Cold turkey

To my shame, I usually do most of my shopping at Tesco. I don't need to repeat all the arguments why supermarkets are the spawn of Satan, and we should all really support our local shops and producers. Actually there is a fabulous farm shop near my home which I use quite often. But they don't sell milk, or pasta, or clothes, so normally I just pick up my fruit and veg at the supermarket since I'm there anywhere. It's just so convenient isn't it? I do buy quite a bit of pasta and other things at The Unicorn, a wonderful co-operative grocery in Chorlton http://www.unicorn-grocery.co.uk/. But it's much further away than Tesco and it doesn't sell clothes, newspapers, honey or meat or other non-vegan things. I can actually get just about everything I need at Poynton high street. But you can't push a supermarket trolley up and down the high street so it means carrying heavy bags of shopping backwards and forwards to the car park, and not all the shops accept debit cards so I need to take some cash with me, and . . .

OK, I admit it, I shop at Tesco because I'm lazy. That's the real reason.

But I've decided to go cold turkey. No more Tesco for me. I'll get my fruit and veg from the farm shop a mile away (until the allotment starts producing stuff other than rhubarb). I'll get health-foody things like bran flakes and herb tea as well as environmentally friendly cleaning products and toiletries from the health food shop in the village. Most general grocery things can come from the Co-op http://www.co-op.co.uk/ which have a great range of fairtrade and organic products, as well as being an ethically-run company. And I'll do a run to The Unicorn once a month or so to stock up on the things only they provide. I'll keep you posted on how it's going.

Oh, I'll still fill up the car at Tesco. As far as I know all the petrol producers are as bad as each other, but the supermarkets are far cheaper. In fact, I believe they loss-lead on fuel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loss-leader, so buying their petrol at a discount (whilst not buying any products which would make them a profit) will actually cost them money. At least that's how I'm justifying it to myself until I get around to doing some research about ethical petrol stations.