As a lefty/crunchy granola/pop-culture influenced foodie type, I am well aware that "green is the word." I read Michael Pollan, Russ Parsons, and Barbara Kingsolver. I watch the network entirely devoted to all things green, from Ed Begley Jr. installing solar panels and a rain barrel to Emeril teaching the clueless how to cook entire meals using only the vegetable section of Whole Foods. I've seen "Food, Inc." and "King Corn." I recycle, I re-purpose, I always try to buy local, I shop at the Farmers Market, I covet the Prius, I make my own non-toxic cleaning products, and I just started composting. I am a (good) home cook, and prepare meals from scratch seven nights out of seven. Conceptually I am in. Way, way in.
Here's the thing, though. It is very, very expensive to be green. The only eco-friendly things that I do that actually save money are making my own cleaning products, using cloth rags and napkins instead of buying paper, and using energy-efficient light bulbs. It may be TMI, but I will tell you that money is very tight around here these days, as it is for many people. I have a grocery budget, it is fixed, and I have, for years, been using the weapons of sales circulars, meticulous list, menu planning and creative cooking to make the money stretch to feed a big carnivore and a growing boy.
We don't have a Whole Foods in these parts, but I hear from my more urban friends that there is a high price to be paid for all of that fresh, organic wonderfulness. I know firsthand that the small selection of organic produce available at our grocery store, the local health food store and the food co-op is much more expensive than "regular" produce at my grocery store, and that I pay farmers at the market at least 10% more per item than I would pay at said grocery.
During the growing season here, as cash flow allows, I buy all of my weekly produce at the Farmers Market. I love everything about it, from the contact with the farmers to the knowledge that my family is supporting local agriculture. (Plus, the food tastes better). When cash flow doesn't allow (and in the 8 or 9 months during which there is no local produce), I buy my eggplants, zucchini, onions and peppers at the large grocery store where I buy everything else. Because we live in farm country, much of what I purchase at the grocery store in the summer is locally grown. I still feel guilty.
I continue to feel guilty when I do not buy the line of grass-fed beef or free-range chicken sold at our grocery store because it is TWICE AS MUCH as the chemical-fed, tortured, ill-used animal protein I feed my family. I would, left to my own devices, solve that problem by being a vegetarian (I used to be). Neither my husband nor my son is willing to give up meat, and I am forever playing chicken (no pun intended) to see how small a quantity of animal protein I can put in our meals before they notice and complain. We have at least one meatless meal a week, usually two. What I cannot do is spend $7.00 a pound on chicken instead of $3.69, thus diverting dollars that are needed to buy other things.
The nervous tic near my right eye starts to twitch when I read statements by food pundits about how we are not used to paying what food is really worth, and we have become used to a McDonalds and Walmart pricing system that makes us shocked at the prices of food that is produced in ways that are humane and earth-friendly. It's undoubtedly true, but the reality is that I am a person working to balance a tight budget and a perpetually starving, adolescent son. My first duty is to provide abundant, healthy food for my child. If, to quote the Barenaked Ladies, "I had a million dollars," I would be all over the grass fed beef, the locally grown produce and the hormone free milk. Until then, I buy what I can afford. And feel guilty.
The point of this rant, I guess, is that it is very easy to preach about the value of the grass fed, the solar, the phosphate-free and the organic when you are in a position to afford it all - or willing to decide for yourself that you can live without cars, meat, or a washing machine. My mother has wisely reminded me that much of the preaching is not directed at me; I already know and understand ecological "best practices," and implement them as often as possible. The fact that I feel guilty when I make the choices I have to make is really my own issue.
What about the people who have less money than I do, though? What about the people who buy food from the dollar menu at McDonald's because they lack the time ans skills to spend the same amount on a roasting chicken, new potatoes and fresh aspragaus? What about the people who might save money if they drove a Prius, or installed solar panels, but who lack the funds? Is "being green" realistically the province only of the well-heeled and the folks whose lifestyles allow them to leave the grid completely? Maybe, until such time as the economic playing field is equalled a bit, there should be less bully pulpit and more compassion and assistance. I don't honestly know whether that leveling is the role of government, the market, or both.
It will be a beautiful day when green choices are similar in cost to less green choices. I am deadly, earnest serious that I would be proud and happy to live in such a world. Until then, I can live without affluent and/or single-minded greenazis looking down their noses at those of us who still shop at regular grocery stores, drive gas-burning vehicles and commit various other sins against the environment as if we were intentionally throttling Mother Nature with our bare (chemically tainted) hands. I'm betting that my IQ and social consciousness are a good match for the best of them; all they have that I don't have is enough money to make payments on a Prius and spend $7.00 on organic dishwasher soap.
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Heather Siegel
Reflecting On History
Anne Cameron Cutri
meghill
TaosGirl
clay ball
Salon.com
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1) I get mad when I hear people rant against genetically engineered food going to Third World countries, allowing them greater food supplies. Would you prefer that poor people starve? Let everyone get enough to eat, and then we can be more discriminating.
2) I remember reading an article 20 years ago, before Harlem was gentrified and when it didn’t have a chain supermarket, about how residents there spent more money than well-off suburbanites for the same food, because they had to shop at mom-and-pop stores with higher prices, not to mention the time lost by traveling to several stores rather than one Stop & Shop. I’ve tried to remain aware that, no matter what difficulties my family may go through, we’re still more privileged than most and that preaching about those less fortunate is unbecoming.
The bigger issue is that outrageous health care costs are going toward treating the illness that results from our horrible cheap food diets. The food industry has us over a barrel. If we all stopped buying greasy cheesy doused in chemical food tomorrow, they would offer something else. They know we won't and we can't, because it's food, so there is no incentive. This triggers my old hippie F*ck the Man response. Really. Some days I just want to move to France.
I propose instead, we read up and think about what matters more: splurging on certain organic vegetables, coffees, cleaners, and grains, or going 'conventional' on those to be able to divert funds to hormone-free milk and healthier meats? It's hard when you look at the milk case and see 'normal' milk for like $3 and the milk you want being more than twice that, and what if it goes sour faster, and what if it tastes weird, and can I still cook with it, and... but... try to blind out the comparison shopping, and just think about that one item in how it relates to your family... if a gallon of milk is $8, then a serving of milk (8oz) is $.50... that's pretty reasonable, isn't it? That's less than what they would charge in a cafeteria, probably.
So you can't afford to totally jump off the grid, it's okay. Make the choices that you can afford to, and Mother Nature will still thank you. She's grateful for the small things. Ed Begley gets her all the awesome flashy gifts -- but if we handmake her a macaroni valentine now and then, she'll be glad.
Be grateful you're still in a position to save money by making non-green choices. After Obama and Gore finish with us, and cap-and-tax takes over, your resources will be stretched to the breaking point whether you like it or not.
BTW, Tom's deodorant doesn't work.
One point you make: that some people lack the "skills" to cook real
(and simple) food. This is curable.
In our house, Whole Foods is affectionately called The Food Museum. It's gorgeous to go in and look at organic hothouse grown strawberries in January, but who can buy them? My foodie fantastic cook husband will sometimes buy special ingredients there for dinners when we're cooking for company.
The rest of the time? Costco and Winco Foods (giant industrial pack-your-own-bags discount grocery store). And for me, pangs of guilt.
I do take some solace from the knowledge that no matter how green we all might be a nasty, insentient very big meteor or unknowable black hole could, almost without warning, or with warning but nothing for us to do about it, go SMACK or GULP... (r)
and we're getting there. it should be less about making people feel guilty for feeding their kids processed, chemical-laden crap than showing them that it's easy and cheaper (and takes no more time) in many instances to feed them food that isn't.
the writing is, as usual, excellent, ann.
Haven't done as much research, but I believe the same is true of solar panels - the savings don't cover the cost of installation.
And don't even get me started on biofuels.
I also do not appreciate the Green nazi comments and as to our objections to gmo foods being sent to starving folks in Africa. The Monsanto model will kill the fields sooner than organic. Google up Dr Vandana Shiva.
Those people used to be self sufficient until colonial IMF coerced them into growing cash crops to be exported.
We will pay the price for gmo foods in health care costs..we already are. Diabetes etc from HFCS derived from BT corn, other odd diseases from Round UP ready crops. I just read reports of weeds that are now round up resistant and causing farmers to abandon fields because of it.
None of which I eat anymore I was diabetic until I quite buying such things. I also kept getting sick from commercially grown foods.
I know first hand how hard it is to feed a family on a fixed income and partners repeatedly being outsourced and downsized.
We started by growing organic veggies in pots on the porch. .
Eventually partner got a job in another city and we had to rent there w/ little back yard which we planted heirloom seeds, collected.
Forward several years, the rent went up because I spend some of our meagre income on insulation etc, our power and gas bills were decreased by half I spent maybe 600 on Great stuff/insulation/ solar powered attic fan which really helped on the ac bill, then the landlord says "You fixed it up so nice I'm doubling the rent and taking out what you put in to put in my own house". Meaning the solar fan and wood stove. I fell down the steps so we could not get the wood stove.
We had been looking for a place to buy with little down.
We found a house in a field 3 yrs ago really cheap..payments half of what the original rent at the rental(safer too). Is not an old house, but it was energy hungry 3300+ kilo watt hrs per month to run ac or heat, its an 98,000 btu unit. We now heat with fire place or kero heater-23,000 btu and solar gain.
I am disabled, but slowly over the last 3 1/2 yrs, I have painted the roof white, bought insulated curtain liners, sealed air leaks. Our power use is down to 1000 kwhrs so far. The house has acres around it we bought it with 1200$ down since it was abandoned by the prior owners. the yard was as high as the windows and trashed . It has taken us this long to clear the yard, plant gardens for food. The orchard trees we bought on sale for 1/2 price.
Almost everything we bought to go green has been only purchased when I see it on sale I set aside 50-100$ month which is a hardship, but we have lowered our bills, meaning that we don't have to come up with 450$ a month for power.
We bought used appliances when we moved in sin. We will replace as they die. I use a toaster oven for most baked meals, covered pots on the stove at low heat.
We bought a solar water heater, and it has not gone in yet as my cancer returned and I was too sick to put it up and I am collecting used stuff t make a solar oven/furnace so that we can do away with the kero heater next winter.
Each month I buy a pair of LEDs from Sams Club(not my fav ) for 15$/pr 3.5 watts for 45 worth of light, all the fixtures take 2 to 5 bulbs so we are not lacking for light. They are supposed to last 30,000 hrs.
When the top loader died we saved for a several months and bought a front loader (ROI 2.5 yrs). We have a well and have elect water heater.
This Bosch uses 20gallons of water w/ onboard heater, so I turned down the water heater and put a double insulation on that. I use bio soap in it 2 tablespoons of soap takes even red clay from jeans, they come out clean and last longer and take less time to dry. A bottle of laundry soap lasts 6 mos.
It Can be done. Its just not easy.
If there was public transportation that went where I needed to go when I needed to go there, I'd take that. As it is now, there is a huge gap between the public transport that is available, and what is actually needed where I live.
I'd love to live in a world where being Green was more affordable, too. I'd love to have a more effective network of public transportation. These are ideals to strive for. In the meantime, no sermons, thank you very much.
I don't know if that's true about that number, but I believe it.
I guess I have anger issues but Whole Foods makes me grumble and want to beat the patrons with a clothe bag. I had to go twice with a friend and I had to get out of there. The prices are just absurd, and I think those who pay them are just a little too self loving. I do.
I think the war on plastic is lost etc. I really have a strong belief that we have to get rid of hunger, depression, health insurance coverage etc., before we focus in on this stuff.
We Have to win the war on plastic whether its to make it from corn starch or something biodegradable. At least Greensboro has mixed recycle centers. I let it collect(after wash or rinse and once a month when am on other errands take all the glass, paper, plastics, and aluminium(they even take old hard plastic toys now). and do it in one go.
I don't shop Whole Paycheck either. Occasionally go to farmers market or some local farmers have beef, pork or chicken free range of course. It is a bit more expensive say 50c to 1$ a pound, but I'm finding that smaller portions serve as well since there is so little fat in it.
As other say go at your own speed, its taken me almost 10 yrs to get a composter, my back is pretty messed up and turning a pile with a pitchfork is out these days.
I started recycling when the city I lived in in Fla started in the mid 80s, but gradually learned more and more and when opportunity came up and I learned how. I'm not trying to preach, just point out things.
We now have garbage patches in the Atlantic and Pacific that are killing wildlife..and its not just that its killing wild life its breaking down the food chain and eventually it will harm us. I used to drink bottled water until i learned how Nestle et al were messing up small town water supplies, and the fact that plastic really is not good for us.
On the rare occasion i buy produce I don't take the plastic baggies i just put all my produce in one of of the canvas bags separately.
We do our best to not generate trash for the landfill and it starts with what we buy. We don't eat many processed foods. I have learned to cook from working in restaurants and watching mom and grammas mostly from scratch (crockpot is your friend) who grew up during the Depression.
We are learning to grow our own herbs.
Take one thing or two at a time and learn to make it a habit..took me a couple years to make sure I had the canvas bags with me when I went to the store. Now I empty them and put them back in the car after unloading.
One tip on the soap though: all you need is phosphate-free soap (many name brands are) and you're good :)
There is no sense in which steel factories and lithium mines are good for the environment, so Prius owners are completely missing the point. The world has more than enough cars, and car culture is almost over, anyway.
"Is "being green" realistically the province only of the well-heeled and the folks whose lifestyles allow them to leave the grid completely?"
I agree that everyone needs to be more mindful about their footprint and be respectful to the earth and their fellow humans. But I don't feel guilty for abandoning the "off the grid" goal that so many people have put out there. People who were self-sufficient and off-the-grid were also the farmers who lived and died by their crops. They worked from sunup until sundown, their entire existence dependent on hard work and nature. Food wasn't something to be enjoyed, so much as consumed for fuel and sustenance. People back then were self-sufficient by necessity, not by choice.
So while its understandable to feel guilty for not doing more, don't forget the benefits that modern life brings us. Our kids are encouraged to attend school and participate in leisure activities (instead of working in the fields or on chores), we can occasionally sleep in and take vacations, and we can have careers that aren't based on the strength of our back and the blessings of good health.
I shop my local farmer's markets for fresh produce, but I won't condemn my white collar job that allows me the indulgence of buying heirloom tomatoes and homemade poundcakes. I work from home everyday and only drive my car minimally, but I won't hesitate to hop on the first flight to see my family in Michigan. I spend more than recommended on frivolous things (manicures, lattes, resturant meals, and little indulgences) but won't feel guilty for contributing money and tips (income) to my local service economy.
As with all things, moderation is a virtue.
The nearest grocery store from the urban center is at least a mile - grocery stores don't open in poor neighborhoods. Forget "green" - what we need to be thinking about is food privilege, and how vast communities are denied access to food (except corner stores and fast food) because corporate grocery stores won't open in poor neighborhoods.
Be as green as you can - as you are surely doing - and fight for the underserved to have access to a few basics. The greening, literally, of urban areas makes my heart sing.
Great post, Ann!
All that is about consumerism though and I really think it is wrong to think that one can spend their way to green. Think of the mess that is plastic, it certainly is cheap. For years plastic has been insinuating it's self more and more into our lives first small appliance cases then containers for soda and such, on to the ubiquitous plastic shopping bag. All of these have sprung up because plastic is "cheaper". And, here is where I have to say no we are not paying the true cost of the use of plastic. Unless you feel that plastic sitting idly in land fills for the foreseeable future or swirling out in the mid Pacific Ocean in a poisonous stew the size of Texas are an acceptable state-of-affairs.
It isn't easy being green in such a rampantly consumerist society as ours. No one is going to go easily or quietly into reduced expectations, it's well they shouldn't. Not bearing out the true cost of items is a very real problem that is frequently is a result of someone misusing a common resource. Leading to the so called Tragedy of the Commons.
I don't think it is really possible to consume our way to a more healthy environment. It seems absurd to believe that the "Green" housecleaning products that I have just seen popping up at the grocery store I frequent, that cost twice as much or more, are really designed by benevolent corporate scientists to save the planet. On that basis I think I mostly of agree with your rant.
Farmer markets are ideal. If you live near the water you can also buy fish off the boats or at markets.
Unfortunately green has become a money making scheme in some places.
A pamphlet put out by Compassion Over Killing says raising animals for food is one of the leading causes of both pollution and resource depletion today. According to a recent United Nations report, Livestock's Long Shadow, raising chickens, turkeys, pigs, and other animals for food causes more greenhouse gas emissions than all the cars, trucks and other forms of transportation combined. Researchers from the University of Chicago similarly concluded that a vegetarian diet is the most energy efficient, and the average American does more to reduce global warming emissions by not eating animal products than by switching to a hybrid car.
"Livestock are one of the most significant contributors to today's most serious environmental problems. Urgent action is required to remedy the situation."
---Union Nations' Food and Agriculture Association
70% of the grain grown and 50% of the water consumed in the U.S. are used by the meat industry. (Audubon Society)
Over 260 million acres of U.S. forest have been cleared to grow grain for livestock. (Greenpeace)
It takes nearly one gallon of fossil fuel and 5,200 gallons of water to produce just one pound of conventionally fed beef. (Mother Jones)
The following quotes, facts, figures and statistics are excerpted from Please Don't Eat the Animals (2007) by Jennifer Horsman and Jaime Flowers:
"A reduction in beef and other meat consumption is the most potent single act you can take to halt the destruction of our environment and preserve our natural resources. Our choices do matter: What's healthiest for each of us personally is also healthiest for the life support system of our precious, but wounded planet."
---John Robbins, author, Diet for a New America, and President, EarthSave Foundation
One study puts animal waste in the United States to between 2.4 trillion to 3.9 trillion pounds per year. The United states produces 15,000 pounds of manure per person. This is 130 times the amount of waste produced by the entire human population of the United States.
A 1,000-cow dairy can produce approximately 120,000 pounds of waste per day. This is the functional equivalent of the amount of sanitary waste produced by a city of 20,000 people.
A 20,000-chicken factory produces about 2.4 million pounds of manure a year. Poultry factories are one of the fastest growing industries throughout Asia.
One pig excretes nearly three gallons of waste per day, or 2.5 times the average human's daily total. One hog farm with 50,000 pigs in France produces more waste than the entire city of Los Angeles, and some pig farms are much larger.
Factory farm pollution is the primary source of damage to coastal waters in North and South America, Europe, and Asia. Scientists report that over sixty percent of the coastal waters in the United States are moderately to severely degraded from factory farm nutrient pollution. This pollution creates oxygen-depleted dead zones, which are huge areas of ocean devoid of aquatic life.
Meat production causes deforestation, which then contributes to global warming. Trees convert carbon dioxide into oxygen, and the destruction of forests around the globe to make room for grazing cattle furthers the greenhouse effect. The Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations reports that the annual rate of tropical deforestation has increased from 9 million hectares in 1980 to 16.8 million hectares in 1990, and unfortunately, this destruction has accelerated since then. By 1994, a staggering 200 million hectares of rainforest had been destroyed in South America just for cattle.
"The impact of countless hooves and mouths over the years has done more to alter the type of vegetation and land forms of the West than all the water projects, strip mines, power plants, freeways, and sub-division developments combined."
---Philip Fradkin, in Audubon, National Audubon Society, New York
Agricultural meat production generates air pollution. As manure decomposes, it releases over 400 volatile organic compounds, many of which are extremely harmful to human health. Nitrogen, a major by-product of animal wastes, changes to ammonia as it escapes into the air, and this is a major source of acid rain. Worldwide, livestock produce over 30 million tons of ammonia. Hydrogen sulfide, another chemical released from animal waste, can cause irreversible neurological damage, even at low levels.
The World Conservation Union lists over 1,000 different fish species that are threatened or endangered. According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimate, over 60 percent of the world's fish species are either fully exploited or depleted. Commercial fish populations of cod, hake, haddock, and flounder have fallen by as much as 95 percent in the north Atlantic.
The United States and Europe lose several billion tons of topsoil each year from cropland and grazing land, and 84 percent of this erosion is caused by livestock agriculture. While this soil is theoretically a renewable resource, we are losing soil at a much faster rate than we are able to replace it. It takes 100 to 500 years to produce one inch of topsoil, but due to livestock grazing and feeding, farming areas can lose up to six inches of topsoil a year.
Livestock production affects a startling 70 to 85 percent of the land area of the United States, United Kingdom, and the European Union. That includes the public and private rangeland used for grazing, as well as the land used to produce the crops that feed the animals. By comparison, urbanization only affects 3 percent of the United States land area, slightly larger for the European Union and the United Kingdom. Meat production consumes the world's land resources.
Half of all fresh water worldwide is used for thirsty livestock. Producing eight ounces of beef requires an unimaginable 25,000 liters of water, or the water necessary for one pound of steak equals the water consumption of the average household for a year.
The United States government spends $10 million each year to kill an estimated 100,000 wild animals, including coyotes, foxes, bobcats, badgers, bears, and mountain lions just to placate ranchers who don't want these animals killing their livestock. The cost far outweighs the damage to livestock that these predators cause.
The Worldwatch Institute estimates one pound of steak from a steer raised in a feedlot costs: five pounds of grain, a whopping 2,500 gallons of water, the energy equivalent of a gallon of gasoline, and about 34 pounds of topsoil.
33 percent of our nation's raw materials and fossil fuels go into livestock destined for slaughter. In a vegan economy, only 2 percent of our resources will go to the production of food.
"It seems disingenuous for the intellectual elite of the first world to dwell on the subject of too many babies being born in the second- and third-world nations while virtually ignoring the overpopulation of cattle and the realities of a food chain that robs the poor of sustenance to feed the rich a steady diet of grain-fed meat."
---Jeremy Rifkin, pro-life and pro-animal author, Beyond Beef: The Rise and Fall of the Cattle Culture, and president of the Greenhouse Crisis Foundation
Les Brown of the Overseas Development Council calculates that if Americans reduced their meat consumption by only 10 percent per year, it would free at least 12 million tons of grain for human consumption--or enough to feed 60 million people.
The number of animals killed for food in the United States is 70 times larger than the number of animals killed in laboratories, 30 times larger than the number killed by hunters and trappers, and 500 times larger than the number of animals killed in animal pounds.
Roberta Kalechofsky of Jews for Animal Rights says:
"Merely by ceasing to eat meat
Merely by practicing restraint
We have the power to end a painful industry
"We do not have to bear arms to end this evil
We do not have to contribute money
We do not have to sit in jail or go to
meetings or demonstrations or
engage in acts of civil disobedience
"Most often, the act of repairing the world,
of healing mortal wounds,
is left to heroes and tzaddikim (holy people)
Saints and people of unusual discipline
"But here is an action every mortal can
perform--surely it is not too difficult!"
peta2 is now the largest youth movement of any social change organization in the world.
peta2 has 267,000 friends on MySpace and 91,000 Facebook fans.
Afew years ago, PETA was the top-ranked charity when a poll asked teenagers what nonprofit group they would most want to work for. PETA won by more than a 2 to 1 margin over the second place finisher, The American Red Cross, with more votes than the Red Cross and Habitat for Humanity combined.
“If anyone wants to save the planet,” says Paul McCartney in a PETA interview from 2001, “all they have to do is stop eating meat. That’s the single most important thing you could do. It’s staggering when you think about it. Vegetarianism takes care of so many things in one shot: ecology, famine, cruelty. Let’s do it! Linda was right. Going veggie is the single best idea for the new century.”
I'm with your family on the vegetarian thing; my husband would be one, and we do eat veggie most of the week, but I need steak every now and then! Once we use up the steak and chicken in the freezer, my goal is to only eat it once or twice a week - then $7/ lb will be doable. Painful, but doable.
Just stay away from any of those %@ durable goods made in China.
cranky - you may not be knowledgeable, but you cited one thing that drives me nuts, and another that is a HUGE problem. I lived in Boston without a car for years, and the only stores in walking distance had bars on the windows and "specials" on 40 oz. malt liquor.
designanator - I so hope you're right!
fay - oh, I love to go there - it's beautiful. I am saved from pining for it by the fact that there isn't one here. I hadn't noticed the grass smell - now I'm curious.....
cartouche - thanks. If only envy were an attractive thing. :)
jane - I'll check on the milk. Thanks for the tip!
elisa - amen. Food, Inc. IS disturbing; I struggled to balance actually learning from it against being shocked into feeling even...guiltier.
jonathan - a White Foods Diet sounds yummy, but I'm a pretty healthy cook. Maybe when I have sic weeks to live. :)
suzanne - I hear you. I feed the three of us (and buy pet food and cleaning stuff) for $120.00 a week. Whole Foods would kill me. So would buying the anemic produce at our local health food store. In glorious summer, though, I come home with bags of fresh herbs, heirloom tomatoes, kale, melons, ahhhhhh.
raving bits - that's incredibly thoughtful, and I love the macaroni valentine. :)
gordon - it doesn't work. I found that out the hard way.
firestorm - there really are such people. I am actually going in on a side of beef with several friends, and that should last us for quite a while. I am still thinking of everything else you said - I'm pretty sure you're right, but I have to think....
jeanette - thank you!
sixtycandles - I do believe anyone can cook, but someone has to teach them how, and no one seems to do that?
midwest muse - you are so welcome!
craze czar - I'm still waiting for the fanatical commenters...I was expecting them. You make great points; even if I, in my most hippie moments, was willing to live in co-housing and give up our cars, I am part of a family and cannot change all the rules on them.
owl - thanks. I think we may be living the same life.
froggy - as I told you via PM, "The Food Museum" just made my day.
clark - you don't whine, do you? As for the meteor/black hole, will you tell me when it's coming so I can smoke and eat fried chicken?
gail - thanks. You give good comment. :)
ladyslipper - we don't have a Target that sells food. But then, no Whole Foods, either.
femme - Yes! Maybe what we need is a movement geared towards teaching people to cook decent food on a budget?
harry's ghost - I sense sarcasm. I would love to stop thinking about the money, but it's irresponsible not to budget appropriately when raising a family.
deborah - I think I avoided taking that on directly because I don't know enough about it to be authoritative. I certainly agree that there is a "green" racket; that's why I spend 3 cents a bottle on homemade cleaning products instead of buying them for $5 a bottle.
dienne - my husband has told me both of those things. He is larhely unimpressed by Green.
hillbillybob - you're an inspiration. Is the soap Dr. Bronner's? How do you eat right for your diabetes on a budget without eating tons of rice, pasta and bread?
kathy - but wouldn't it be great to have one? {Sigh} I'm such an impressionable sucker.
firestorm - that's incredibly thoughtful and, in my opinion, true. Your wife is a lucky woman.
shiral - public transportation. I'd forgotten that one. I can walk a lot of places, but not to a grocery store.....
fernsy - you may be right. But we each choose our battles?
joan - I wish you were queen. Could we still have Cheetos, though?
sophie - thanks. I get free range eggs when the farmer's market is open, but I can't get them the rest of the year.
hillbilly bob - I'm pretty anti-plastic. We saw a documentary about plastic, where it ends up, and the harm it does, and it horrified me.
bell - true dat. We do have to try, but guilt and being overwhelmed do nobody any good.
thesquid - thanks for the tip! I'm the cheapie in the family.:)
michael - unfortunately, since my husband is a diabetic, we can't eat a lot of rice, and (although I make damned good bread) we can't eat a lot of it. I'd love a grain mill, though. You've made me think about the Prius; now I have some reading to do.
reader not writer - great, great comment. I don't suppose your relatives are in East Lansing?
geezerchick - I so hope you're right.
aim - that's FABULOUS!!!!! Leave it to Massachusetts. :)
anthony - that's interesting, because they are trying to get us to spend our way to green. And the plastic bothers me a great deal. You made me think.
sheila - the comments have been amazing. I'm inspired! I wish I could do what your mom did. that would be perfect.
scanner - thanks. :) There are plenty of those people in these parts, too, and it makes me sick that they are worried about eating anything while people are nagging me about supporting an organic shrimp farm....
beckster - agreed. I like the way you think.
poppi - no fish, but a Hyundai with great mileage and great local farms.
vasu - if it were up to me alone, I would be a vegetarian, maybe a vegan. I can't make that decision for my husband. I can't afford to make two sets of meals. Unless he has a dramatic change of opinion, we're meat eaters.
blue - Sounds familiar, indeed. :) I'd like to know how you're making the laundry soap - I got a "recipe" that was incredibly complicated and I'd do it if it were simpler.
sgt. mom - alas, we don't have a Walmart that sells food besides boxed and canned food and dairy staples. That makes me like them better, though.
Honestly, I have so much to say, but won't steal your thunder! I will say--try having 70 year old parents who have spent the last 20 years (your prime child bearing years) sinking their money into building a "green" home and not their daughter or her children...what's the song? How can people be so heartless...the irony abounds in the green world!
And yet, more on point, I have long contended that the more we spend on organics, etc. the sooner the price will go down???
I have vegetarian kids (thanks to the fanatic ex) and I make sure (out of ironic respect) that all meat I buy is "clean" (or at least as clean as I can afford!) in case they decided they want to break out and try meat now that they live with their fallen of the vegetarian wagon mom.
Thanks for writing this...well-deserved EP.
Very thoughtful post, Ann. xox Thanks.