Q: How do I make the green switch on a tight budget from No Frills to a health food store?
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A: It’s tough to compete when you’re an organic red pepper or an organic shampoo bottle. Your conventional competition will beat your sticker price every time.
Why does green stuff have to cost so much? The real question is how the conventional stuff has grown so alluringly cheap. If you ask my father, he’ll tell you that back in the 50s a whole chicken was a costly Sunday-night treat.
Meanwhile, back to the future, North Americans eat 22.6 kilos more animal products per person per year than we did 50 years ago. You can thank factory farming and super-subsidized corn prices for that one.
Ask my mom, who was raised on the poor side of Montreal, about the cost of consumer goods and she’ll proudly recall, “There was no cheap anything. Everything was made in Canada, so you bought less stuff and took good care of your things.”
It’s a tougher pitch today, when everything is built to collapse rather than to last. Try holding on to a pair of Payless shoes or a Le Chateau shirt for more than a season and see what I mean.
Truth is, we now expect to spend way less of our earnings on way more. Take clothing. Americans used to spend an average 9 per cent of their disposable income on clothes and shoes back in 1950. That figure’s dropped to just under 3 per cent. Canadians used to spend nearly 25 per cent of their income on food, and now it hovers around 10 per cent. Of course, the full cost is off-loaded onto the people and planet working to crank it out .
All this is to say that my first tip for every penny-pinched planet hopeful, including me, is let’s challenge ourselves to buy less of what we don’t need and spend more on what we do.
Sounds simple, but seriously, North Americans end up trashing about 30 per cent of the food we bring home. Get a grip by carrying a weekly meal plan with you so every broccoli head and green bean is accounted for. If it’s about to expire or rot and you’re not going to be home to eat it, freeze the lot of it. (Works for everything from muffins to leftovers. For veggie freezing tips see tipnut.com/freeze-vegetables.)
As much as I love ’em, I’ve come to realize that organic farmers’ markets aren’t priced all that affordably for most, unless you go at the very end of the day (ahem), when deals abound on fresh-baked bread, berries and beets. Otherwise, the best way to score discount prices for locally grown organic produce in season is by signing up for a share in community supported agriculture.
A share from Plan B scores two people a week’s worth of locally grown, pesticide-free veggies for just $22. A $30/week share will cover a family of four.
Don’t be shy about flyer-chasing and note-taking to compare sticker prices at various shops à la Grandpa. I always just winged it until my personal store-by-store spread sheet on the back of a crumpled piece of paper revealed that organic yogurt, cheese and canned tomatoes are cheaper at one local grocery chain, but organic Swiss chard, goat cheese and eggs are cheaper at my local health food co-op.
Make the bulk store your BFF and stock up on everything it has that’s organic. Yes, that means taking the time to soak organic beans instead of cracking a can. It also means playing with money- and resource-saving chickpea dishes instead of chicken way more often.
Lastly, set aside one DIY night or weekend afternoon a week with friends/family/roommates/your cat to make your own anything. It could be baking your own bread, concocting your own body care products (see makeyourowncosmetics.com), throwing a “bring your own jar” homemade green cleaner party or anything remotely Bob Villa-ish.
Now, your bigger question is “How do you get greener foods and goods to cost the same as the conventional junk?” You tell the feds to cut their subsidies to conventional farmers or start subsidizing organics just as much. While you’re at it, ask mainstream companies to factor in the full environmental, health and social costs of their business tactics.
Hate to say it, but if the sticker on sustainables ever falls to Walmart lows, someone somewhere will be paying for it.
Got a question?
Send your green queries to ecoholic@nowtoronto.com
