Now I have to warn you that this will no doubt be a fairly long post today! Em is at kindy and Georgie is happily running around by herself so not only do I have a lot to write about, but I have the time to do it too :D
Shopping Dilemma
Right this is my first issue! Because I live in a fairly rural-ish regional centre we don't have a lot of the variety for purchasing that our city counterparts do. At the moment I am struggling with our Fruit & Veg shopping. We have the option of having Organic F&V delivered to our door which is fabulous, but this obviously requires considerable transportation costs to reach us, the variety is not huge and to be honest I'm not a huge fan of the quality (probably due to limited sources that this particular company use?), and its quite expensive (more-so than the few times I can actually source organic F&V at the local Woolies) and you must have a minimum order value of $50 which means I often order a few extra things to be sure I reach that value as its difficult to predict the total F&V costing.
The alternatives here are the local supermarkets and Woolworths does sometimes stock some organic food, and does seem to slowly be stocking more and more of it, or I could use the local Growers Own Co-Op. Now this would be my preferred option as its all local produce so no excessive transport fees and we would be supporting local producers... BUT (and there's always a but!), there are no organic options available locally.
So, I guess my dilemma is then do I use organic foods and risk sourcing what I can at the supermarkets and then getting the rest from the organics deliverer and continue to purchase *extras* just in case...
Or do I use the local Growers Own and risk adding extra chemicals etc into our bodies (remembering that my girls have shocking allergies/intolerances)?
Or do I just shop at Woolworths and use as many organic options as I can and then source the rest from the local Growers Own? Or even the Organics deliverer?
Oh and as an added thing to consider, we are about to embark on 9 week Biomedical Intervention Program to aid the girls healing and recovery from their many issues, and whilst on this program we will have a very strict diet, most of which will be made from ingredients we need to source from the Biochemist. The only extra things we may need will be things like F&V and meat... Actually this is a whole other issue too... as part of the program we need to eliminate every single possible source of contamination with banned foods, so that means we actually have to replace things like our toaster, wooden spoons, wooden cutting boards, pastry brushes etc - anything that cannot be 100% spotless must be replaced according to the rules. So we are going to have to do some consuming that we would prefer not to, but at this point we are prepared to do ANYTHING to help our little girls.
Perhaps I'm best to continue sourcing it all from the organics deliverer (if we are buying meat AND F&V from him I'm sure we'll hit our $50/week limit) so that we are as chemical free as possible for our program...
hmmmm what to do!
That actually brings me to my next issue!
Carbon Offsets!
Because of where we live we do order a lot of things in - food (as above!), organic clothing/fabric if possible, natural skin care things, even books etc. Now the thing that has got me thinking about this the most is that we have finally decided on the Fort that we are ordering (actually I think Pete already has ordered it!), for the girls as their Christmas Present from last year. We looked at loads of them and the one that we have settled on for so many reasons including safety, manufacture, price, customer service etc, just so happens to be from a company based in Western Australia.
So, this got me thinking - can I offset the carbon emissions that will be used in its transportation? Which then opened a whole new kettle of fish! Can I offset Carbon Emissions for a whole host of other things too? (Organic delivered food comes to mind!).
I haven't done any googling yet and to be honest my googling skills need some work, but I want to find out if there is a site I can go to that can help me calculate my carbon emissions and work out what would be required to offset them. We are planning on doing considerable gardening here so we can obviously plant a number of plants to help, and we have our 127 acres that I am happy to plant as much as possible on and limit any non-necessary clearing on.
But is there somewhere to help me do the calculations?
Now the last issue is so not related to consumerism its not funny! But I have this blog and I don't really want another one just to track my progress with this issue so you guys are just going to have to put up with more ramblings from me!
Birthing...
That kind of says it all doesn't it! No I am not happy with the way I have given birth to my children and its still causing considerable upset. On the way back form Mackay on Sunday I wrote a huge journal entry that helped me clarify a lot of it so I'm going to type it up and put the link here so you guys can read it too...
But the crux of it is that I had both my daughters by caesarean section and as it is extremely unlikely I will have any more children, I am not coping so well with the fact that I am never going to experience the very thing my body was designed to do and the thing I believe so much in...
I'll go type my notes and add them in here! HERE IT IS - MY BIRTH RAMBLINGS
Here's a link to the inspirational piece "Welcome to Holland"
OK that's enough rambling for now - as you can see my mind is all over the place!
4 comments:
Wow!! That was a big blog!!! With your shopping dilemma, I'd be tempted to go the expensive organic deliverer way, and maybe ask around at your local co-op to see whether anyone is starting to go organic? I think when people start to farm organically they can't market it as organic for some time until they get certification - so there might be some which are pretty much organic - but can't advertise the fact if you get what I mean? I think the best result would be to source organic locally grown stuff from your co-op. I know with Woollies that the more people who buy organic from them, the more demand there will be and the more they will stock etc etc but I have issues with them as - I think they transport the food heaps as they have some weird warehouse thing happening. The totally bizarre thing is from what I understand about Tassie food that ends up in Woollies is that it is grown in Tassie (which is where I live) then sold to Woolies who ship it to their warehouses in Victoria and then it comes back to Tassie to be sold in the Woolies supermarkets which kinda doesn't make sense especially since Tassie has a lot of quarantine requirements which means that all food is sprayed before it enters the state (I imagine this applies to organic food as well). So the carbon value is way high due to all the transportation and stuff. Also, I bought my first organic vegie in Woolies last Sunday - 2 zucchinis - and they were on a plastic meat tray covered in plastic wrap. What??? Again, I think they are jumping on the organic bandwagon because they think it will make them money, without actually thinking the whole thing through. Anyway, enough ranting from me. Oh, by the way, I think birthing by CC is fine. Everyone is different. You grew 2 fine babies inside of you and they are now 2 fine children who will grow into 2 fine adults. What's not to like??? I think you did great.
Hi Theresa,
Phew, there is a lot of stuff to consider in your post, LOL. Firstly, in regards to organic foods, I have to say that from a health viewpoint, if your kids have health issues serious enough to warrant a strict 9 week regimen, it seems a little odd almost to then continue to feed them conventionally-produced F&V? Just my opinion of course, but if it is at all possible, I would stay far away from pesticide-drenched produce even if it just for that 9 week period.
I agree with coldcloth in regards to the carbon emissions. If it possible stay away from the Woolies organics, primarily because, as coldcloth mentioned, everything Woolies (and Coles) buys goes to central warehousing facilities to be redistributed around the country. In my opinion that extra resource use (and their need to wrap everything in plastic) cancels out the gains made by farming organically, if that makes sense. Better to buy (ideally locally-grown) food from your organic co-op, even if it is delivered to you. For example, they will generally buy in bulk and repackage it for you - usually not in plastic - so you will save on your resource consumption there too.
FWIW, I highly recommend growing your own if you can: No carbon emissions to consider, you know it hasn't been sprayed, and it's an excellent educational opportunity for your kids. As a novice grower I started with just cherry tomatoes in pots and worked up to a vegie garden from there.
In regards to carbon offsets, if you want to you can offset just about anything these days, just google "carbon offsetting" (and click on the "pages from Australia" tab), or you could have a look at the Todae site's offsets here. To be honest, I am not all that convinced of the effectiveness of many of these schemes though, and I'd go with your thoughts about planting your own trees - you're adding to your local amenity and providing habitat for local wildlife - although offhand I don't know of a carbon calculator for specific events like transporting a toy fort from WA for example...
Lastly, I can sympathise with your CS births. Two of my 3 kids were CS, and I don't think it's at all silly to be grieving the lack of a "natural" birth. Although my 1st bub was technically vaginal, it was not at all "natural" and extremely traumatic for both of us, although that wasn't the reason for the subsequent CS's: #2 was an emergency CS as she was stuck (including a mid-labour hospital transfer via ambulance) and #3 was an elective CS as she was breech with the cord wrapped around her neck twice. I had three goes at a "natural" birth and didn't get one, LOL. Sometimes the choice just isn't there for us, so as hard as it is to accept we have to get on with it, but it does take time to heal those emotional wounds... Good luck.
Cheers, Julie
Thanks guys!
CC & J you are both right about the buying organics and to be honest, I think I *knew* that was the right way to go - just needed to get it all out IYKWIM! Oh and I do have a bit of a personality clash with the guy who delivers the food, but that can be another *growing* challenge for me this year - to not be bothered by him!
As for Carbon Emissions, I don't want to give anyone else my $$ so I would much rather a)reduce the amount we have & b) plant trees! A very crude calculator I found online yesterday showed our yearly emissions would be the equivalent of 214-240 trees so I'm now wondering if I can commit to SAVING that many per year on our block, or if I really do need to ADD that many! I think reduction is of course the main goal and doing what else we can to help where we can...
Julie - thanks so much for your comments on my c/s's - I'm hoping that by getting it all out I can start to truly heal :) And BTW - I LOVE your blog - I have often had a little read and you are another source of great inspiration so Thank You! Your post about your utility usage has inspired me to do something similar - should make some recordings today!
Oh and Planting our own vegies - yes that is high on our agenda but as we only have a house block of around 300m2 there won't be a lot of them, and we need to have a fence moved first (and the fencing quote to fix, move and install new throughout the place as needed was almost $5K so I'm still thinking about it!). But I agree that its great and this is the first house I haven't grown something at yet... but we've only been here 2 months!
Thanks for your comments!!
I would go the grow your own option too. Great project for the girls too.
I read your other article and can completely understand as I had two emergency c/s and still suffer mentally from them, first one mostly. I also liked the Holland article and will be forwarding it onto a few people
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