Made in China- do we care?

[OakLeaf]

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.

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. 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.

[KnottedYet]

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).

[OakLeaf]

Thanks Knot! I don't know why I've never tried on Doc Martens.

[redrhodie]

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. 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!

[OakLeaf]

And just while we were talking about this: Adbusters' 3/50 campaign.

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.

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.

My challenge: choose businesses besides my favorite local restaurants.

[smilingcat]

farmers market for 3/50 challange. Be a localvore!!

[Trek420]

My challenge: choose businesses besides my favorite local restaurants.

And what's wrong with that?

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

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.