Post from 2nd week of January 2009

New Year’s Resolution #10, go without shopping at Wal-Mart for one year.

I have decided that my immediate family; Chris, Ainsley, myself and our dog Chloe shop at Wal-Mart entirely too much. In our small town of Stillwater, OK we have two super Wal-Marts (includes grocery store). The reasons for this resolution are; we spend too much money on disposable items (we need to be more resourceful), we are buying potentially toxic cleaners/soaps/foods and are unaware of it, and they are not honest with me or other consumers.

In college I took many environmental sociology classes, well three, and learned about Genetically Modified foods. Last year, when I got home from shopping for groceries at Wal-Mart I noticed a picture of a salmon on the sticker stuck to my Golden Delicious apple. Normally, these stickers said Washington or whatever farm the apple had been grown at. Now a SALMON? This normally wouldn’t shock anyone, they would take off the sticker, wash their apple, and eat it. I however was appalled, how could they sell me a Genetically Modified Apple without telling me (other then the sticker). I knew the salmon meant that the apple and salmon genes had been spliced because of the documentary I saw in class (thank you Dr. Shriver!). Thus, I tried not to buy any produce at Wal-Mart anymore.

But then we had a baby and we needed diapers, wipes, trash bags, paper plates, paper towels, diaper genie plastic wrap, and so on. We “needed” more disposable items then we could ever imagine and we always found the best deal at Wal-Mart. After four months of extreme pollution we decided to change. We took on learning about modern cloth diapers, reusable wipes, washable diaper liners, and biodegradeable detergents and soaps for our laundry and family. Now I needed to change one more thing and I thought, what a great Blog! A year without Wal-Mart!

So I had to find out if I can find our needs other places first. I do most of our grocery shopping at our local Consumers IGA and recently asked them if they can special order foods that they don’t normally carry in for customers. They had me write down the items I wanted (red velvet cake mix & CoCo Wheats) and the next day the manager called me personally. I told him my new mission was to not shop at Wal-Mart all year and maybe forever! He said he would try to get the items I needed and I could also check online to order them. I also asked him about his produce and meats and he said they try to get them as close to home as possible and if any of their produce was GM it would be posted in writing! I will continue to check this throughout the year, but I thought good at least I know my oranges didn’t have to travel from Siberia and have polar bear genes in them!

So this is my quest. No more convience of cheap Wal-Mart prices, no shopping there for my family period. I will do all grocery shopping at the local IGA or Farmer’s Market, I will order other things online that I cannot make at home or find at IGA. I am enlisting Chris (my husband) in this project as well otherwise it wouldn’t really be a test of our family consumerism. I do have a Sam’s Club Card but it is an hour drive to Sam’s Club so I vow to only use my SCC four more times then once it’s expired I will not renew it! I will also keep you updated on this.

I hope that others will join me in this venture. I feel it’s like a greener choice, a healthier choice, and makes me a wiser consumer. Or Maybe I am just becoming a crunchy mama! Either way, I like it and so does Stillwater Landfill.

-Freckles (aka: Andrea Maciula-Peters)