Last trip to the grocery store I couldn’t find any non-US salad kits, and Silk NextMilk is made down there now, because I guess our plants were the listeria ones. Chip dip was surprisingly hard to find too, although I did it.
I’m very pleased with how many vegetables actually come from Mexico (definitely via the US though), and there’s even a few things you can get from greenhouses, so that situation is less dire than I’d expected.
I’m lucky to live in a rural place with great farmers market infrastructure, so many options to buy from here. When I do go to the grocery store, buying Canadian has been the norm for quite a few years but I am making a more conscious effort, taking my time to check all the labels. Haven’t had problems so far
Nice to see another rural person. Lemmy is pretty urban on average.
Farmer’s markets are very seasonal, of course. And like I’ve brought up elsewhere, people absolutely will resell store goods in them if they can make a profit doing so.
Had to buy Corn Starch from Austrian company. Because the Fleichmann’s CANADA brand corn starch is Made in USA. And could actually find a Canadian Manufacturer
Oh what company is that?
Bakers Supply
Not bad. I get most of my veg from local Chinese grocery where everything is a little closer to spoil but cheaper by half and all the sourcing info is in a language I don’t read so I basically wrote that off as a whole in the name of scraping by.
But was decently happy to learn that my spending habits were mostly Canadian centric by default anyway exempting snacks. Mind you I live in a chunk of Van where most of my fav stuff is imported from Asia through local companies and ports so my easy solve was just segwaying hard into Korean and Japanese imports.
Purchased some local onions instead of onions from the US, along with a few other things. Salsa from Mexico. Was a small grocery run, but my purchases would have been 15% American previously - but 0% this time.
If everyone is doing this, the numbers do start to add up quickly to a meaningful impact.
I was already bracing myself to be careful at the grocery store a while back cause I’d been following the story of the US rolling back food and product regulations. It can’t be fun to be doing any Kitchen/ Restaurant work right now. Last time I out I managed to find all Canadian stuff. Lettuce was the hardest, self contained was all from California. I did find a Canadian made salad kit I stripped for parts, I wish the quality was better but it was okay. I’m not a real power user of lettuce anyway. It’s just going to take a bit of adapting.
I also typically buy used name brand clothing and plan to keep going with that and with entertainment I usually use the free services, used stores and thrifts and a bit of yarr matey on the side.
I did find a Canadian made salad kit I stripped for parts
What brand?
Taylor Farms.
Unfortunately, they’re all made in the US where I live, based on the bags I read.
This is definitely not an exclusively Canadian company. I was looking the other day at salad kits and all the Taylor Farms bags I looked at were American. There is a Canadian subsidiary so its possible to find Canadian products but just be cautious!
Last year I moved from Ontario to Spain so avoiding American products has been pretty easy at the grocery store. The main thing has been cancelling online American services like Netflix, Amazon, Google one, Youtube Premium, etc.
Cancel them, but don’t stop watching American stuff you like. Just don’t pay for it.
This is the way 🏴☠️
https://www.simplehomelab.com/docker-media-server-2024/
It’s a little daunting but once you get it up and running with a VPN, you’ll never miss those enshitified streaming services.
Excellent grocery shopping today. We didn’t buy anything US (we think). The red cabbage didn’t have any country listed and we assumed it’s Mexican since the green ones were. We didn’t have to switch lots but for some products we bought alternatives: taco shells, granola bars, salsa. We also found some Canadian stuff sold out or almost: ketchup, cereal (we picked a different Canadian one). It’s fun to try new stuff! Also really excited about tomatoes, cucumbers, bell peppers, lettuce and basil from Alberta! This is very early in the year for us to get local produce!
No Alberta bell peppers where I shopped, unfortunately. It’s interesting that they’re doing that in greenhouses as well. I went with Mexico, which is fine, they’re cool, but the thing is you know it came in through the US.
I didn’t buy any fresh tomatoes this time around, so I don’t actually know what’s available.
I was impressed that they have them in February. It’s pretty cold an early in the season for bell peppers. Tomatoes grow like weeds but bell peppers are slower. Mexico works as well. I shop Canada first and then almost anything but US second. For example I don’t like garlic from China.
Killed all social media outside the fediverse. Even for our small business. Dumped Amazon and looking into Linux to drop Microsoft too. Degoogling the phone. We’re pretty good at the grocery store because we grow a lot of our own and make what we can.
Even for our small business.
Damn, that’s next level commitment! I’ve gotten rid of everything personally, but giving up on my income source being easy to find would scare me.
Also, RIP DivestOS. Still sad about that.
Fuck em. We will manage. They can eat a bag of dicks. If I could eliminate all American influence from our lives I would.
Mastodon is free, might be better than going totally off grid for your business.
The audience is smaller than twitter was, but if you find a niche the people are quite nice
If you have a pixel phone then GrapheneOS is a solid choice.
If you’re up for a challenge try Ubuntu Touch, Mobian, Sailfish and Postmarket OS!
I’m interested in moving off Android but afraid of bricking my phone. Years ago I had flashed roms onto my galaxy s4 but these days I worry about not being able to get work calls if something goes wrong. How risky is it these days, also is there anything I should know ahead of time if I try to move to a linux os. Do they work well on cheaper phones?
Years ago I had flashed roms onto my galaxy s4 but these days I worry about not being able to get work calls if something goes wrong.
There are still issues with calling however I would say Ubuntu Touch has the best support that front as it is the most stable. It should be fine installing when following an official guide from that distro.
I should know ahead of time if I try to move to a linux os.
The cellular connectivity has issues and the apps are limited.
Do they work well on cheaper phones?
It really depends on how well the phone model is supported by the contributors. They have lists of their most supported phones that you can look at.
Thanks for the info! Going to say cheap phone, possible cellular connectivity issues might not be a good idea for me right yet. I’ll put it on the to do with next phone list. I sometimes do Instacart deliveries to supplement income when I accidentally splurge to much. Not having cellular in remote areas would mean I couldn’t work directions/electronic signatures for alcohol.
Not having cellular in remote areas would mean I couldn’t work directions.
The open-source efficient Organic Maps can help with that.
Your job sounds really cool! Seeing all the beautiful countryside!
Yeah my normal job is in Nashville. Instacart is what I was talking about on the side. Basically it is just picking up stuff for people like groceries and hardware stores and dropping it off. Mostly it’s Kroger for me, grab 25 items, drop it off at their house and make a few extra dollars. Usually can make $100 on my day off doing that for 5 hours or so. You know how far the trips are before you take them so if you want further drives you can do them but you are paying for gas so usually I only take farther ones when they are for decent money amounts. I have taken some that are 30 miles into the middle of nowheresville. I’ve actually delivered to an Amish community as well.
The other day I took my German car to the Asian market to pick up curry ingredients and enjoyed the night watching the Red Green show sooooooo…pretty great honestly. 👍
I’m American, and not buying American has been the norm for decades. So far, it’s working out pretty well.
As an American, pretty good, we don’t produce shit here.
It’s clearly a salad kit-based economy. /s
That’s a lie. We produce the highest quality bullshit in the world.
Considering how much stuff isn’t made in the US anymore, this should be easy. For a real challenge, try avoiding items made in China.
That’ll go about as well as reading the TOS on everything before clicking agree
sorry to butt in but that’s a hobby of mine 😀
for example going full renewables: solar panels made in south korea (qcells), battery german (sonnen), ev south korea (hyundai ioniq), heat pump australia/japan (reclaim energy)
I’m now looking at computer parts made exclusively in taiwan (looks like gigabyte mainly) because europe appears to have 0 competitive chip makers
it seems you can still buy bigger items that are local or non-china made but you will be punished for it, prices are anywhere from 10% to 100% higher
I went to buy a pair of scissors this week. I could not find a pair that wasn’t made in China.
I went to buy a greeting card, 75% of them were made in China. It makes absolutely no sense. It’s a freaking happy birthday card. There is no way it’s cheaper to cut down the tree, mill the paper, send it to China on a boat, have it printed, then have it sent back to North America on another boat. WTF?
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Staples has online card building, you can customize all of it if you want, and it was about $2.50. Just have to plan ahead because they often print it at another facility and use the interstore shipping to get it to your pickup store.
yep small items i’ve pretty much given up on, nobody seems to care that $2 worth of stickers are made in China
It just keeps going though, weirdest one for me was those little marshmallows you put on cakes:
Coles Bake and Create Pink and White Mallows, 100g. Great for creating a delicious rocky road or topping hot drinks.
Made in China
https://www.coles.com.au/product/coles-mallows-pink-and-white-100g-2441652
Really???
I’ve never heard of Reclaim… How is that heat pump treating you? We got a Bryant (I believe it’s a Midea rebadged) and our solar is a Sol-Ark inverter (I still need to figure out how to get it off WiFi and just local using CANbus…) and LONGi panels.
Yep sorry I’m in Aus not Canada, they’re a local manufacturer (https://reclaimenergy.com.au/), expensive as hell but felt like showing my support to at least one of the few places this still does engineering in Australia
How is that heat pump treating you
Really good! the separate compressor from the tank makes it whisper quiet, can barely hear it even if you’re a foot away, co2 which is the most environment friendly refrigerant, and power usage is well, minimal, only a small 160L tank because I live by myself, can see example of what it uses here (it’s the light blue bit at around 8am in the morning):
That said it is summer here in Queensland, will have to see how it goes in winter but under 1kw a day for hot water, that’s really not bad at all imo
Hmm, I’m actually curious. SE Asia and Bangladesh probably are a viable alternative for a lot of things. Obviously, if you have an unlimited budget you can find some bespoke artisanal item made nearer by as well.
Signed up for the Odd Bunch. You get imperfect produce which is still perfectly edible delivered all from local producers. Like a CSA share. It actually ends up being less expensive than the store. You’ll have to be creative in using it up, but it’s a great option. Link: https://go.referralcandy.com/share/9TSC9RD?s=sp&t=cp
Looks like it’s just major cities, which makes sense, but then again if you’re not in a major city you probably have gift overgrown zucchinis appearing on your front step anyway.
What months does it run where you live?
I just started, I think every month. I’ll find out, my SO ordered it so I’m not sure.
I am also a subscriber. While some of the produce still comes from the US, I think it reduces our dependence by reducing waste. It is cheaper than the super market but still more expensive than the local grocers here in Vancouver.
I don’t mind supporting small farms in the US or buying their imperfect produce so it doesn’t get wasted.
Wonder if there’s a version of this from the states.
Looks like this is: https://www.imperfectfoods.com/
I’m American and I’d rather buy Canadian too
I’m American and I’d rather be Canadian, too. Best I can do is Mexican and that’s looking better every day.
We should probably get out before they close the borders for us too
I’m joining the war on Canada… on the side of Canada. 🇨🇦
Then we shall turn this continent into an orgy of maple syrup!
Not much changed for me personally, I already mostly buy local.
Btw if you really want to hurt america see if you can modify your rrsp/resp/tfsa/<other 4 letter acronym> to exclude American companies (and O&G while your at it). It’s hard and probably not good from a purely financial perspective, but I think it has a lot more impact.
Already did it! And boy, was I glad I had when Trump started doing things.
VEU is one example ETF on the TSX.
I’m disabled. Also petition your government leaders to divest CPP from American companies and investment firms.
