What to do when you don't agree with your grocer's politics #2

My last post I tackled a bit of what you can do to avoid putting money into Big Grocer's (BG) pockets, if their politics make you sick to your stomach. You gotta eat, so boycotting them completely may seem out of the question, but I'll continue the alternatives here.

3) Learn to can and preserve your own food

As I mentioned in my last post, farmer's markets are often a big source of deals when it comes to buying in bulk. Buying a truckload of green beans though is not something that makes a whole lot of sense though if you don't know how to preserve that food. 

Learning how to can and preserve your own food helps to bring freedom. And I mean that in the sense that you won't be dependent upon somebody else's food supply during winter if you have preserved your summer harvest. I'm a huge fan of Joel Salatin's books. You should check his work out. 

(Probably Joel's two best books are Folks, This Ain't Normal and The Sheer Ecstasy of Being a Lunatic Farmer. You can find them here amzn.to/32JQG8k and here amzn.to/300mdVS, respectively.)

One of the things that Salatin consistently points out is that the knowledge of food preservation was something that pretty much all of mankind was familiar with until the past 100 years. On top of that, having a full larder, root cellar, or at least a winter's worth of food stored in their house was also something that pretty much everybody did until the last 100 years or so (potentially a little less time). 

Now, having more than a week's food supply stored in one's house is not only incredibly rare, but viewed as strange in today's society. 

"But Aden! You're advocating for me to be a weirdo to my friends!"

Nope, not at all. 

What I am advocating is being food independent, improving your food security through food storage, and potentially saving food money by canning your own food (Ben Falk points out how inflation affects food prices in his excellent book The Resilient Farm and Homestead. I recommend everybody with an interest in gardening/food security/homesteading read it. You can get it here: amzn.to/2Lwo8ZX) 

And on top of all that, who says your friends have to know? How often do they come over rooting through your pantry?

4) Contact BG Management

Money talks. I absolutely agree with that, and if you incorporate my above thoughts, BG is going to take a serious financial hit. But sometime talking helps too, just so there's no confusion as to why sales seem to be slipping. 

Emails and snail-mail letters are my two methods of choice here. I don't have the desire to spend an hour on hold on the phone. I can write a letter though and send it off real quick. The Left has been vocal, and that's why we're seeing the results that we're seeing with BG. Why can't we do the same?

5) Negative Social Media

I know that social media isn't very popular among most of my readers. Most of us prefer avoiding being monitored. But if you do engage in social media, why not use it for good? It seems that negative publicity is one of the main things that mega-corporations respond to, so why not plaster them with it if they're being ridiculous?

6) Find Alternative Big Grocers

Simple enough, right? You don't like what X has stated publicly? Then start shopping at Y, which hasn't stated anything against American freedom. Not much else to say right here.

In Conclusion

 Odds are you're not going to be able to break away from BG completely. Particularly if they're the only grocer in your vicinity. But, by just enacting a few of these options, you'll help to voice your opinion, increase your food security, and probably eat more healthier food as well. And if you don't do something, have you really any right to complain?