Eat real food and you barely encounter those corporations at all.
I know, right? Thankfully, I had to look really hard to find any brand I use, and those are not a commitment. There is little there that I use, and none of it that I couldn't do without.
“Eat real food and you barely encounter those corporations at all.”
My wife and I go into a mild depression at about this time every year, and it “ain’t” just going off daylight savings time back to standard time.
We are hooked on our great farmer’s market, and when it closes on the last Saturday in October, we really miss it.
Fortunately, we and others have convinced a couple of the bigger growers to open stands on their farms and to sell their produce until our first hard freezes, usually right after Thanksgiving.
My wife before and after her recent full retirement has gotten into the container/water troughs, small garden crops. We will be eating our last home grown tomatoes this week. We have a Blackjack miniature fig tree that is still producing, our persimmon tree will get new cousins this coming spring, and our Myer Lemon tree is going full bore.
My wife raises most of the herbs, she uses, in pots on our deck and around my charcoal grill.
It is amazing how much fresh and great produce, she raises each spring and summer with 1 large trough and 2 smaller ones.
My wife has been consulting with local experts what to plant for late fall winter re root vegies/greens in her soon be crop vacant watering troughs.
One of our younger relatives is a great bow hunter. Yesterday, he dropped off over a 100 #’s of elk, to go with the venison and wild boar he gave us earlier this year, which is in our small freezers. He keeps us supplied with wild duck and geese in Dec/Jan. We will probably share some more wild boar early next year, when he hunts wild pig again.
Besides be incredibly delicious, the wild game is extremely filling. About 4 ounces for her and 6 ounces for me is enough for a meal, and we stay satisfied until the next meal time.
Besides being the center piece/entrée for a meal. We use the game for tacos and fajitas and Asian dishes. I make stews with the meats that would be a little on the tough side if grilled or fired in the ovens.
Our Thanksgiving Turkey, Christmas prime rib and Easter Lamb is fresh and comes from local producers. A good local super market pre orders it and does the butchering that is needed.
In closing we are thankful for what we have to eat and are amazed at so many locals saying the farmers markets are too expensive. These people are stunned when we tell them that we buy about $50+ twice a week. The produce/fruit becomes the center piece and often desert with the game or local critters becomein side orders.
You mean like tofu? I have never touched that stuff and never will
Also, buy off brands at places like Aldi’s.
I do, of course, buy some items from one of the Big 10. It is impossible to completely avoid. But I have substituted those off brand items that are acceptable everywhere I can.
Read and watch whatever you like. Online, all you are *paying* is a blip in their stats. But don’t subscribe. In fiction, lately, I have been downloading whatever I find for free that I would have bought, anyway. I watch 2 programs/week on Hulu free. We watch 1-2 hours of TV/movies per night via Netflix, either DVD or streaming. Once in a blue moon, we will see a movie on the big screen, but that happens less and less....maybe once every year and a half.
I just purchased 8 paperbacks for .25/ea at my favorite thrift shop. We spent $40 this past year on a mountain of great top brand clothing, including a wonderful suede jacket at a consignment store’s semi-annual sale. I buy us both shoes online and mostly opt for savings by picking something on closeout or something discontinued. There are websites (& eBay stores) dedicated to selling discontinued styles, new with tags. As a bonus, they are often styles we really love and cannot even find elsewhere.
Toiletries are usually available in the Equate brand, which is Walmart, as opposed to L’oreal or whatever other brand.
It adds up and it is also a political statement.