A Dry Run

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I did some food shopping a couple of days ago and decided to call it a dry run and see how hard it would be to eat during the 30 days. After reading up on labeling requirements for my previous post I knew where to look and I gave myself some extra time so I could read the labels and compare a few products. I took some time and really considered taking a hardcore approach by buying only products with 100% American ingredients but the more you look into it the more you see this is almost impossible in our global economy. Somewhere along the way everything has been touched by a foreign country in one way or another. Even the purest grass fed, hormone free texas beef products have been carted to market by a truck burning foreign oil and has been wrapped in PVC or LDPE (plastic).

I'm over it. We're too busy to nitpick and the motivation to do this was more about supporting American farmers and American jobs than it was about protectionism or shutting out the rest of the world. I guess I would like people to prefer buying American products but not to the point where they are being adversely affected by this effort. e.g. - I would never expect someone in this day and age to give up using a cell phone or watching TV because they don't make any in the US, but if they did make cell phones here I'd like to think we would prefer those over others which are not.

Back to my shopping trip. I always start in the produce section and this is the easiest place to be sure your buying American products because as previously noted all fruits and veggies are required to be labeled with their country of origin. I zipped through this section with only one hitch. Bananas. I like bananas, the kids like them, we eat a half a dozen a week on average and they just don't grow here. I'll skip them I guess. The good people of Ecuador will have to live without my business for a month. Tough luck, amigo. Everything else had a Made in USA alternative or was grown here anyways. I'm off to a roaring start! Most of the packaged foods we eat are made by huge American companies like General Mills and ConAgra etc. which have plants all across this great land of ours and have American addresses under the "Manufactured by" or "Packaged by" label. Even the spicy Ramen noodle soup bowl thing was made here. Food is looking like it might be a layup in this endeavor.

Three items I did have to look around a bit to get right were Beef (confusing labels), OJ and coffee creamer. Beef was all labeled with a USDA label but I knew this didn't mean it was from here, only inspected here, so I asked the butcher. It turns out that the meat that was shipped to them was labeled with the country of origin and was indeed American beef. Mmmmm, beef. When they cut and wrap it they do not have to list the country of origin so just ask the butcher, they keep good records for the government so they always know.

The OJ brands I usually buy as well as the store brand all contained juice from Brazil, Mexico and Costa Rica. I've been to Florida more than a few times and I know they grow oranges there so I looked around a bit more and found a brand called Florida's Natural. Made from oranges in Florida as you would expect. It is tasty and the cost is in line with the stuff we were buying before. I think we have a new orange juice!


Somewhere along the way we started using flavored coffee creamer. It's funny but I never drink flavored coffee anywhere but at home. Anyhow, I read the label and no luck. I thought about just buying half and half but I looked around at the other non-dairy creamers for an option closer to what we are used to. The only one with a Made in USA label was, oddly enough, International Delight. WTF? There were a few that said "Packaged by" and listed a US address so I guess they passed muster with my newly relaxed standards too. I still might just buy cream if the wifey gives it the OK. I'm sure there is a local dairy farmer that would appreciate my business.

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