The Adventures of Team Parker

Imagine my horror last week Sunday, when while drinking my coffee and idly reading the back of a carton of long-life milk I realized it was imported from Argentina. My mouth fell open, coffee dribbled down my chin and I let out an appalled “Oh my god!” There was a lot of spluttering and complaining and guilt and trying to figure out what kind of milk we should buy next time we go shopping.

Now look, I’m not a bunny hugger by a long shot. But I believe in trying to live sustainably. I recycle, use CFLs and turn my lights off whenever possible, make a point of eating at least one vegetarian meal a week (it’s baby steps to vegetarianness for me alas), and take short showers. I’m not totally hung up on keeping my carbon footprint small, I’ll admit. I still drive a car though I’d love to give it up, but that’s hard when you live in Joburg. I don’t check my clothing labels for cotton content and I’m not really a locavore. Hell I’ll admit, the coffee I was drinking when I spotted the “Product of Argentina” tag on the offending carton is actually imported from Ethiopia. But I believe it’s all about balance and making simple choices that have a big impact.

The Ethiopian Limu coffee tastes like mana from the heavens. And I’ve been working on the same 250g bag of it for months now, so I don’t feel too awful about it. On the other hand, we chug through at least a litre of milk a week and we are indiscriminant milk drinkers. We would fail dismally at a blind lactose taste test. Switching from one brand to another would be no skin off our backs.

I blame this whole thing on Pick ‘n Pay. Why are they stocking this foreign milk on their shelves anyway? When we shop, we usually just pick the cheapest one off the shelf. That said, we would happily pay a few extra rands for local milk, to support local farmers and evade the massive carbon footprint that must be associated with shipping milk across the Atlantic.

Shame on you Pick ‘n Pay for making me have to think too much about the milk I buy!

Here’s the saddest part. I can’t even remember what the brand of milk was. I’ll have to go home and check the cupboard if you want to know. And then I’ll have to update this blog from work on Monday because SCUM OF THE EARTH TELKOM have still not fixed our phone lines.

[Reams of profanity edited out.]

Irritatingly, we still have about five litres of that Argentinian stuff sitting on our shelf and it will be at least a month before we go shopping again and can pick a local brand.

I still can’t believe we bought imported milk. *shame*