Why I spent the last 2 hours feeling miserable and silly at the same time

[ailbhe]

Here I am, making up my menu plan and shopping list, blinking back the tears.

Why? Because we really cannot stretch to buying all our food in the highly ethical-consumer way we were until recently. We really, really can't. And I spent years working up to that level of knowing-my-food-was-clean and now I have to work back down again, not in a just-this-once way, but in a lifestyle change way.

It's so sad.

(Yes, other people have real problems, I know. One of the things I loved about not being poor, when I started to not be poor, was the choice to make ethical buying decisions).

I'm feeding our shopping list into online shopping services for the places we can't easily reach without the trike; in general, paying for delivery is cheaper than paying to get the bus.

(I actually just broke down and sobbed on Rob's shoulder; we used to use less meat per meal and the main result was that I didn't eat enough; our easiest money-saving option is for me to not eat enough and that's the first thing I tried, months ago, to save money; this is really, really broken - but so is the meat industry, and the fact that when I'm vegetarian I get sick).

We are, actually, of above average means. I'm just... cracked in places.

Comments

[1ngi.livejournal.com]

*hug*

Please don't negate yourself.

(Is freedom food instead of organic a reasonable compromise?)

[gloriap.livejournal.com]

My motto has always been "I do the best I can with what I have." Please don't beat yourself up over this. Your standards may be unrealistic and too high. Perhaps you need to rethink them.

It's a lot easier to eat ethically in summer, especially if you have a garden.

In addition to meat, there are many other sources of protein. You may want to include some along with your meat to stretch it a bit. You can't take proper care of Rob and the girls if you aren't healthy.

Hugs to you in the meantime. It's hard to face change.

[hobbitbabe.livejournal.com]

You are really really smart to notice that you used to not feed yourself properly for your body, and to know that you can't make that choice again.

Does it help that the decisions aren't all-or-nothing? That maybe you can still get some of the best-sourced food, and some of the not-the-best but not-the-worst? Or that some of the stuff you're giving up might still be special treats?

Does it help your conscience that you've already made lots of readers more aware of the potential choices and options? I loved reading when you were measuring water use for washing up vs dishwasher, and I also found your posts about helping at the, I'm sorry I forget the name but some kind of food co-op, kind of inspiring. I also really admire the way you balance your kids' dietary restrictions, ethical food, and the pragmatics of sometimes being stuck with hungry kids away from home.

Also, does paying for deliveries sometimes mean that your time required is just to be stuck home that day, in comparison to having to arrange a bus excursion for three or four with enough extra carrying power for the shopping? Delivery is probably a pretty good environmental choice, since the truck would be going round to lots of people.

[caerleon.livejournal.com]

Indeed.. when reality strikes, and it can strike hard on occasion, just do the best you can to stick to your principles.. sometimes that's all we can do..

[rmc28]

I really sympathise and you shouldn't feel silly about being upset about having to compromise your principles.

I want to add myself to the list of the people inspired by your openness about ethical consumption; I don't think I ever have managed to be as thorough about it as you, but we do try, and because of you we know more of the options.

On home delivery, I've ordered with Ocado a couple of times; they spam me a bit, but they claim to be "greener than walking to the supermarket" and I'm happier spending money with the John Lewis partnership than I am with Tesco. Sometimes it even works out cheaper ;)

[clare-s.livejournal.com]

A friend of mine always shops with Waitrose (IIRC Ocado uses their groceries) because she believes their meat to be of better quality, more ethical and more locally sourced. I haven't personally seen the evidence for this but she is an ethical consumer I believe.

On the original point I think you are right to put your health first despite it not being as ethical as you would like. At least with a food shop you can decide on an item by item basis to get the best balance of nutrition and ethics which is, I am sure, what you are doing.

Have you been to the GP and had a good check over to make sure there is nothing there that needs treating medically ? I cannot recall the exact symptoms you had but I have a feeling some of them fit with a B12 deficiency.

[the0lady.livejournal.com]

I don't think you have anything to feel silly about. I would sob too if I felt that there was something I wanted but couldn;t afford; in and of itself that is a scary and mortifying thing to face.

Being upset about having to compromise one's principles is a testament to the fact that one is a genuinely principled person. Ethics you can just shrug off are not principles but preferences, and you are definitely not one of those "lifestyle" ethical consumers. So wear your hurt feelings with pride. *hug*

[mrs-redboots.livejournal.com]

You have to put your health first, that's a given! Do you absolutely have to eat meat every day, though, or does your body mind fish/beans/cheese/eggs as its source of protein some or more of the time (and yes, there are sustainable and sensible versions of all of these available)?

[taimatsu]

Do bear in mind that while you are having to downgrade your ethical-buying habits, you have inspired other people to upgrade theirs - I will be trying to buy more ethically as I begin to be actually paid an actual wage, and that's down to you. I won't be able to take it as far as you had managed to in the past, but your impact is wider than your own shopping basket.

[tiggsybabes.livejournal.com]

I do the best we can within our food budget. I don't buy from the bargain ranges for things like meat & eggs, as I like to know about the ethics behind that sort of thing. I buy organic free range chicken from waitrose when we have guests, which I did last week, but a medium size chicken was £8 odd, instead of the usual £5 odd I'm used to. I buy waitrose value range ketchup, cereals, baked beans etc.

I was horrified when one of the TAs at school suggested I should buy battery eggs for baking in school as they're cheaper. No way!

I was a bit grossed out watching a documentary yesterday at my family health course about what goes into value range sausages & meat pies, but I don't buy that sort of thing as it has wheat in & eww anyway, how can it be made from quality ingredients & be so cheap? :(

[ailbhe]

We don't eat meat every day. But we need to increase our serving sizes on those days when we *do* eat meat.

Edit: And in my universe, fish is meat.

[mrs-redboots.livejournal.com]

Fair enough (fish being meat, I mean!). You will find, I suspect, as we have, that as you get older you'll need a lot less - which is no consolation here and now, I agree.

[ai731.livejournal.com]

Have you investigated what Sainsbury's has in the way of free range whole chickens? Not being in the UK, of course, I only know things by hearsay, but when Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall did a documentary-thingy about battery chicken vs. free range chicken farming, Sainsbury's were the only chain actually willing to talk to him on camera about how to get more free range chicken onto supermarket shelves at a reasonable price. And from what I undestand (again, from the same documentary), I would be able to eat free-range chicken in the EU without guilt.

[ailbhe]

Happy birthday! I'm sorry we missed it completely.

Yes, Sainsburys have a good range of organic and free range meat. The most difficult thing to find is ethically sourced fish, but Lidl have medium-ethical fish fingers, so that helps. Lidl have free range chicken too but it's not as nice as organic chicken (so we don't eat every last morsel - false economy!)

[(Anonymous)]

But you could make soup with the chicken carcass! With chopped up vegetables and barley, it's delicious and nourishing and can make a filling meal when eaten with a slab of your home-made bread! :-D We often don't pick a chicken clean, but always use the carcass for soup, even when we've picked it *nearly* clean. Mind you, a pressure cooker is a real boon when soup-making. Reduces a couple of hours boiling time to about 20 minutes! Have you got one?

I don't bother with 'Organic', but do always buy free-range, which is my compromise to the ethics versus economy problem.

Waitrose do offer ethically sourced fish, but it's not cheap :-/

And can I also put myself down as someone inspired by your ethical stances? :-)

Elaine

[ailbhe]

We do make soup with the chicken carcass.

[kelvix.livejournal.com]

I'm so sorry you're feeling angry about this - it's hard when you feel you have to bend your principles - and eating and living an ecologically sustainable lifestyle is important to you, I know.

Meat is, SFAIK the most expensive part of my meal budget - closely followed by cheese/eggs/other animal proteins. I know there are some that manage well on a diet without meat/fish, but I think it adds a lot.

Perhaps the bottom line is that you need to keep yourself healthy, so that you can keep your family healthy. If cutting down the meat intake is not enough, and you tried that, and you tried going and getting cheaper cuts of meat etc, then something has to give. Don't let it be your health.

A principle is a guiding light, for me - I will buy happy eggs, and mayonnaise made with happy eggs. But I cannot stretch to happy meat. If I could, I would.

[radegund.livejournal.com]

My friend-who-eats-roadkill had a post recently that I found interesting, about meat eating and peat use. She makes the point that sustainability must include affordability. I don't know if that helps at all - probably not - but it did remind me how arsed up it is that ethical choices are almost always expensive choices - and that the construction of such choices as a moral issue is inextricable from the kyriarchal thing.

Her post is here, by the way.

Would you ever keep chickens? I go back and forth on that.

[ailbhe]

We've worked out that if we're careful we can manage £1 per person per meal for meat and still eat ethically-certified meat or fish. I'd keep chickens if we had the space, but we truly don't. I mean, we do because people keep them on balconies sometimes but I would not feel right.

[ailbhe]

My problem is that we *used* to and now I'm finding it hard to go *backwards* in living my ideals. But we're working it out.

[ailbhe]

Thank you, I've been really thinking about that "Ethics you can just shrug off are not principles but preferences" part and it seems to be really the core of what's up now.

The second internet supermarket order was easier than the first.

[the0lady.livejournal.com]

Good, I'm glad it's getting better.

As a corrolary to the above, principles that you cannot bend to the service of sanity and well being are fundamentalist morality, and that's equally bad in a whole heap of other ways.

A nice intelligent place in the middle is where I see your natural niche. =)