Well, it's been fun. September marked four years of blogging about independant grocers, and I didn't even remember the anniversary. I think it's time to end this project.

Funny thing is, I still shop at independent grocers; I still don't support the major corporate chains (Dominick's aka Safeway, Jewel, Whole Foods, Trader Joe's, etc.). After four years I don't even think about it: shopping locally has become second nature to me. The only difference is, I've lost interest in posting about it. I'm focusing on other projects, you could say.

FCG started out small, as an experiment, a personal project to see if I could go for a month without shopping at Dominick's. It worked: I ate cheaply and easily, and the site kind of snowballed from there. Originally, I wasn't even going to make it into a blog, but I like having information readily accessible, shareable, so the format seemed like a good idea.

I was surprised at the attention this site received over the years, something I honestly never anticipated. It really meant a lot to me though, every time I got an email from people telling me that I'd made them seriously reconsider their food buying habits, how and what they consume, because it really does matter.

I've learned a lot about food, nutrition, organics, fair trade, gentrification, economics, and other subjects by researching them for posts, and from people who contacted me to let me know more about a subject.

Why should people shop independently? For starters, despite the name of this site, I've never been one much to tell other people what to do. But I'll tell you why it's important to me. Huge supermarkets have disconnected so many of us from food production, removed us from the source. So many people's conception (and mine growing up) was that food came out of a can or box: just add water!

One of the first things to change when I started shopping independently was that I stopped eating prepared, preservative-laden meals. Instead of stocking up every couple weeks or once a month, I went to the carniceria (y fruteria) three doors down, or to a farmer's market and bought fresh produce to make a tasty soup or stir-fry that night. Fresh ingredients provide much better nutrition, less preservatives, and just make me feel better.

In the winter, I joined a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture), and got a huge box of organic produce every week for $20 or $30. The box came with vegetables I had never seen before, so I looked them up, learned how to cook simple dishes with them.

I became interested in minimizing Food Miles, because the less distance something has to travel the less oil is used, and less impact is made on the earth. I know, my hippie roots are showing. I became interested in someday having a garden, even though right now I live in an apartment without a yard.

The last four years have not been without the hate mail, either. A lot of it I did not understand, or perhaps people did not understand me. I got a lot of mail about the name: yes, it contains an expletive. For a long time I stood by it, saying that a lot of corporate grocery practices are obscene, so the name of my site was as well. Really though, it was just the first thing that popped into my head when I conceived of the project; I never thought it would get so much attention.

If I had to go back and do it again, would I change the name? Maybe. I do regret that it has cast such a negative tone over the site when really, I try and write about positive things. Very few of the posts have been corporate-bashing. Mostly, I just liked to talk about the nice shopkeepers I met or the little store on the corner and why I liked shopping there. And for the record, I never told any of the shop owners who I was or that I'd be writing about them; in four years, only one person figured it out.

So what next? This site isn't going anywhere, I just won't update it anymore. I know I need to fix the archives; they're all still there, you just have to scroll back one entry at a time to view them all (or change the post number in the URL).

Over the years a lot of people have emailed me recommending their favorite stores, but since I only posted about places I went, I didn't get to write about them all. So I'm adding a list of reader-submitted shops to my Stores page. And I suppose I should go through and update my Links list, since I haven't touched it in a couple years.

As for me personally, I have several other projects that I'm working on. I don't plan on being in Chicago once February rolls around, but I can't say quite yet where I'll be. If you want to keep up with me, you can check my personal site, j3s.net.

Recently, several people close to me have asked why I wasn't a nutritionist or something. One of them recommended that I check out the Institute for Integrative Nutrition, which looks like an amazing program. Touchy-feely holistic multicultural nutrition: I am so very interested. I'm thinking about starting there next year, depending on how things go, something I probably would have never considered before doing this blog.

If there's one thing I can leave you with it's that I hope next time you go food shopping, next time you eat, you take a minute to think about where your food came from. Think about who you're supporting. Think about what you are putting into your body. Think about what you want from it. And then go ahead and savor every bite.

-j3s