Their amazing talents put our Toothless Tim to shame!

Global News-Pumpkin Shortage

Conclusion:

At the end of the day, if Chris ever read my homework assignment, he’d probably say I’d made us look like we are the worst consumers of Red Deer. I’m happy to note that we’re not as bad I think we are. We would consider ourselves engaged with ethical consumption in some dry good areas. Coffee and sugar notably.  We go to fair trade fair’s and purchase our home décor with fair trade products.

Our goals may not have been lofty, however our small changes in our household will lead to other changes in consumer behavior in the future. This exercise of examining my own consumer behavior was at times uncomfortable but much needed. I’ve concluded I turn into Mulligan’s term the “cult of the individual” in grocery stores. I do agree I avoid social participation in packed grocery stores. We’ve also tried to have a more positive experience at the grocery store because simply it is a task that must be done.  We are working to increase our social participation and actually talk to our community members while we are out instead of dodging eye contact!