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I was just thinking about the ubiquitous sourdough that you might get in any deli or restaurant . . . not really sure where it all came from!Quote:
Originally Posted by Trek420
Acme looks amazing! I seem to recall the ferry building was under renovation when I lived there, and I don't think I ever made it up to the Berkeley location. We usually ended up at Zachary's for pizza when we went up there.
I really like consignment shops. I've gotten some fabulous mid-century modern furniture pieces for my house. The two dressers were made in the USA (stamped on the drawers); one was made here in Virginia. But buying perfectly good things from a consignment shop is a good way to go for alot of things.
Alot of my clothes are from a really wonderful consignment shop. High-end, high-quality, lightly used clothes. No one notices, and I get lots of compliments on my Dolce and Gabana pencil skirt ($20, looks like it had never been worn).
My bikes were made in New Mexico, Oregon, and Taiwan. None are from consignment shops, but all are from either the builder or a local bike shop.
Local things made in my area:
my kitchen cabinets
my concrete countertops
produce from the farmer's market
my homemade bread (the flour is from Virginia, but I have no idea where the yeast comes from)
Fralin Pickups (for guitars)
Some Ikea furniture products (they opened a factory in Danville, Virginia I heard)
Do what you can, don't sweat the rest.
Not exclusively. And electronics are a very good example of how global our economy has become.Quote:
Originally Posted by NbyNW
Take an example from my company - we make some WLAN power amplifiers for Intel that go into their cards that are used in laptops made by other companies. Our tiny little PA's are designed in the US. The wafers that our die are made of are sourced sometimes in the US and sometimes overseas (often european companies). The wafers come here to Oregon where we fabricate those wafers into electronic die. The die then get shipped to other locations (Malaysia, China, Korea, etc) to get bonded and molded into tiny packaged parts (the size of mini chocolate chip). Those packaged parts then get shipped to other locations to be tested and sealed into reels (sometimes those locations are right back in the US). Then the reels get shipped to the companies that make the boards (or mini cards) for Intel - often in places such as Isreal, India or China. Then, from there...they go somewhere else to get assembled into laptops and other such user end goods.
So to say that any electronic device is made in any single country is 100% misleading. Even if you were to build your own electronic device of some sort in your own private ham radio shop in your basement...90% of the parts you'd need would be fabricated at multiple locations around the world.
I work for a manufacturer where we employ thousands of US citizens here in Oregon, in Texas, in Florida, in CA and in Massachusetts...and yet not a single product we make is EVER labeled 'made in the USA'. Think about that for a minute.
Take what you buy and how it is labled with a grain of salt. Be as educated as you can about the choices you make but recognize that we live in a global economy and nothing short of a massive world catastrophy is going to change that anytime soon.
Thanks GLC! I had an inkling it was a process involving many entities, but couldn't really speak to it.
Lots of it right here:Quote:
Originally Posted by Running Mommy
http://www.teamestrogen.com/canari/p...0-b100023.html
Thanks RM :cool:
My cabinets were made by a local company but like many things the wood, fittings, materials could be from all over. But it was part of my decision that they be local. This morning amoung the snippets I caught on NPR news was a sad figure about food pantries in the US, that 1 out of 8 in the US have needed help from a food pantry this year. :(Quote:
Originally Posted by tulip
I'll always get items from whever I feel is best for a number of reasons; price, quality, aesthetics .... but I try to be a local'varian where I can.
I should clarify this a little. A majority interest in the company was sold. The company relocated to Vermont (where the new majority owner lives) and some of the employees, though not all, relocated there as well.Quote:
Originally Posted by Susan Otcenas
If anyone is interested in reading about the same, the industry magazine Bicycle Retailer and Industry News did a few articles on the topic.
http://www.bicycleretailer.com/news/...tail/2678.html
and this is an article about their bike distribution agreement with with ASI.
http://www.bicycleretailer.com/news/...tail/3204.html
BTW, my inside sales person at Terry tells me that only some of the saddles are moving to Asia production. And that their apparel will still be largely built in the US. Most of our vendors outsource things like gloves and outerwear to Asia. I looked back at some of their apparel for 2009. Shorts & Tights were USA. Skorts/skirts were Honduras. Jerseys were USA. Gloves were Italy/Pakistan.
Hope that helps!
Susan
I love my Frye engineer boots, which are still made in the USA.
Ooooh, boots :pQuote:
Originally Posted by redrhodie
http://www.thefryecompany.com/Default.aspx
and with boots you need jeans :cool:
http://forums.teamestrogen.com/showthread.php?t=23285
The hard geopolitical reality is that the reason why the American government can't say "let's buy Made in the USA" is because it pretty much imposes the same on others. A LOT of jobs in the USA depend on the export of American products and services in higher value-added areas (complex services, technological products, etc. not consumer goods). Americans disproportionately benefit from the anti-protectionist agreements they have signed with other countries, NAFTA for example. These countries don't necessarily prevent the American government from acting in a protectionist way: if an international court rules against the USA, they can simply ignore the ruling. Power is not distributed evenly on this planet.Quote:
Originally Posted by Trek420
Coming from a minority standpoint (Quebec, a French-language island in a very loudly English-speaking part of the world), I know that protecting certain areas for social, political, or cultural reasons has become extremely difficult. This is not so much a problem in the USA, but it is in other countries whose local industry cannot resist the massive investments and sometimes dumping of American products. The scale just can't compare.
As Susan pointed out, we can ask people to "Buy American" (or "Buy Canadian") all we want, most still won't. People would rather have more purchasing power than supporting local business. The fact that the real salaries of the middle class have not really increased in the last few years certainly does not help, to say nothing of those of the poor! On the other hand, I also know that people want their pension savings to increase in value, thus they want the corporations whose shares they own to make profits and distribute dividends. So corporations do what they have to do to attain that goal, including localizing their production where labour is cheap and regulation lax.
I do not necessarily agree (although I think it's not black and white) but I don't think it's going to change anytime soon.
I recommend some of the Oxfam shop stuff...
Should you want a soccer ball or netball that's not made with slave labour...
http://www.oxfamshop.org.au/products/3123569/81615
The Oxfam shop I frequent sells shoes(not made in a factory w slave labour) but can't find them on the website.
Just a thought.
Also in the shoe mix:Quote:
Originally Posted by crazycanuck
Adbuster's "Blackspot" fair-trade shoes. Vegan, etc. Boots (designed by Fluevog) and sneakers: https://www.adbusters.org/campaigns/blackspot
ETA: nowhere on the Frye website can I find any info about where their boots and shoes are made. Just a listing of the countries where they have employees (China, Mexico, US, etc.) If someone finds it, can you give me The Great Computer Illiterate Knot, a link?
ETA #2: Red Wing boots and shoes are made in Red Wing, Minnesota; but there's no info about where their off-shoot brands are made. http://www.redwingshoes.com/
ETA #3: Just looked through my shoes to see where they are made. (I'm home with a cold, and coughing too much to sleep, so I'm counting shoes... ooh, I know how to have fun!) 3 pair made in Portugal, 1 pair made in Thailand, 3 pair made in USA, 5 pair made in China, 1 pair made in Germany, 1 pair made in Italy.
you just made me curious about Frye. I checked inside my Frye harness boots and they do indeed have "made in the USA" stamped in them. Don't know if all their shoes are made here, but mine are.
Speaking of Quebec, my favorite panniers and cycling bags are made in Quebec at Arkel. Great stuff. www.arkel-od.com
Are these what you have? http://www.thefryecompany.com/Produc...-77500BLK.aspxQuote:
Originally Posted by redrhodie
I like these... and resole-able! And made in the USA. Hmmmmmm...
How many pairs of shoes does a person need? Is it like bikes, where the optimum quantity is "N + 1" where "N" is the number currently owned?
These are cool, too, and made in Minnesota: http://www.redwingshoes.com/productd...px?prodid=1078 Steel toes.
Another great place to buy stuff that is fair trade, no slave labour, some interesting stuff and money gets ploughed back into the local community:
Ten Thousand Villages
http://www.tenthousandvillages.com/
http://www.tenthousandvillages.ca/cg...Us1&type=store Did you know they are Mennonite-based?
About 15 yrs. ago, yes I went with a friend to the Canadian national warehouse headquarters. She knew some people there. Located in Mennonite country just outside of Kitchener-Waterloo. At that time, the number of stores was still pretty small.
Now totally different...obviously a signal that there are alot more customers that truly want to buy from employers with ethical business practices/fair treatment of employees.
Note: When I said that I invested in Canadian companies..I meant buying their stock. Preferably stocks that provide dividends.
Anyone got any suggestions for duck feet?
In athletic shoes, the only ones I've been able to find that even vaguely fit are Mizuno (and they've now discontinued my favorite shoe in Wide) - all made in China. I might give New Balance another try next round, that is, assuming I'm not ready for barefoot by then, which is a safe assumption.:cool:
In boots, I can't even begin to wear Red Wing (I even had a Red Wing salesman tell me that). I won't be in the market for boots any time soon since I just bought a pair of Lowa boots last year - not a great fit, but at least they stay on my feet and I can walk in them - partly because the salesguy told me they were made in Germany. Trusted him, didn't look at the label, got home and found they're made in Eastern Europe someplace, I forget where. :(:mad: They closed the Rocky Boot factory down the road from me several years ago, although they kept a retail outlet selling their made in China junk. :( Not that I could ever wear Rocky either, but still.
My duck feet do well in Keen (China) Chaco (was USA, now China) Birkenstock (Germany) Ariat (China) and some Doc Marten (Thailand and Britain). Oh, and I forgot my hiking boots, which are Technica (Italy).
Thanks Knot! I don't know why I've never tried on Doc Martens.
Yes Knot, those are the ones I have. They get better and better with every day of wear. If you click on any shoe on the Frye website, it will either have a "made in the USA" tag or not. Most don't, so I'm assuming those are made elsewhere. The engineers, the loggers, the harness boots and probably some of the western boots are still made here, but not much else. If the campus boots were, they'd be on my feet right now. :rolleyes: That's such a dangerous website.
I got a pair of USA made New Balance last year, and at that time, there were only a few styles still made here. The ones I got are actually rather ugly, but at that point, I was really trying to buy only American. But, I just searched Zappos with "Made in USA" in the search box, and 23 styles of women's New Balance came up, and some were cute!
And just while we were talking about this: Adbusters' 3/50 campaign.As long as at least one of the businesses is selling day-to-day necessities like food or hardware, $50 a month is do-able for most people.Quote:
Choose three local businesses you can't bear to see go under. Spend $50 a month between the three and help keep their doors open.
My challenge: choose businesses besides my favorite local restaurants. :rolleyes:
farmers market for 3/50 challange. Be a localvore!!
And what's wrong with that? ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by OakLeaf
Much of the honey sold in large box stores and supermarket chains is labeled as "Product of Malaysia/Argentina/India/Taiwan", etc etc. In actuality it likely contains honey from China and has been resold /laundered through these other countries to avoid paying U.S. duty taxes on imported Chinese honey. The trouble is that randomly tested honey from China has been found to contain unacceptable amounts of antibiotics, pesticides, and is sometimes adulterated with corn syrup to increase profits. Read the labels in your local supermarket and you'll see such honey being sold. Um,...Taiwan, Malaysia and Indonesia don't even HAVE commercial honey industries, yet they are exporting millions of pounds of honey yearly to the US, labeled as "product of..." their country.
http://home.ezezine.com/1636/1636-20...3.archive.html
Buy your honey produced by a local beekeeper/apiary in or near your community. Find out which natural food stores and farm stands/orchards sell honey from your area, make it your business to know where your honey came from, and support your local beekeepers. Help keep them from being put out of business by cheap contaminated Chinese honey laundered internationally by greedy distributors.
A couple years ago, Jeff's dad let a local beekeeper set up hives on his farm. That Christmas, we each received a HUGE bucket of honey. Honey lasts for ever. We still have honey from that wonderful gift!Quote:
Originally Posted by BleeckerSt_Girl
Now THAT'S scary!Quote:
Originally Posted by BleeckerSt_Girl
I just checked my bottle of honey. It says "Pacific Northwest Clover Honey" and the ingredient is "US Grade A Honey." From Eugene, Oregon. That's 5 hours away, but local enough for me. www.glorybeehoney.com
My last batch of honey was from a different store, and they were having a special on local Washington honey so I bought a big tub.
My Great-Grandpa swore that if you ate a tablespoon of local honey a day you would stay good and healthy. I'm gonna be careful about my honey from now on.
The Seattle PI did an excellent feature on the honey laundering problem a couple of years ago:
http://www.seattlepi.com/local/394053_honey30.asp
Another reason to buy local honey http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colony_collapse_disorder
Bees feed the farms, farms feed you, repeat as needed. Yet another good reason to buy local and organic whenever you can, can afford to. :cool:
I keep trying to come up with 3 for the 3/50 challenge and it's always food :p or 1/50 and make it my favorite new/used/independent local bookstore. :)
Try Boure cycling clothing. It's made in Durango, Co by Ned Overend and co. Nice stuff!
What I'm really bad about is ordering parts through the bike shops closest to me, when I can drive another 25 miles and have them now. Stuff like cleats, cassettes, chains. I make an excuse that it's still a "local" bike shop (even though they have three locations and an online presence). But... my communities are pretty depressed. The city where the bigger shop is located, not so much. I'll try to do better this year. :o
I have selection of honey in my cupboard, I could do a taste test: desert honey from Tucson, mountain honey from Flagstaff, north shore Lake Pontchartrain honey, Baton Rouge honey, and there's one other one.... or maybe two... some is privately produced; some commercial, but small batch commercial.
Then there's this canning jar of really dark stuff on my counter, it's honey, it's old.... survivied a hurricane or two in a camp before it was brought to the safety of the office.
I do something similar: I find what I want online, then go to my LBS and buy it or ask them to order it for me if they don't have it. I did ask if they still make a profit on special orders, and they said they do.Quote:
Originally Posted by OakLeaf
If I find clothes online or in a catalog that I like, I check TE for them first. (the clothes I wore for my wedding were from TE!) (oh, and so were the clothes I wore when we got engaged and went ring shopping) (and so was the bike gear I was wearing when we rode our bikes to the courthouse to get our marriage license!)
I can't begin to describe how incredibly honored and humble and thrilled and and and ...wow, those words don't even come close to describing the emotion I feel when I read this. Thank you.Quote:
Originally Posted by KnottedYet
I know we aren't "local" for many of you. But we are just a small business of 10 people trying to do our very best for our customers, our sport(s) and our community. I'm so honored that all of you have made us a part of your lives.
Susan
Shebeest. Appropriate for a wide assortment of occaisions. I'm just sayin'... ;)
http://forums.teamestrogen.com/showt...eview+shebeest
http://forums.teamestrogen.com/showt...eview+shebeest
the honey stuff is scary..... I'd never thought... I guess now if I want to buy honey it'll have to be the $40 a jar stuff from new zealand...
This doesn't apply to biking clothes, but recently my hubby and I decided to no longer buy stuff made in China. Our coffeemaker recently went kaput, so we spent about four hours looking for one not made in China. Finally, one of the sales gals told me her sister found one on the Internet, a handmade coffeemaker made in Holland. Where there's a will there's a way, so they say. :)
As far as I know...We can't purchase any overseas honey @ supermarkets in Aust. nor can we recieve any from overseas...
I was curious and out of honey today, so I checked all the bottles in Wal-Mart, and every one of them had a state of origin on them--mostly Texas and Georgia. Produce of USA, too. There was even a bottle of "sugar free imitation honey". :eek: I can't imagine what it is made of. I didn't look. lol.
(By the way, WM is the only national or "brand name" grocery in my area. A small regional chain has bought out the IGA and is moving in. My brother happens to run all the bakeries for the chain and it appears someone over there finally heard my constant complaining about nothing but WM in my town!)
Karen
I can not vouch for every single item but here's an online store that makes it easier to search:Quote:
Originally Posted by kjay
http://www.stacksandstacks.com/landi...usa/index.html
There's a large'ish chain a few blocks from my house but we just found it depressing somehow. It's not just the obscenely huge bulk quantities of junk food but their choice of music runs towards "I'm sad, I wanna eat". :rolleyes:Quote:
Originally Posted by Tuckervill
Lots of "all by myself, don't wanna be all by myself anymore ...." :o songs like that. :rolleyes: ;)
Maybe that's a marketing plan :rolleyes:
I much prefer a small Mexican market a little further away. It's family run, they have a few of these so it's like a mini-chain here. It's more of a limited selection but right smack dab off my commute. They have good meat and produce and yes, they label the origination of the produce.
Music's much cheerier too. :cool: And yes, they have bike racks.
Other than that TJ's or ..... right now I'm off to the farm market. :D Simmering in the crockpot is a chicken carcass from Costco, I just got a mirepoix of celery, carrots, onion and whatever else seems good in it. It's soup weather.
If it's like this:Quote:
Originally Posted by Tuckervill
http://i266.photobucket.com/albums/i...HoneyFront.jpg
Then its ingredients would be something like this:
Maltitol syrup, natural and artificial flavor, acesulfame k, malic acid.
Exactly what I want in my tea! (not)
Just eeeeewwwww.