Shopping has got so much more complicated!

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Do you remember when the only choices you had to make when shopping regarded getting the things you preferred at the best price? And of course making sure you would not run out of essentials on a Saturday evening when all the shops were closed on Sundays? Nowadays you can go to the supermarket pretty much around the clock – but then you need so much more time anyway to consider everything. Where has it come from? Have the producers been paid a fair price? Has the environment been damaged to produce it? Has it been transported a long distance? Does it contain plastic? Hormone-disrupting chemicals? Pesticides? Palm oil? Too much salt or sugar? How much fat? What about animal welfare standards? If it isn’t produced in the UK, has it come from somewhere where the welfare standards are lower? Or where employment laws are not very good? Has it been fished or farmed sustainably? Does it contain genetically-modified organisms? Does its production require large amounts of fertilisers or pesticides? Is it wrapped in too much packaging? I could go on… and on. Even a simple cuppa is a veritable minefield. Do you choose coffee that’s fairly traded, organic, shade grown and Rainforest Alliance certified? What about tea – again fair trade, organic and now we find that we even need to avoid plastic in the tea-bags (who knew? We all thought they were just paper!) What about the milk – organic or not, from local producers or not, ethically-produced, farmers paid a fair price, cows given growth hormone… luckily I don’t take sugar so that’s one thing I don’t need to worry about. Life really was simpler in the not-so-distant past. All rights reserved. © Text and image copyright Fleur 2019.