Habits die hard. Real hard when they are based on pure convenience.

I went grocery shopping yesterday. And in the eyes of the environmental movement I failed miserably. Why? For many reasons. First, I basically had 10 mins to shop for an entire week’s worth of food. A very desperate 10 mins, knowing that my husband and two small children were in the car circling the grocery store (I know, I know, horrifying – driving around spewing carbon for no good reason at all*), anxiously awaiting my exit. This was not the time to begin my journey to becoming a greener consumer. I didn’t have the time to browse the aisles, read the labels, contemplate my choices. I just had to get in and get out of there, fast.

As I was running through the aisles throwing stuff** in the cart I had a lot of guilt. Now that I have decided to embark on this pursuit of a greener lifestyle I am watching everything I do with a critical eye. The added pressure of this blog being a sort of diary of my progress, is a fantastic motivator. I feel responsible. I can’t turn back now. I am in deep. I have made some pretty hefty statements. I don’t want to look like some sort of hypocrite who talks big but caves when it comes to action. I mean for all I know my mom and my husband are my only devoted readers. But you know what, it doesn’t matter. I am going to do this.

So a big part of making this happen is by starting to change some of my “bad” habits. The next time I need to do a big grocery shop I am going to make sure I have a good chunk of time to re-discover my supermarket. Most of our big grocery stores have a good selection of organic and natural products. There are healthier, greener options which are very conveniently available. And, perhaps soon I can try to avoid the big supermarket for a couple of weeks. There is a fantastic farmer’s market on Thursday afternoons at a park not far from my home. A weekly or at least a bi-weekly visit there would really be a positive addition to my new and improved food shopping experience.

Baby steps.

* other than the fact that if they were to park and turn the car off they would freeze to death due to insanely cold temperatures of -20 C
** I won’t get into the details, but let’s just say there was a few individually wrapped items, a big box of diapers, some seedless grapes from Chile…..