Five Is OneToo Many!

Since I spent the better part of the morning railing against everyone else not being environmental enough, I thought I'd better put my money where my mouth is. :-)

And I officially switched my grocery shopping allegiance from Safeway to Giant.

Giant is a little more expensive but a better grocery store on the whole. For one thing, when you walk in the front door there is a display of reusable shopping bags. You purchase a bag for 99 cents and every time you give it to the cashier at checkout to be filled with your groceries, they give you a 3 cent credit. I always thought, just as I was leaving the store, I should buy some of those bags. Never mind that they pay for themselves over time, I can have them in the car and take them with me into other retailers, thereby saving more plastic bags when I shop. Not to mention having them for my farm pickup. Giant gives you a 3 cent credit for bringing back paper bags, too, but paper bags are not nearly as sturdy. So the children and I stopped right inside the doorway and purchased 5 reusable shopping bags. I thought that I would get a few each time I came until I had enough. Imagine my surprise when all my weekly shopping fit into just four bags! So if you are putting off buying these because you think you'll have to get a ton, reconsider. They can fit a lot more into a bag with structured sides, not to mention that it can bear more weight.

Giant and Safeway both have house organic brands but Giant has a lot more in their line, including natural meats. So I appreciate that. They also have more local produce. My favorite thing, though, is that they have bins of reduced price merchandise. I've never seen those at Safeway. I stopped today at the scratch and dent (perfectly safe for boxed stuff but never buy a dented can) and got some products which weren't selling well so they reduced the prices. Banana nectar, for one. The kids were excited to try that. A lot of the "strange" foods that stores can't sell work out perfectly for me because they are the weird things I wanted to try anyway. I got two new spices: wasabi powder and lemongrass. Whole wheat pasta. All kinds of good things. They also have a section of old-ish bakery products which is where we always get our raisin bread. Right now the kids are enjoying raisin bread and banana nectar for their lunch.

I still can't believe that all the reusable bags I needed today cost just $4! And the kids got a thrill out of carrying them around the store and handing them to the cashier when she asked for one. It's a thrill for the ego, too, as people stopped me to say, that is such a good idea, I should do that. One woman told me that she was shopping at Ikea and they counted up the plastic bags she used for her purchases, then charged her a nickel each. I had heard they were going to do that. I'm so glad that I live in an era where you actually see people changing the world for the better.