Last trip to the grocery store I couldn’t find any non-US salad kits, and Silk NextMilk is made down there now, because I guess our plants were the listeria ones. Chip dip was surprisingly hard to find too, although I did it.
I’m very pleased with how many vegetables actually come from Mexico (definitely via the US though), and there’s even a few things you can get from greenhouses, so that situation is less dire than I’d expected.
Great until I went into Dollarama and bought an energy drink and now I need to get two gifts for 6 year olds. Most likely at Walmart 🤦🏼
I don’t know what you did in the end, but literally any store is probably better than Walmart, which is privately owned by the Waltons. Even Costco has shareholders all around the world.
Walmart is a publicly traded company. The largest shareholder is the Walton Family (50%) with the rest of the shares purchased by investors around the world.
Oh really? Shit, I missed that, I’m going to have to edit a couple comments.
It’s over 50%, according to Wikipedia, so the basic gist still works. It’s a Walton company with some outside investors.
[https://www.sec.gov/ixviewer/ix.html?doc=%2FArchives%2Fedgar%2Fdata%2F104169%2F000010416924000078%2Fwmt-20240424.htm#id138cb1433b44120b7c101e226ea4cae_157](SEC Document) I’m still calculating slightly less than 50% of Walmart between the Waltons and their Trust.
We bake cookies as kids gifts. We never buy stuff. They chomp the cookies down and the next year ask if we brought them again.
I’m lucky to live in a rural place with great farmers market infrastructure, so many options to buy from here. When I do go to the grocery store, buying Canadian has been the norm for quite a few years but I am making a more conscious effort, taking my time to check all the labels. Haven’t had problems so far
Nice to see another rural person. Lemmy is pretty urban on average.
Farmer’s markets are very seasonal, of course. And like I’ve brought up elsewhere, people absolutely will resell store goods in them if they can make a profit doing so.
Me three! We buy all our meat from local farms. And veg in summer and we grow our own. I am also increasing what we grow on fruit
Not much changed for me personally, I already mostly buy local.
Btw if you really want to hurt america see if you can modify your rrsp/resp/tfsa/<other 4 letter acronym> to exclude American companies (and O&G while your at it). It’s hard and probably not good from a purely financial perspective, but I think it has a lot more impact.
Already did it! And boy, was I glad I had when Trump started doing things.
VEU is one example ETF on the TSX.
I’m disabled. Also petition your government leaders to divest CPP from American companies and investment firms.
Killed all social media outside the fediverse. Even for our small business. Dumped Amazon and looking into Linux to drop Microsoft too. Degoogling the phone. We’re pretty good at the grocery store because we grow a lot of our own and make what we can.
If you have a pixel phone then GrapheneOS is a solid choice.
If you’re up for a challenge try Ubuntu Touch, Mobian, Sailfish and Postmarket OS!
I’m interested in moving off Android but afraid of bricking my phone. Years ago I had flashed roms onto my galaxy s4 but these days I worry about not being able to get work calls if something goes wrong. How risky is it these days, also is there anything I should know ahead of time if I try to move to a linux os. Do they work well on cheaper phones?
Years ago I had flashed roms onto my galaxy s4 but these days I worry about not being able to get work calls if something goes wrong.
There are still issues with calling however I would say Ubuntu Touch has the best support that front as it is the most stable. It should be fine installing when following an official guide from that distro.
I should know ahead of time if I try to move to a linux os.
The cellular connectivity has issues and the apps are limited.
Do they work well on cheaper phones?
It really depends on how well the phone model is supported by the contributors. They have lists of their most supported phones that you can look at.
Thanks for the info! Going to say cheap phone, possible cellular connectivity issues might not be a good idea for me right yet. I’ll put it on the to do with next phone list. I sometimes do Instacart deliveries to supplement income when I accidentally splurge to much. Not having cellular in remote areas would mean I couldn’t work directions/electronic signatures for alcohol.
Not having cellular in remote areas would mean I couldn’t work directions.
The open-source efficient Organic Maps can help with that.
Your job sounds really cool! Seeing all the beautiful countryside!
Yeah my normal job is in Nashville. Instacart is what I was talking about on the side. Basically it is just picking up stuff for people like groceries and hardware stores and dropping it off. Mostly it’s Kroger for me, grab 25 items, drop it off at their house and make a few extra dollars. Usually can make $100 on my day off doing that for 5 hours or so. You know how far the trips are before you take them so if you want further drives you can do them but you are paying for gas so usually I only take farther ones when they are for decent money amounts. I have taken some that are 30 miles into the middle of nowheresville. I’ve actually delivered to an Amish community as well.
Even for our small business.
Damn, that’s next level commitment! I’ve gotten rid of everything personally, but giving up on my income source being easy to find would scare me.
Also, RIP DivestOS. Still sad about that.
Fuck em. We will manage. They can eat a bag of dicks. If I could eliminate all American influence from our lives I would.
Mastodon is free, might be better than going totally off grid for your business.
The audience is smaller than twitter was, but if you find a niche the people are quite nice
Purchased some local onions instead of onions from the US, along with a few other things. Salsa from Mexico. Was a small grocery run, but my purchases would have been 15% American previously - but 0% this time.
If everyone is doing this, the numbers do start to add up quickly to a meaningful impact.
Yep. I did another mini-trip since the one in the post. The local greenhouse lettuce was sold out and some US products were on a deep sale, including NextMilk. (Since I’m pretty poor and it going bad on the shelves would be a waste, I caved)
Considering how much stuff isn’t made in the US anymore, this should be easy. For a real challenge, try avoiding items made in China.
That’ll go about as well as reading the TOS on everything before clicking agree
sorry to butt in but that’s a hobby of mine 😀
for example going full renewables: solar panels made in south korea (qcells), battery german (sonnen), ev south korea (hyundai ioniq), heat pump australia/japan (reclaim energy)
I’m now looking at computer parts made exclusively in taiwan (looks like gigabyte mainly) because europe appears to have 0 competitive chip makers
it seems you can still buy bigger items that are local or non-china made but you will be punished for it, prices are anywhere from 10% to 100% higher
I went to buy a pair of scissors this week. I could not find a pair that wasn’t made in China.
I went to buy a greeting card, 75% of them were made in China. It makes absolutely no sense. It’s a freaking happy birthday card. There is no way it’s cheaper to cut down the tree, mill the paper, send it to China on a boat, have it printed, then have it sent back to North America on another boat. WTF?
Sorry to chime in as an American, but I usually found that you can get the small items but they cost much more.
Do you have access to German scissors? Brands would be zwilling solingen and three swords.
Stickers can be locally made but you can’t get 100 for $2 like the made in china sets.
In the USA I find it challenging to find us made versions of the items.
I hope you are able to find domestic versions of the items you are looking for . It’s a great way to show you care for your fellow countrymen.
yep small items i’ve pretty much given up on, nobody seems to care that $2 worth of stickers are made in China
It just keeps going though, weirdest one for me was those little marshmallows you put on cakes:
Coles Bake and Create Pink and White Mallows, 100g. Great for creating a delicious rocky road or topping hot drinks.
Made in China
https://www.coles.com.au/product/coles-mallows-pink-and-white-100g-2441652
Really???
Staples has online card building, you can customize all of it if you want, and it was about $2.50. Just have to plan ahead because they often print it at another facility and use the interstore shipping to get it to your pickup store.
I’ve never heard of Reclaim… How is that heat pump treating you? We got a Bryant (I believe it’s a Midea rebadged) and our solar is a Sol-Ark inverter (I still need to figure out how to get it off WiFi and just local using CANbus…) and LONGi panels.
Finding a cloud service provider that’s reliable and has good terraform support has been impossible. Best we could do there was switch to another American firm that didn’t seem to be a Trump-supporting sell-out.
Otherwise it’s been pretty easy. But mostly because we already had everything.
As a baseline my focus hasn’t been so much not buying American at all but buying from Canadian owned and operated stores as the primary entry point. So no more Amazon, etc.
Very disappointed to hear Silk NextMilk is made in America. Other plant based milks just aren’t the same. Have you found a good alternative?
Earth’s Own is Canadian and really good.
I tried the Good Earth oat-coconut blend. No bones, don’t recommend as of now. Honestly if that’s the brand I’m going back to just oat.
NotMilk, it is quite milk like. And company is from Chile.
Have u tried making peanut milk at home? It doesn’t take more than 10 min and is incredibly underrated.
NextMilk is a mixture of different plant based milks. Its probably the closest to real milk but I find any brand of original (some sweetener but no extra flavoring e.g. vanilla) oat milk to be close enough that I don’t miss cow milk much.
Next milk is a Silk product
Had to buy Corn Starch from Austrian company. Because the Fleichmann’s CANADA brand corn starch is Made in USA. And could actually find a Canadian Manufacturer
Oh what company is that?
Bakers Supply
Yeah it’s going well. I already knew in November that Trump was going to fuck up the economy one way or another, so I bought a handful of bigger ticket stuff from the states at that time for Black Friday.
The main food staple I’ve had to change so far is baby carrots, I usually get the California organic ones in bulk at Costco. I just have to make a separate trip to my smaller local grocer for substitutes.
Hmm. I was stocked up on carrots, so I haven’t actually looked yet.
I did notice the huge Chinese kind are actually from China. I’m gonna need a different knife if I go with those, haha.
Stupid easy…
Excellent grocery shopping today. We didn’t buy anything US (we think). The red cabbage didn’t have any country listed and we assumed it’s Mexican since the green ones were. We didn’t have to switch lots but for some products we bought alternatives: taco shells, granola bars, salsa. We also found some Canadian stuff sold out or almost: ketchup, cereal (we picked a different Canadian one). It’s fun to try new stuff! Also really excited about tomatoes, cucumbers, bell peppers, lettuce and basil from Alberta! This is very early in the year for us to get local produce!
No Alberta bell peppers where I shopped, unfortunately. It’s interesting that they’re doing that in greenhouses as well. I went with Mexico, which is fine, they’re cool, but the thing is you know it came in through the US.
I didn’t buy any fresh tomatoes this time around, so I don’t actually know what’s available.
I was impressed that they have them in February. It’s pretty cold an early in the season for bell peppers. Tomatoes grow like weeds but bell peppers are slower. Mexico works as well. I shop Canada first and then almost anything but US second. For example I don’t like garlic from China.
sighs in American
hon, we don’t hate you. but we’re really not happy with your Emperor.
Pretty much, right?
I assume we all know some Americans, or ex-Americans. I’m not even close to the border and they’re around. The good ones are all very welcome.
I’m American, and not buying American has been the norm for decades. So far, it’s working out pretty well.
Anyone have suggestions for Canadian cat food that isn’t overpriced? I’ve got like 15 cats so I go through a lot in a month.
Acana is Canadian, though they are not super cheap but certainly not the most expensive either. My dogs like it, and one of them is a picky eater.
Most Purina products are at least produced and manufactured in Canada. I have been using the beyond line of products and my cats love it.
Sadly, it is a mega agro corp.
I guess it uses Canadian farms, but Purina is owned by Nestlé.
Dammit.
I knew there was a catch.
Huh TIL. I’ve mainly been feeding them that and the co-op stuff (Which they don’t care for so I usually blend them together.)
