Blogeth the 2nd

So it has been a week and a half since the resolution commenced. To help immerse you in my experience, please enjoy this brief dramatic retelling of:

Grocery Expedition the First!

Tobi (on her way to the grocery store): Tralala, I am going to go grocery shopping and will buy only local things from Ontario because I am conscious of where my food comes from and am therefore a good person. <Insert more self-important thoughts here.>

Tobi (entering the grocery store): How exciting, I am like a pioneer! I will use my excellent literacy skills and read some labels to learn where my food comes from.

~20 minutes later~

Tobi (leaves grocery store carrying.....beets).

What was learned as a result of this expedition:
1. It is going to take a lot of research to figure out where food comes from.
2. How to make borscht.

So I exaggerate my story slightly. I also came home with a squash, a bag of carrots, and some apples. And that was seriously it (I also really made borscht!).  So, point being, while the produce section labels the source of the vegetables and fruit, this is where it ends. I suppose this probably isn't be very shocking, but the optimist in me was disappointed. Ok, I'm still exaggerating a bit. Dairy products and eggs tend to have pretty good labels as well. It's mainly items that have more than one ingredient that are tricky.

A new approach was necessary in order to be able to eat a balanced diet and not die of the opposite of scurvy. Instead I decided to make a list of what I would like to eat and track down the items one at a time.

These were items that made it onto the list: sugar, spices, sunflower seeds, bread, fruit (other than apples)

We can have juice!

You may note that the majority of the items on the list are things that don't tend to be grown in abundance in Ontario, let alone Canada. Some googling was quite successful on the sugar, spices, and fruit front, however, and I discovered the following websites which provide or list locations where these items are available fairly-traded:

www.fairtrade.ca
www.lasiembra.com
www.tenthousandvillages.ca

Bread is turning out to be more tricky. After contacting several local bakeries I have learned that ACE bakery is the closest to having nearly all local ingredients. This is a excerpt from the email they sent: "We cannot make a  claim on having 100% Ontario ingredients because our salt is from the United States and our yeast is from Montreal.  Also, part of our flour comes from Hard Western Spring Wheat which is from the prairies." They are, however, the only bakery that I've found, so far, that uses Ontario flour at all, so (unless I suddenly get the desire to track down Ontario flour on my own and makes copious amounts of bread all the time) this is likely where we will be getting our bread from this year (which is extra awesome because their baguettes are delicious!)

Sunflower seeds continue to elude me

And now I think I've inundated you all with enough information this round.

Stay tuned for more adventures!