Why the hell does it cost so much to be green?
We try to be green. We recycle, we compost, we try to use less water. Its an on-going process as we learn more about what we are doing wrong and trying to correct this behaviour. After reading about the chemicals in cleaning products and cosmetics, I switched everything in the house over to more environmentally sound cleansers, shampoos etc. Learning more about the potential dangers in GMO products we are working towards eating more organic products.
When I was first pregnant with Shorty #1, I started to become paranoid about all the environmental dangers that faced the poor little bean before she was even born. It was easy to become panicked about the microwave or the toilet bowl cleaner, not to mention the food we were eating. That’s when we started a more conscious attempt at eating organic/ free-range/ grass-fed/ hormone-free/ non-GMO. We very quickly learned that this proposition is NOT cheap.
Enter Whole Foods aka Whole Paycheque. This place is a license to print money as it plays on our conscience to try and reverse the damage done. Seriously, I know I can buy the non-organic peaches for $1 less (or more) a pound across the street but do I really want to inflict one of the dirty dozen products on my kids. I feel like I’ll be called out on child abuse! But when you walk out of that place $200 poorer and only 2 bags of groceries to show for it – ouch! 
What was the small business solution to a big problem is now the big business bad guy. So we look for alternatives – Mom & Pops, Co-Ops, Farmer’s Market. All good options. But do not replace convenience. Instead you are schlepping across town to the Co-Op to pick-up the produce, the local butcher for the grain fed meet, then to the big box for toilet paper and the regular grocery store for peanut butter. So now the weekly groceries kill a Saturday and have a carbon footprint the size of the Amazon rainforest.
We won’t give up however. We’ll keep striving to be greener. Maybe we could convert our electricity at home so its generated by a treadmill. Then we would save the planet, money and have the kids run it so they’ll sleep through the night… Just kidding.
the rock and roll mom on the move 
hey, this is a really big issue and it branches out into so many other practical problems, that are completely inconvenient. one of my biggest issues is that when you make the sacrifices of paying more for your food, and you make the effort to go to so many places (miss the farmers market on saturday, ration food, go to the coop on wednesday etc), i become resentful of having to share food with people when they don’t bring back ecological food to the table. if you share a house with people who don’t live this lifestyle, the community in the household can become all split up at meal time. and no one seems to understand why its so damn important to eat well (oh whats a big of hormones and pesticides), yet they undoubtedly love the rich flavours in organic food.
seems so petty to many people but its just not. so yah, i feel you on this one.