My Experiment: Week Three

A good news week all around!
FIRST and foremost, I want to drop a happy bomb regarding last week's post. I was contacted by a member of the Burpee Family and alerted to the fact that neither they NOR their sister seed company "Cook's Garden" use GMO seeds! HOORAY!!!!!!!!!!!!
I was a bit sad when I thought they did, as they have a really great selection of seeds, and are really easy to find in my area. I have sent them an e-mail, asking for verification one way or another that I could post here, as I can't just take the work of a random person that contacts me through this blog, but from all I read on the Burpee site, they are extremely proud of their lineage and pedigree as far as hybridised plants go and don't seem at all interested in GMOs. ALSO, they have no association with Monsanto or any of their products. (As far as their public site says....I'm really waiting for an e-mail from them to be sure.)

NOW...on to my really exciting news!
WHOLE FOODS IS AMAZING!!!!!

I did some serious research this past weekend as far as their produce goes and it sort of leaked over into the rest of the store. (I am thinking about doing an interview with someone high up there as well!)

When you first walk into the Whole Foods, you are smack dab in their produce section. And while it can be DAMNED overwhelming, it's a beautiful sight. ALL their produce is clearly labled with both origin and wether organic or not. Everyone knows this.
BUT...did you know that when you first walk in, if you look up there is a really cool chalkboard sign, divided in two that CLEARLY states the number of both organic AND LOCAL produce for that day?!?!?!
No kidding!
Any item with a BROWN border sign is local! (Their statement is "In our stores only produce that hastravelled no more than- and often much less than- seven hours by car or truck, from the farm to our facility can be labeled 'locally grown'.") On the day we went, the sign read 55 Local 127 Organic. (The majority of local as it's still early spring were apples, root veggies and mushrooms.)

They even have a little pamphlet in the store, readilly available, on "Locally Grown". It's actually a great read, but here's my favourite bit: "One of the most exciting aspects of eating local produce is anticipation. Products unique to your region are most likely only available for a limited time. The rest of the year, that product must come from somewhere else. Try to celebrate your own local flavours whenever possible! Take the oppourtunity to feast, freeze, can or dehydrate while a local product is abundant."
By the way, they also have a fantastic Fair Trade and Microcredit programs. More on those another time.

SO...I chatted with the gal in the produce section about grapes. (Yes, yes, back to the stupid grapes. They've sort of become the symbol for difficulty here!)
She told me that in a couple of months there will be fewer of the imported grapes and quite a few grown in the USA...even 2 or 3 LOCAL varieties!

Well you can imagine my joy!
She went on to tell me that the local thing isn't just in produce, but all over the store. I couldn't keep that one eyebrow down at this one.
Really? Like what?

WELL....cheese and all other dairy, meats, pastas, their bread is made on site, (tho I will have to ask about organic content and locality of ingredients later), cookies and crackers....pretty much every section of the store has at least 1 or 2 locally obtained products.
So I poked around the store, (Gods bless my patient hubby! LOL!) and sure enough!
Not only were there a TON of local products, they actually tended to be CHEAPER than the imports!!! CHEAPER PEOPLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This was a HUGE deal! I was a bit put off by the travel involved (20 minutes in a car to get to the nearest WF) and thus gas consumption, but the amount of food we can get there with NO GMOs, organic, local, affordable...we could, in theory cut our food shopping down to half.
There are still some things that we can ONLY get locally. Ground turkey ( natural ) is 2.99 at Giant and 6.99 from WF so....um....no. And we've found that our cats demand Fancy Feast. (brats) We DID get them onto the Feline Pine tho. BIG step for our girls! LOL!
So lots of happy there.
Check out their site!
http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/
http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/products/locally-grown/index.php

Now, on to the house cleaning portion of our game.

For those of you attending our June party....this is important.
BRING A BOX!
Not joking.
I'm going through 41 years of accumulated stuff and it's not good.
So we've decided to have a yard give.
It's like a yard sale, but no money. Just take it. Seriously.
Fabric, gargoyles, books, decor, old SCA crap. We'll have stuff outside on a table or something, and we want it all GONE before the end of the party. Anything left goes to Goodwill....but I think a lot of our stuff would creep out the Goodwill folks. Heh heh.
We went from a 2 bedroom house to a 2 ROOM apartment with NO CLOSETS.
GAH!
There are times I can't find the bedroom!
Anyone who mixes oils...ALL my bulk fragrence oils gotta go! I need room for all the new projects, and I haven't mixed in about 3 years. So the scents and empty bottles, droppers, everything OUT!

(pant pant)

OK...my fingers are cramping, so I'm out for now.
See you happy people next week for more madness!

PS....the photo uploader is behaving badly today...I'll add pics later. :D