Green changes - Better late than never

While shopping with the kids yesterday, I was playing the game where I tell the kids what I want and they scurry off down the aisle of the supermarket, racing to be the one to put it in the trolley. 

The first item was a canned fruit.  They found it quickly and brought it back.  Then I sent them back to replace it with the store brand, cheaper item because that's what I've always bought.  But the moment of having the prettier, more expensive can in my hand gave me a moment of pause, and with my two mini greening detectives by my side, we flipped all the cans to discover where the fruit came from.  Thailand, Indonesia and Australia were our choices, and so, we bought the one that was a little dearer and briefly discussed food miles and supporting Australian farmers.

The next item was a baking ingredient.  Again, I grabbed my trusty budget brand.  This time though, a store special made me pause.  I flipped the two packets to check where they were made, and while hunting on the packet, the ingredients of the cheaper brand caught my eye.  Ingredient number 1 was palm oil! I literally threw the pack on the ground like it had bitten me.  I've read about palm oil and really don't want anything to do with it.  Needless to say I bought the other, more expensive product, that didn't contain nasty ingredients.  (for the record, both products were made in Australia from local and imported ingredients).

I felt sick and guilty, the same way I'd been feeling each time I thought about all the times I've bought intensively farmed chicken and pork, and all the chemicals we've unknowingly pumped into our bodies over the years.  This is green guilt - feeling bad for hurting the planet.

But I'm OK now.  I'm OK because while I know we've made some bad choices in the past, we made them unknowingly.  I hadn't, in the past, thought to turn over the packet and read.  Our shopping needed to nourish and fit the budget, and it did.  But now I have spent a lot of time learning, and it is no longer acceptable to me to buy many if the products I used to.  Should I feel guilty for all of my past purchases? I don't think so.  Not only does guilt not help, but I didn't realise or know at the time, and I was just doing what I thought was OK.

Now I know, and if I go back, then I should feel guilty, very guilty.

I've always thought of myself as environmentally friendly, but the sheer number of changes we've made so far this year, and the amount that I've learnt is astonishing.  So it turns out we were a fairly washed out shade of green before, and I know that while we are now among the most green people I know, that it is possible to get much a much bright shade.  I also know that each change we make is better late than never.  Yes, it turns out I've been buying palm oil products, and that's really bad, but by stopping now, I am making a positive change for the future.

The whole point of this year for us is to get greener, step by step.  And each positive step we take is better late than never.  We are still relatively young, and our children have their whole lives ahead of them.  The years of doing good deeds for the environment are going to far outweigh the years of unintentional bad choices.