Tuesday 30th October 2007
The aim of this experiment is to delve into the world of eco-labelling – not just through research (Torsten beat me to it with his undergrad thesis), but by living and breathing eco-labels for one week. In practice, this will mean buying only food products labelled “organic”, “ecological”, “KRAV”, or with the free fair-trade label. How do they taste? What sustainability goals do they represent? And crucially, how does the price compare with the “conventional” alternatives?
The project begins with a trip to my former local supermarket – the ICA-Tuna next to Sparta Dormitory, and home to the most beautiful check-out girl in all of Lund. As my bike glides gently down the hill from LUMES, I find myself wondering whether she will be impressed by my newly-sustainable dietary preferences. I had previously taken pains to hide from her my most shame-inducing purchases: canned tuna and conventional, battery-farmed eggs. But for the next week I will stride proudly to the check-out counters with my organic bounty. My basket as my bayonet, I will be transformed from an eco-worrier in to an eco-warrior!
My aunt runs a small organic farm in New Zealand, but my knowledge on organic farming methods is less than rudimentary. I have a vague image of pesticide reduction, but I couldn’t even tell you if they ban pesticides religiously, or just promote alternative methods with less reliance on chemicals. I assume this makes the food healthier – you don’t need to rinse it with water any more, right? I am hoping they use less fertilisers, as this would reduce their carbon footprint, but as organics are generally produced on a smaller scale than “mainstream” farming, I guess they have proportionally more transport fossil inputs due to lower economies of scale. Well, I’m not even going to get into the carbon footprint of foods. I’ll leave that for someone else’s experiment…
My first goal should be to find out whether “ekologisk” is Swedish for “organic”, or whether it has a different meaning. I should also find out more about these KRAV guys – I need to believe that my hard-earned pacific pesos are going to a good home.
My first lesson in eco-shopping is a warning: never trust the price/kg calculations. Sometimes they mix up price/kg with price/piece, and often the price/kg calculations are just flat wrong. This happens suspiciously often with higher priced organic foods such as tomatoes, when the “organic premium” price differential makes them particularly economically unattractive. Tut-tut, the consumer advocacy people should really chase them up on that.
My first sacrifice of the week: no mozzarella in my salad. Organic mozzarella doesn’t seem to exist, so I plump for some organic feta instead. Greece: 1, Italy:0.
First dilemma of the week: 1kg of organic apples, 2 bags – one from Italy and one from New Zealand. The price is the same (20SEK/kg). I fall back on CO2 calculations for the tie-break, but I remember from my sustainability science paper on food miles that 1kg of food shipped from New Zealand to the UK produces the same amount of CO2 as 1kg of food trucked from Southern Europe. Patriotism rather than eco-label endorsement will have to settle the matter. New Zealand: 1, Italy:0.
The ICA-Tuna girl is sadly absent today, so my sustainability sacrifices will go unnoticed. This is a surprisingly large blow to my motivation. But I strive on gamely. The bill from today’s shopping: a stoic 206.50 SEK. But I won’t know what that means until I do all the accounts at the end of the week.
Economic Sustainability Tip of the Day: Goteborgs “KRAV” Digestive Biscuits: 17.90SEK – The same price as the conventional ones, but twice as sexy!
The aim of this experiment is to delve into the world of eco-labelling – not just through research (Torsten beat me to it with his undergrad thesis), but by living and breathing eco-labels for one week. In practice, this will mean buying only food products labelled “organic”, “ecological”, “KRAV”, or with the free fair-trade label. How do they taste? What sustainability goals do they represent? And crucially, how does the price compare with the “conventional” alternatives?
The project begins with a trip to my former local supermarket – the ICA-Tuna next to Sparta Dormitory, and home to the most beautiful check-out girl in all of Lund. As my bike glides gently down the hill from LUMES, I find myself wondering whether she will be impressed by my newly-sustainable dietary preferences. I had previously taken pains to hide from her my most shame-inducing purchases: canned tuna and conventional, battery-farmed eggs. But for the next week I will stride proudly to the check-out counters with my organic bounty. My basket as my bayonet, I will be transformed from an eco-worrier in to an eco-warrior!
My aunt runs a small organic farm in New Zealand, but my knowledge on organic farming methods is less than rudimentary. I have a vague image of pesticide reduction, but I couldn’t even tell you if they ban pesticides religiously, or just promote alternative methods with less reliance on chemicals. I assume this makes the food healthier – you don’t need to rinse it with water any more, right? I am hoping they use less fertilisers, as this would reduce their carbon footprint, but as organics are generally produced on a smaller scale than “mainstream” farming, I guess they have proportionally more transport fossil inputs due to lower economies of scale. Well, I’m not even going to get into the carbon footprint of foods. I’ll leave that for someone else’s experiment…
My first goal should be to find out whether “ekologisk” is Swedish for “organic”, or whether it has a different meaning. I should also find out more about these KRAV guys – I need to believe that my hard-earned pacific pesos are going to a good home.
My first lesson in eco-shopping is a warning: never trust the price/kg calculations. Sometimes they mix up price/kg with price/piece, and often the price/kg calculations are just flat wrong. This happens suspiciously often with higher priced organic foods such as tomatoes, when the “organic premium” price differential makes them particularly economically unattractive. Tut-tut, the consumer advocacy people should really chase them up on that.
My first sacrifice of the week: no mozzarella in my salad. Organic mozzarella doesn’t seem to exist, so I plump for some organic feta instead. Greece: 1, Italy:0.
First dilemma of the week: 1kg of organic apples, 2 bags – one from Italy and one from New Zealand. The price is the same (20SEK/kg). I fall back on CO2 calculations for the tie-break, but I remember from my sustainability science paper on food miles that 1kg of food shipped from New Zealand to the UK produces the same amount of CO2 as 1kg of food trucked from Southern Europe. Patriotism rather than eco-label endorsement will have to settle the matter. New Zealand: 1, Italy:0.
The ICA-Tuna girl is sadly absent today, so my sustainability sacrifices will go unnoticed. This is a surprisingly large blow to my motivation. But I strive on gamely. The bill from today’s shopping: a stoic 206.50 SEK. But I won’t know what that means until I do all the accounts at the end of the week.
Economic Sustainability Tip of the Day: Goteborgs “KRAV” Digestive Biscuits: 17.90SEK – The same price as the conventional ones, but twice as sexy!
1 comment:
David's lifestyle experiment is the nicest reading that I'm having this weekend. Helps me to survive emotional breakdown after the yesterday's LUMES goodbye-party (I'm glad the junior batch will still be here the next semester!). I also wonder if David's check-out girl at ICA Tuna is the same one whom I also thought to be the most charming one (among the other check-out people, of course, not generally – this is to make my ass safe in case if Ulrika reads this comment).
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