Let’s go back a few posts and look at the various retail options we have for buying food.

I’ve already written enough about Wal-Mart, and I imagine that most people have their own thoughts for or against them at this point.

What about the other big chains like Safeway, Kroger’s, Ralphs, etc.? I’ve regularly shopped at all of them at one time or another and used to think that as long as you bought organic foods, it didn’t really matter where you bought them.

The other choices are “specialty” stores with the big three national chains being Whole Foods, Wild Oats, and Trader Joe’s. We always loved shopping at Trader Joe’s when we had one nearby. Their food is fresh, natural, delicious, and a fair amount cheaper than Whole Foods and Wild Oats.

What I didn’t know until recently is that these specialty stores make a real effort to stock ethically produced foods. They look at things like how their suppliers treat their animals and how they address other areas of social responsibility, like the environment and fair trade.

And now that “organic” has become a marketing buzz word, all the larger chains like Safeway, et al (even Wal-Mart)  have organic lines of product. However, the food they sell as organic is still produced in factory farms. While they adhere to the technicalities of organic labeling law in the U.S., they don’t adhere to the spirit of it. (There are a few exceptions like the dairy products from Organic Valley, which are produced ethically on small farms. The also-organic Horizon line, though, is factory farmed with all its horrors. It’s not what many of us would consider “organic.” Without a lot of research, it’s hard to know the difference.)

The bottom line is if you want to avoid factory-farmed foods, avoid the big chains.

There is one other choice, and it’s one I’ve become more familiar with now that I’m thinking more about food and we have no local Trader Joe’s. It’s local food co-ops. These are cooperatives that provide natural, organic, and ethically-produced food. In some towns, there are retail store-based co-ops. (We have one in Bisbee and one in Silver City. Contrary to what I thought, you don’t have to be a “member.”) There are also small informal co-ops. We have one in Portal that we can order from each month. The only drawback is that you have to order in cases, but we’ve found that that is really not a problem. Here is a directory for co-ops. You can also order a lot of organic, non-factory-farmed foods online. For example, most of what we get through our local co-op is available through Amazon at very good prices. The only challenge is that you have to know what you want….and research what brands meet your own considerations for good food choices.