Day 3 – 100-mile Diet : A wonderful discovery!

Yesterday was day 3 of our little 60 day venture.

During our preparations, we have been very good about getting all the information we can about staples and things we know we need everyday from local producers through our farmers markets (we have access to 2 wonderful ones) but sometimes, the short hours aren’t always easy on our schedules so we decided to take a peek inside the big store…

We arrived at our local supermarket (IGA Coop in Sainte-Foy, Quebec) and were immediately assaulted by smells, sights, and cravings that we are not to satisfy for quite a while.

Automatically thinking that this was a terrible idea, we headed to the produce and cheeses, which were the purpose of the trip, and tried our best not to let it get to us. You just don’t realize how much you love Asian, sushi and pasta until you can’t have it!

Back to the mission : We were looking for a local cheese, hard enough that we could grate and have be a replacement of parmesan. As we were looking through the counters, we started seeing a small logo appearing on many of the products :

“Saveurs d’ici” in French means “Flavours from here” and the lady at the cheese counter explained that all the products in the store (whether it be produce, cheese or prepared products) come from less than 100 kilometres (60 miles) and have come straight from the producer to the store. So no transit mileage.

We were THRILLED! Now of course, some of the prepared products have ingredients that are not 100-mile, so that will have to wait, but to be able to walk into our local grocery store and pick our cheeses without having to wonder is a wonderful gift! We stepped out with two cheddars (aged 6 months and 1 year) and wonderful goat milk brie. And it only cost us a few dollars ore than it would have for more commercial cheeses.

Truly, a wonderful little treasure of a big box grocery store we have! Who would have known…?

Have you been around your grocery store? How locavore friendly are they? I’d love to know…