Summer Time

It’s summer! We have moved. We have a back yard with a compost and a clothes line! Yaaaay! We are growing yummy things to eat, as well as Marigolds because we got seeds for free, and the wee one really wants to eat them, but I don’t think you can. I am working at a local natural food store. I am not going to make excuses for being so long between posts, as I am sure you are all used to it by now!

I did want to share some exciting news posted by a good friend though. Just in case you are not the type to click on links. Here it is copied below!

Austin, Texas is already home to Whole Foods, but that won’t stop a group of entrepreneurs from founding a new grocery store right in the natural food behemoth’s backyard. While the new store In.gredients will also specialize in local and organic ingredients, there’s one major difference between this venture and its hometown competion: In.gredients promises to be the country’s first ever “package-free, zero waste grocery store.”

The idea is so simple, it’s surprising that no one in the United States has implemented it yet. (The United Kingdom, on the other hand, got the bulk food-only Unpackaged in London last year). Just like many people bring tote bags to the grocery store, shoppers at In.gredients will be encouraged to bring their own containers to pack up items like grains, oils, and dairy. If a shopper doesn’t have his own containers, the store will provide compostable ones. It’s as if the specialty bulk food section rebelled and took over the rest of a traditional grocery store. In.gredients will replace unhealthy, overpackaged junk with local, organic, and natural foods, and moonlight as a community center with cooking classes, gardening workshops, and art shows on the side.

“Truth be told, what’s normal in the grocery business isn’t healthy for consumers or the environment,” In.gredients co-founder Christian Lane said in a press release. Americans add 570 million pounds of food packaging to their landfills each day, while pre-packaged foods force consumers to buy more than they need, stuffing their bellies and their trash bins: 27 percent of food brought into U.S. kitchens ends up getting tossed out.

In.gredients’s founders hope to open the grocery store’s doors in East Austin this fall, provided that the funding goes through.

Please please someone do this in Canada. Kingston would be great, though it may do better in a bigger city to start.

Also a local friend has started a blog to share deals on healthy natural food and also perhaps food swaps or food sharing. I really love the idea and I wish there was one in every city.