Blog – Page 5 – I Should Probably Change

Milk- a month in review

So how did it go?

Well so far since making the change I’ve only bought one lot of supermarket milk. If I’m honest this was not what I expected! I was sure that I would give in to my laziness and not make it to local shop. However I’ve discovered two things; firstly, there’s a nice little shop called Urban Pantry which is on my walk home and since it’s open until 5.30pm when one day we ran out of milk it was easy to grab a pint. Secondly I realised that shopping locally is actually quite a fun thing to do with my daughter, she absolutely loves ‘Cow Molly’ milk and thought it was a fun Saturday morning activity to go to Beeches of Walkley our local butchers/deli. The only problem with this was that Beeches also do pretty fantastic sausages, (a fact my little girl is well aware of) this resulted in her crying all the way home shouting ‘we need to buy sausages’!…hmm this one might take a bit of work! The one day I did deviate from the plan was due to an ill toddler wanting to stay indoors and missing the local shops opening times.

Build routine
What this month has taught me is that for many of the changes I’m hoping to make the main thing is going to be creating new routines. These new routines are not always the easiest but that’s exactly the problem, if being ethical was the easy option everyone would do it! Building a new routine can actually be fun, there’s something strangely comforting about popping to the local shop for a pint of milk (sausage tantrums aside!).

What if you don’t have a local option
If when it comes to milk you don’t have a local option then two week’s ago I posted about the best supermarkets. However you can still endeavour to make sure you make the most ethical option. In my research I discovered that there’s no law that makes supermarkets put where their milk comes from. With British dairies closing every week this means milk is imported in to the UK and mixed with local milk. Therefore if local isn’t an option we can at least make sure we buy milk which says it’s British and even better produced in our county (Co-op seems to be pretty good at this).

If you’re in Sheffield and want a delivery I’ve been recommend T & J M White (though this isn’t local milk) who are on Holdsworth Lane between Loxley & High Bradfield (0114 285 1317) – thanks to Matt Moon for the tip!

This month has thrown lots of things into the mix, questions of fair pay, carbon footprint, quality, cost. Thanks to all those who’ve been letting me know they’ve been journeying with me, it’s always reassuring to know my ramblings are being read my someone! I’d love to know what change you have been making, next month I’m tackling energy companies!!

Milk for the masses?

I’m a few weeks into this month’s change; to be more ethical in my milk choices. I wrote in my last blog about attempting to buy local in the hope of guaranteeing I’m paying a fair price for my milk, cutting down on my carbon footprint whilst choosing a fresher, more healthy option. This led me to buy Our Cow Molly milk which is made at a great local dairy.

‘Is ethical ever an option for those on a budget?’ – this was the question I posed at the end of my last blog. Well let’s just take milk, I was spending £1 on four pints of milk, I’m now spending £1.80. So the simple answer is yes, this is costing me significantly more. We have a pretty strict budget (as an aside we use a budgeting app called MoneyWiz) but I can honestly say that we haven’t spent more on food over these few weeks. I think this is simply down to the fact that we have made other choices to enable us to spend more on milk. The reality is that saving 80p hasn’t been too hard but it has been a conscious decision. Last week I chose not to buy an extra treat at the supermarket because I knew we needed some money left in the budget for buying milk the following day. The most helpful thing I’ve found is to buy milk first then adjust my budget, this way my (somewhat feeble) attempts to be ethical are slowly being made a priority in my consumer choices.

And I suppose that’s what it comes down to…choices. I realise that I’m privileged that our budget allows us to not have to cut other essentials from my weekly shop in order to support local businesses and farmers. Having worked for a charity that does great things with the homeless and vulnerable I have seen first hand that this is not a choice for many.

But therein lies another challenge, while those of us who have the ability to make more ethically conscious choices don’t, we put no pressure on producers to start being more ethical which in turn results in the ethical option being priced out of the market. Who knew the milk month would get this deep!?

When it comes to the money my choice to go local comes down to two things;

Firstly financially, I want to make a choice that preferences paying the correct price over paying the cheapest. Farmers deserve to be paid a fair price, if I can’t afford it, I should probably still buy local but just drink less.

Secondly I’m putting my money where my mouth is and choosing to vote with my pound, the more of us who do this, who knows, we could make a change!

Next week I’ll be reviewing, honestly, how I’ve done and sharing my reflections on what milk has taught me!

The taste test

Last week I finished off my blog by deciding to try and find a local source of milk which would a) mean the farmer got a fair price b) would have travelled less miles to get to our table and c) would be fresher therefore benefit us from the inside out. Since I set out to do more research milk has been in the news a lot. With prices for farmers dropping and dairies not getting paid on time the whole thing has hit the headlines. The Daily Mail produced a helpful list of how much the supermarkets pay for their milk, helping people like me, who want to pay a fair price, gauge how to do that.

While all this was going we took a trip to a real-life dairy farm. My daughter marvelled at the 3 week old calves while a friend we took with us was genuinely amazed my the size of the dairy cows (it was his first up close experience).

Our Cow Molly is pretty famous in Sheffield for their fresh milk and delicious ice-cream, the ginger and lemon is pretty special. This dairy ticked all the boxes, it’s only 4 miles from our house (and delivers to two very local shops in Walkley) which makes it both low in carbon footprint and very fresh plus the farmers gets a fair price. We bought a pint (not before sampling their delicious brownies) and headed back to give it a go.

The Taste Test
Now this is the point where I have to admit that I don’t drink much milk! I do have it on cereal but (and I know this sounds weird) I have been known to eat cereal dry, though not Weetabix, never Weetabix! My husband however is a big coffee drinker and along with our daughter has become somewhat of a milk connoisseur with all the flat whites, baby-chinos and cappuccinos that are produced in our kitchen. Therefore finding a more ethical milk option is great but his question was ‘will it taste better?’. We know that fresher milk will be better for us but as the main milk user his question was fair.

So 5 testers, 20 glasses of milk from Tesco (49p for one pint) and Our Cow Molly (59p for one pint), semi-skimmed and whole, and the simple question ‘which do you prefer?’.

The results were Tesco – 3, Our Cow Molly – 7. And the most important vote? My husband definitely preferred local, which he said also made a better coffee.

So for the rest of this month I’ll be endeavouring to skip buying milk during my weekly shop and will brave the gale-force winds to buy local!

Next week to finish the ‘Month of Milk’ I’ll be reflecting on the question of cost, pondering whether been ethical will always cost more and asking ’is ethical ever an option for those on a budget?’…answers on a postcard!

Buying Local

So this week as I delve in the world of milk I’m hoping to answer the question ‘what is the change I could make’?

I currently buy milk during my weekly shop, to be honest I usually grab whichever one is 4 pints for £1, a quick search tells me that today you can even get 4 pints for 89p. There’s been lots in the news the past few years about milk. Just this week the price farmers get for a litre of milk has fallen to 20p. The more I read about the challenges they face (up to 3 farms stop producing milk every day) the more I’m convinced that the ethical choice is to stop buying the cheapest milk on offer and find a way of paying farmers a reasonable price for all the milk I’m guzzling! So what next, what should I buy and where?

My options seem to be;

Supermarket UK milk – some have ‘Yorkshire’ milk options, but that doesn’t mean that farmers are necessarily getting a fair price.
Local large dairies (delivered) – I love the idea of getting milk delivered to your door and there are a few options in Sheffield however as we don’t have anywhere which isn’t the pavement for the delivery of milk I’m not sure this is a practical solution for us!
Local dairies – supplied to city farm shops, deli’s etc. This is the solution I trust the most in terms of fair pay however it requires a bit more planning (not quite so easy to pick up during the weekly shop).

I’ve always loved the idea of buying local and supporting the local economy. In 2013 for every £1 spent with a small or medium-sized business 63p stayed in the local economy, compared to 40p with a larger business, so it should be a no-brainer. If I’m honest though I’ve always aspired to this but the allure of getting everything in one go and the ease of online shopping has always won. However this blog is all about making changes and starting new habits so I’m keen to break my status quo.

There are three main advantages to buying local milk;

Milk is more fresh – supermarket milk can be up to a week old
It hasn’t travelled so far – less CO2 = a big ethical tick!
It gives farmers a fair price – any cuts out lots of middle men

So my change this month is going to be buying local and not always looking for the cheapest deal (this will mean breaking the habit of a lifetime!).

Next week we’ll roll out a taste test!

Does milk matter?

As we welcome in 2015 I’m also entering the second month of my challenge. January’s change is going to be milk.

Last month saw me grappling with some pretty global issues so this month I’m keeping it local. I want to find out about the good, the bad and the ugly when it comes to the lovely white stuff.

The parameters are pretty straight forward. I usually pick up eight to ten pints each week during my weekly shop. At least four of these need to be whole milk for making coffees and babychinos (I have no part in this!).

There’s been lots in the news recently about the prices we pay for milk so my hope is to investigate what constitutes a fair price for farmers while looking at what my options are for this month’s ethical conundrum.

Living on the edge of the Peak District means that we have several dairy farms supplying Sheffield so I’m putting my wellies on and heading out for some research!

If you have any milk tips let me know!

Haircare – a month in review

I’ve reached the end of the first month of my challenge.

The Body Shop’s hair range has been our product of choice for a few weeks and I have no complaints so far. It’s noticeable that it definitely doesn’t lather up quite so well but that seems like a small price to pay.

Last week I shared the fact that I’d discovered that Body Shop was not particularly highly rated in the ethical world having being bought by L’Oreal back in 2006. One of the main issues is animal testing. Now illegal in Britain animal testing is still relied on heavily in other countries, notably it’s illegal not to test on animals in China. L’Oreal states that they don’t test on animals anywhere in the world, get this, except where it’s law, meaning except in that tiny country called China. Which since they bought a huge Chinese beauty brand in 2013 means that they are almost certainly not ‘cruelty free’. Body Shop itself still claims to be cruelty free despite the work of it’s evil step mother!

I really believe that Anita Roddick sold Body Shop to L’Oreal with the intention that being part of one of the biggest beauty brands in the world would give her a unique position to influence. She describes their presence as being akin to a Trojan horse in a Guardian interview here. Sure I know being offered £652m for your company must have had some influence. However Anita’s whole life was marked by a commitment to ethical living and challenging consumerist patterns and practices so I don’t feel like I’m totally being duped by believing she really felt she could make a difference to L’Oreal.

And that’s the thought this month has left me with. Anita Roddick believed that by being part of the very system she’d spent her whole career fighting she could make lasting change. Maybe we shouldn’t lampoon those who choose to fight the system from the inside. Convincing people to make real and lasting change (especially when profit is at stake) can surely be achieved more effectively through nurturing real conviction rather than heaping on piles of shame.

And that’s true for me too, the only way I’ll making lasting change in my quest to be more ethical is if I have a new conviction that this is the right way to go rather than feeling shame and being guilt-tripped into changing my lifestyle.

Hmm, this got deep…next month I’m tackling the milk market!

Is ethical really ethical?!

I’m a week into my first challenge, this month the change I’m making is to switch my shampoo and conditioner (check out my last post).

I decided to go for The Body Shop’s offering and so far it is working out great, both products smell amazing and are quite light so I don’t feeling I’m weighing down my hair.

Each month as I make a change I want to do some research to try and get to the bottom of what makes something ethical. My investigations into what makes a shampoo ethical highlighted three main areas that I want to explore;

1. Fairly traded ingredients

2. Use of harmful chemicals

3. No ingredients (or the final product) tested on animals

At first glance The Body Shop ticks all the right boxes, they have their own initiative Community Fair Trade (launched in 1987), they have campaigned against animal testing and highlight the fact their shampoo has no silicones, no parabens and no colorants (paragons are the particularly nasty ones). They also campaign for human rights amongst other things.

Sounds prefect right? I though so, I assumed I had this one tied up, a successful change in my first month. You can imagine my surprise when I found The Body Shop languishing at the bottom of the Good Shopping Guides’ list of ethical shampoo and conditioner.

(This grid is the bottom half of the list, the top half is here.)

It seems that things got a bit tricky when beauty giant L’Oreal bought The Body Shop. The complications of the L’Oreal buy out is explained really well here but basically their record and links to Nestle (even I know they aren’t exactly top of the list with human rights activists!) mean lots of people boycotted The Body Shop accusing them of selling out.

So my question I’ll be pandering this week is whether a company can stay good even when it’s new Mum and Dad, shall we say, a little bit dubious?

Haircare

This month I thought I’d start with something relatively straight forward and look at switching my shampoo and conditioner.

This seems like a relatively easy switch, all I need to do is buy something which is kind to the environment ( i.e no nasty chemicals going down the drain), isn’t tested on animals and doesn’t use ingredients from non-fairly-traded sources … turns out it’s more complicated than that!

Looking on the British high-street I can see two options, Lush and The Body Shop. I’m sticking to products that are easy to buy on the high-street because I want to test the theory that anyone can be ethical without having to find niche products.

I’ve always loved the Lush model of business, they are really clear about their fresh natural ingredients and where they come from, they fight animal testing and have the best customer service around (seriously, how can their shop assistants be so happy all the time!?). My only problem is that my husband can’t stand the smell of Lush, he informs me it makes him feel physically sick so slight spanner in the works since this experiment involves my whole family getting on board.

Body Shop it is! A quick search on their website helped my find a few shampoo and conditioner options. A 250ml bottle of Rainforest Shine should be £4.50 so it’s probably at the more expensive end of what I would normal spend but luckily there was a half price sale on meaning they were a bit of a bargain. I bought this one because the other option was a banana shampoo which was quickly vetoed by my previously mentioned husband!

I’ll pop the bottles open this week and report back, I’ve also started looking into the ethics of haircare so will be much more well informed next week 🙂

Getting started

I think if we’re honest most of us want to live lives that are more ethical, more conscious of the world around. However growing in the 90’s gave me the impression that it was only the eco-warriors or the girls who wore tie-dye who could live up to this ideal. Over the years I know I’ve used lots of excuses as to why I’m not living a more ethical life, ‘it’s too expensive to go green’,’I haven’t had the time to research the options’, ‘ethically sourced clothes just don’t look good’ are just a few of the things I’ve thought.

However someone once asked me a question that has kept coming back to me ‘how do your choices oppress others?’. This for me is the crux of the thing, living ethically is asking ‘how do the decision I make about my purchases and lifestyle oppress others, both people and the environment?’. As a Christian I believe this is the kind of thing God cares about, deeply, so I’ve got a niggling feeling that I should starting working this out.

I don’t think my excuses cut it any more, I need to look at the choices I make especially because I want to present to my children a less confusing way to live.

So here’s the challenge I will make one change a month, every month. They say it takes 6 weeks to make a habit so I figure introducing one change a month gives me a chance of actually making lasting change. Also one thing a month seems slightly more manageable than trying to change everything all at once!

In this blog I will record how I get on and try to answer my own questions along the way, questions like ‘does ethical living cost more?’ ‘can I still buy comfy jeans’ and ‘does it really make a difference’? I promise to be honest, to share the successes and failures. My blog is definitely not a ‘look at how good I’m being’ record but rather a way of making sure I stick to the plan, there’s nothing like group accountability!

I hope you have fun journeying with me, do give me your suggestions or let me know how you’ve found trying to engage with these questions.

I should probably start…