I don't buy much from stores. There are alternatives to the big chains.
I buy most milk, butter, veges. and meat direct from farmers. I get eggs and honey from people who have their own chickens and hives on their properties.
I make my own yogurt. I have also made my own bread! I cook most things from scratch and do not generally buy pre-prepared foods.
I like having a choice in terms of purchasing mostly chemical-free produce, as well as benefiting from having fresh produce and cheaper prices. I know where the food is coming from and it is reducing energy consumption (and helping the environment) as it is local produce.
In my opinion, it is very important to support Australian producers as much as possible for reasons of food security and for health reasons. We have better food standards than many other countries. Remember the recent problems with Chinese milk products!
Some links that may be of interest.
THE REAL DIRT ON FARMER JOHN follows Farmer John's astonishing journey from farm boy to counter-culture rebel to the son who almost lost the family farm to a beacon of today's booming organic farming movement and founder of one of the nation's largest Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farms. The result is a tale that ebbs and flows with the fortunes of the soil and revealingly mirrors the changing American times.
http://www.michaelpollan.com/omnivore.php In this groundbreaking book, one of America’s most fascinating, original, and elegant writers turns his own omnivorous mind to the seemingly straightforward question of what we should have for dinner. To find out, Pollan follows each of the food chains that sustain us—industrial food, organic or alternative food, and food we forage ourselves—from the source to a final meal, and in the process develops a definitive account of the American way of eating. His absorbing narrative takes us from Iowa cornfields to food-science laboratories, from feedlots and fast-food restaurants to organic farms and hunting grounds, always emphasizing our dynamic coevolutionary relationship with the handful of plant and animal species we depend on. Each time Pollan sits down to a meal, he deploys his unique blend of personal and investigative journalism to trace the origins of everything consumed, revealing what we unwittingly ingest and explaining how our taste for particular foods and flavors reflects our evolutionary inheritance.
