I wanted to supplement my earlier post about my move towards organic/sustainable grocery shopping. My first few days have left me very well-fed and satisfied. I have made panini caprese, and egg salad sandwiches in an effort to use up my delicious sourdough bread before it goes stale, and both meals were absolutely fabulous. I fear I may have too vehemently condemned the prevalence of boxed/frozen food in American society, because it is not the fault of the consumers, but of the larger corporations that run our society that our groceries have made this shift.
Realistically, most people have busy lives. I know in my own family between kids school, sports and activities, college, work, church, homework etc, there was very little time left for us to spend together at all, let alone to make and eat dinner together. Having more commitments means more needs to happen in spare time, or that you need to be more efficient to create more spare time at all. This is a capitalist concept in that you are trying to produce surplus; you want to get more out of what you put in. Under that principle, it takes less time to make a meal from a box that from scratch, so if you want to save time you should cook the prepackaged meal.
This was marketed towards us, make no mistake. There are corporations behind everything suggesting the best choices to make. Corporations decide that prepackaged meals are cheaper than individual ingredients and they enjoy the profits. So although there is certainly consumer choice involved in the matter, there is a reason so many people choose to eat out of a box. I maintain most of those foods will not taste as good as homemade ones, but sometimes we have to compromise - time and price for quality.
I do not condemn people for not making a move towards ethical shopping because I realize in our capitalist society we want more bang for our buck. Maybe your bottom line is that you can get more food at Cub than the co-op for the same amount of money. You would not be alone; Americans are raised to be good, patriotic, capitalists after all. My point is there is a trade-off by making that choice (because it is a choice) and each person has to weigh their own concerns.
I have come to the conclusion that buying ethically and making my own food from scratch is more valuable. I have free time in my evenings and enjoy spending some time cooking - although my cat would prefer I spend it brushing him and he makes that very clear. My roommate made me a beautiful apron that I can wear while cooking; it may make me miss her while she flits around Europe but it's nice to think about her all the same. I hope to nurture this skill of cooking because it is one I have not paid much attention to, and I am all about learning new things! I enjoy my homemade cooking better; I have so many things in my pantry that I never feel like eating because they just aren't very good! I cannot wait to go home tonight to make some delicious mushroom and swiss quesadillas!
I will continue to critique the system and the status quo it enforces. The way food is marketed is classist and not everyone can afford to make the ethical choice. To make a true change however, there needs to be a demand by the public, and for that to happen, the people who can afford it have to make a change. If we demand ethical foods, they will be supplied and made more available. This can be seen in the growing number of vegan/vegetarian restaurants and co-ops in general. There is a growing demand for these foods and the market is responding.
Showing posts with label ethics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ethics. Show all posts
Monday, April 12, 2010
Saturday, April 10, 2010
Just Add Water
So yesterday I was able to do my grocery shopping at one of the nearby co-ops and it was a wonderful experience, and I truly could have wandered around for hours looking at the bulk spices, nuts, granola etc, but my companions were not equally intrigued. But really, I bought bulk soy sauce and balsamic vinegar! Who knew you could do that?! But I grabbed a little tub, filled it with as much as I wanted, and paid by the pound. I paid $.18 for the amount of sage I wanted instead of buying a whole bottle. This was just amazing to me.
While I have long been interested by the idea of sustainable and organic grocery shopping, I have never made the effort to go somewhere besides the Cub/Rainbow/Target market, but my Gender Labor Politics class pushed me to try. For one I can get extra credit by doing a cost analysis of my grocery bill, but also a discussion about food politics made me really think about food and why I eat what I do.
We have reached a point where we expect to buy whatever groceries we want whenever we want it, therefore we want produce out of season. This means extraneous measures are being taken around the world to make sure someone is producing corn for January and and
for July (switched seasons). More and more food is being genetically modified so some people can make a bigger profit. Animals are caged up so tightly they cannot move and pumped full of antibiotics to combat the diseases they get from standing in their own feces, and people put up with it because it's cheaper.
There's a sense of false consciousness prevailing over our culture concerning food. We need food so there's no way to strike against it like the garment workers of Forever 21, so we distance ourselves from the process. We refuse to think about slaughterhouses and chemically "enhanced" meat and vegetables. We ignore that corn grown by farmers can no longer be eaten because it is hard and disgusting, but has to be processed into corn syrup and fed to livestock. We keep asking for food that is bigger and better than it is naturally supposed to be, so the producers make it happen.
On top of eating chemically and genetically modified foods, we exist off of
preservatives. Instead of mashing delicious russet potatoes we buy a box of Four-Cheese Mashed Potatoes, just add water! How lazy do we have to be that we now subsist off "just add water" groceries? Instead of making a healthy meal we pop something in the microwave - something that is full of preservatives and who knows what else so that all we have to do is nuke for 30 seconds.
Then it comes out and it doesn't even look good but you eat it anyway and really just end up dissatisfied all around, so it's not like eating frozen food wins any points there. Sure it's fast, but it's gross.
Most of the ingredients and processes behind the food we eat is completely hidden from our view. Look at a granola bar and try to find out where those oats came from. It is impossible. At a certain point you cannot trace your food back any farther and you are asked to trust the company they are getting it safely and ethically. You are asked to trust that a certain amount of insects in your peanut butter is ineffectual. You are asked to trust that "Free Range" chickens are actually allowed to walk around when that is nowhere near the truth. Food politics are all about a separation between the producer and the consumer, but not only a separation - indeed there is a big black curtain keeping the two apart so that the latter know nothing about the truths of the former.
The problem lies of course, in the cost of eating organically and ethically. That choice is more expensive because in order to produce more ethically, most has to be spent. It costs more to keep a few chickens in a pen they can walk around in than to cram a whole bunch of chickens in that same space, and that cost is transferred to the consumer. This choice is an easy one to make until cost is factored in. Theoretically everyone prefers the more ethical choice, but practically not everyone wants to spend the extra money. I paid $3.49 for eggs which I could get for around $1.39 at Target, yet because I went in with a list for my planned recipes for the week, I still spent less that I normally do.
Food from a box that just requires some added water and a couple minutes in the microwave may be cheaper, but I know where my groceries came from - 42% was grownlocally, and I know there are no hidden "ingredients." While I may not be able to promise I will stop eating anything from a box or a can, this feels like such a positive decision I plan to make every effort to eat organically and ethically. It is the easy choice.
As a poor college student I want to make the ethical move, and I think I can make it work for my budget. Shopping for ingredients requires more planning; I cannot just walk down the aisle and grab a few boxes for my meals that week, but have to know ahead of time what I need which means less spending on food I will not actually eat. Plus the food I can make with these delicious ingredients is so much tastier than Mac 'n Cheese or Lean Cuisine. How could I possibly make any other decision? They always say the first step is the hardest, and most of the time that first step is just deciding to make a change.
While I have long been interested by the idea of sustainable and organic grocery shopping, I have never made the effort to go somewhere besides the Cub/Rainbow/Target market, but my Gender Labor Politics class pushed me to try. For one I can get extra credit by doing a cost analysis of my grocery bill, but also a discussion about food politics made me really think about food and why I eat what I do.
We have reached a point where we expect to buy whatever groceries we want whenever we want it, therefore we want produce out of season. This means extraneous measures are being taken around the world to make sure someone is producing corn for January and and
for July (switched seasons). More and more food is being genetically modified so some people can make a bigger profit. Animals are caged up so tightly they cannot move and pumped full of antibiotics to combat the diseases they get from standing in their own feces, and people put up with it because it's cheaper. There's a sense of false consciousness prevailing over our culture concerning food. We need food so there's no way to strike against it like the garment workers of Forever 21, so we distance ourselves from the process. We refuse to think about slaughterhouses and chemically "enhanced" meat and vegetables. We ignore that corn grown by farmers can no longer be eaten because it is hard and disgusting, but has to be processed into corn syrup and fed to livestock. We keep asking for food that is bigger and better than it is naturally supposed to be, so the producers make it happen.
On top of eating chemically and genetically modified foods, we exist off of
preservatives. Instead of mashing delicious russet potatoes we buy a box of Four-Cheese Mashed Potatoes, just add water! How lazy do we have to be that we now subsist off "just add water" groceries? Instead of making a healthy meal we pop something in the microwave - something that is full of preservatives and who knows what else so that all we have to do is nuke for 30 seconds.
Then it comes out and it doesn't even look good but you eat it anyway and really just end up dissatisfied all around, so it's not like eating frozen food wins any points there. Sure it's fast, but it's gross.Most of the ingredients and processes behind the food we eat is completely hidden from our view. Look at a granola bar and try to find out where those oats came from. It is impossible. At a certain point you cannot trace your food back any farther and you are asked to trust the company they are getting it safely and ethically. You are asked to trust that a certain amount of insects in your peanut butter is ineffectual. You are asked to trust that "Free Range" chickens are actually allowed to walk around when that is nowhere near the truth. Food politics are all about a separation between the producer and the consumer, but not only a separation - indeed there is a big black curtain keeping the two apart so that the latter know nothing about the truths of the former.
The problem lies of course, in the cost of eating organically and ethically. That choice is more expensive because in order to produce more ethically, most has to be spent. It costs more to keep a few chickens in a pen they can walk around in than to cram a whole bunch of chickens in that same space, and that cost is transferred to the consumer. This choice is an easy one to make until cost is factored in. Theoretically everyone prefers the more ethical choice, but practically not everyone wants to spend the extra money. I paid $3.49 for eggs which I could get for around $1.39 at Target, yet because I went in with a list for my planned recipes for the week, I still spent less that I normally do.
Food from a box that just requires some added water and a couple minutes in the microwave may be cheaper, but I know where my groceries came from - 42% was grownlocally, and I know there are no hidden "ingredients." While I may not be able to promise I will stop eating anything from a box or a can, this feels like such a positive decision I plan to make every effort to eat organically and ethically. It is the easy choice.
As a poor college student I want to make the ethical move, and I think I can make it work for my budget. Shopping for ingredients requires more planning; I cannot just walk down the aisle and grab a few boxes for my meals that week, but have to know ahead of time what I need which means less spending on food I will not actually eat. Plus the food I can make with these delicious ingredients is so much tastier than Mac 'n Cheese or Lean Cuisine. How could I possibly make any other decision? They always say the first step is the hardest, and most of the time that first step is just deciding to make a change.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
