Small decisions

Do you ever realise that you have forgotten something really obvious? Like where to go shopping.

Being the generation that I am, and having grown up in a city with all the anonymity that that entails it I have always just shopped at a supermarket. I mean why wouldn't you, they have everything you need and the prices are cheaper than anywhere else.

And yet over the last few years I have noticed more and more news stories that make me question that obvious choice. Reports of the power supermarkets hold over their suppliers, how they can dictate the price they sell their goods at and even drive them out of business if they refuse to comply. Stories of new technology that allows food to be kept on the shelves longer because it still looks ok, or new varieties that travel well but have less nutrients than traditional ones.

So one day Nicola went to our local butcher. And because there was someone there to ask, she did so. And yes their chicken is free range, so is the pork and the eggs and the beef is grass fed. They could tell her where everything came from as well as the ingredients in the sausages - because of course they make them themselves.

So now we buy our meat from the butcher. Afterwards I may still go to the supermarket but now buy a lot, lot less there and can choose what I purchase rather than taking what they decide to offer me.

It is perhaps not so surprising that I had forgotten all of this - given the massive advertising budgets that large companies have and the influence they have in parliament  to change our laws even to force small producers out, but I still feel daft for having been conned for so long. But I take hope in the fact that others are not so gullible, and as a designer maker myself I see proof of this everytime someone chooses something I have made over something from some faceless factory.

So if there is a point to all my rambling it is this - never stop questioning what you are told because the little everyday choices we make quietly can have just as much effect as marching on parliament.

Buy local, buy handmade.