As I've grown to notice, I am very indecisive and inconsistent in my environmental actions and opinions. I'm not sure if it's comforting to know I'm not alone. Call me John Kerry, but I'm a flip-flopper. I started the farmers market on campus (something I spent a lot of time and effort on which I have not regretted for a second) and yet I eat unhealthy, horribly processed foods from all over the globe. Food has always been a frustrating subject for me -- not its affects on me personally (I don't have issues with my weight/health and I'm not a picky eater). What frustrates me are the following:
Price. I am extremely frugal and I dislike spending money on myself. I also am very against spending money I do not have. A girl can get by on Ramen noodle soup. Looking at the prices in the grocery store, I get extremely frustrated. The $4 I spend on a box of crackers goes through so many people before reaching the grain harvester or factory laborer. The $4 pays for the packaging I am not interested in and the corporate bosses I have never been a fan of. For some reason, not paying for food, even if it is from far away places or grown under destructive conditions, seems to justify my eating it. By getting it for free I am making a statement that it is not worthy of the work I did to earn that money. I shun the use of the money that propels the system of unjust payment hierarchies in the food indusrty. Farmers markets may be expensive, but at least I know where my money is going. If I play my cards right (or bills, in this case), I don't end up spending more money there. And I certainly end up eating healthier.
Time. Definitely the biggest frustration. Hunger is time-sensitive. It's a shame I can't do all my cooking and eating for the week on Sundays. I could then work through my lunch breaks, go home early, and get my homework done at a reasonable hour. But I already kind of do that by cooking in big batches and freezing leftovers in tupperware. But when I leave for work in the morning and return from my day at midnight, I don't want to carry a picnic basket along with my laptop, books, and gym clothes. Having to cook is not actually a pain for me. I love putting on my apron, spilling flour everywhere, dancing to music as I scrub the dishes, making it a social occasion, and tasting it as I go. If only I could do that for every meal. But let's take my Mondays, for example: Up at 8am - instant oatmeal and a banana for breakfast (let's ignore the factory processing, worker discrimination, and oil burned on production transportation of that meal); 8:30-9 on bus/metro to campus (no eating allowed!); library time 9-9:45 (no eating there!); class 9:55-5pm (in ten minutes between classes I barter baked goods I had made on Sunday for a meal swipe into either campus Boxed Lunch or Tavern; neither of which are local, organic, socially responsible, etc); 5-8pm ultimate frisbee practice -dinner either tupperware from home or meal swipe from freshman friend; 8pm-midnight work; home by 12:45. I am usually hungry again by the time I reach home and am Not in the mood to spend time making a meal or snack. That's usually when I go for the sweet peppers/carrots/cucumbers in the fridge.
Industrialization. I'm not sure if you could tell by my blog post on technology, but I tend to sway away from it. The whirr of machines does not sooth me; I look for ways to do things myself before a machine gets involved. With food it is difficult to avoid it. Unless you purchase unpackaged food from farmers markets, you will run into it everywhere. I tried to eat only from farmers markets for a full semester and it was darn hard. I ended up not saying no to free food (who does that), which made the experiment significantly flawed. I would also eat out about once or twice a week in a social setting. Regardless of its success, I did learn a thing or two. The hardest for me were my cravings: chocolate, candy, and soda. The only time I got these was when it was for free, and boy was I excited. I also had trouble with certain processed foods I had gotten used to: ice cream, peanut butter, sauces. Farmers markets do provide some of these things, but the more processing they need the much higher the price (jelly, honey, bread, baked goods, salsa, etc). Another problem is that I had gotten used to eating food from other parts of the world. In my "experiment" I had to cheat to buy spices for what I was cooking. I have gotten used to eating a banana for breakfast, but Virginia isn't really known for its tropical rain forests. Sure, it's a pain in the neck sometimes to make sure I go to Dupont Circle on Sundays, Eastern market on Saturdays, or Van Ness on Tuesdays (to name a few), but I so much love the atmosphere of farmers markets -- the smells, the outdoors, the happy people, the cooking ideas -- that is the least of my worries. I have grown up with easy, unquestioned access to international and processed food that it seems preposterous for me to not be able to cook a curry or cinnamon muffins or a peach pie in November. I would say that the use of small things like spices aren't what we need to target. It's the culture of smug compliance with industrialized food that enables unsustainable living.
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