We are considering living on American made products for an entire year. As I'm typing this, my husband points out we should be living on products "Made in the the United States" instead.
"What's the difference?" I ask.
"'American' could mean Mexico and Canada. 'Made in the US' means just the United States," he pauses to examine the chocolate chip package from which he and our daughters are taking chips out to make our Sunday morning pancakes. "Although some people may not agree with that."
"Okay, let's decide then," I say.
"Made in USA." He declares.
This causes our oldest daughter to ask, "Does this include holidays like Christmas and Easter?" (We have just come from Target, where she ran a little reconnaissance on the Monster High dolls available.)
Doug and I then have a conversation about the level of what I will call "State-Madeness" we're comfortable with. Because we may be looking at a product made here in the US, but perhaps the source material comes from another country. For example, while we're talking about this, he and the girls are making our favorite Sunday morning breakfast: Chocolate chip pancakes. They're making them from scratch, in our kitchen in Washington state. Made in the USA, right? But when we look at the packaging for the ingredients, we aren't entirely sure the chocolate chips, baking powder, flour and salt are made here. The eggs, yes, because we buy them at our local Farmer's Market. A glance at the Nestle Toll House package of chocolate chips doesn't show much. They're distributed by Nestle Baking in Solon, Ohio. Since they're a Swiss company, we're betting they aren't made here.
A quick look at the Hershey website revealed a list of their products still made in Hershey. Great! But where do they source the chocolate from? One of our favorite chocolate makers, Theo Chocolates, based here in Seattle, definitely makes their products here. We've seen them on the factory tour. But they do source their chocolate (in fair partnerships) from other countries.
The Baking Powder (Rumford, made by Clabber Girl) was okay. Not sure about the flour because we'd ditched the packaging after pouring it into a canister. Salt (Morton) was fine.
How many tiers of "State-Madeness" are we willing to go to? What we decided:
- We absolutely prefer items made in the USA, from source to distribution.
- We can deal with an item made in the USA with possible overseas materials.
- "Carbon Credits" will be allowed on complex items, such as electronics. Cell phones, for example, have parts made in the US, but the batteries are made in Japan. If we buy an item like this, we'll make an equitable contribution to benefit children in need in the US. Doug is proposing a $1,000 limit on these items for the year. I don't know how realistic this will be.
Preliminary ground rules:
- We can keep stuff we already have that hasn't been made in the United States.
- We can accept gifts.
This is hard. We began talking about trying it for a year, but in the small amount of research we're doing this morning (on batteries, athletic gear for Doug's cycling and my running, shoes, breakfast cereal, car parts for our foreign made car), we're getting a taste for how challenging it is to live in an urban environment without relying on foreign made products. So, we'll give it a shot for a month. Four weeks from today. Thank goodness we're starting on Farmer's Market Day.
For you, dear readers: Think about what you're wearing. What you've got in your purse or backpack. How many of those things can you replace with only American made goods? Let me know.
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