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20 Jul 2010
Activism by consumerism; food
20 Jul 2010 01:01 pmI've been trying to reduce my consumption and general materialism for a while. This is fairly difficult, to be honest, because I don't generally buy a lot of stuff, or really *want* to buy a lot of stuff. Books and DVDs are the main things I buy, and mostly it's books.
One problem with the consumer goods market in the US is that we're being told that we can put our dollars where our mouths are, to encourage our corporate masters to do responsible blah blah. Hence even Walmart sells organically-grown produce now. But it's still mass consumerism, just with a shiny label on it.
You gotta eat, though, so you can't just say fuck it, I won't buy food. Subsistence farming is damned hard work. Even growing veggies in your back yard/on your windowsill takes a lot of skill. (I'm still sad that my yellow pepper plants only produced 2 peppers all last summer. I can grow rosemary, but you can't make dinner out of rosemary.) So you have to pay people for your food.
Sustainable farming practices and humane treatment of animals are important to me. I buy as many veggies as I can, and all my eggs, from the farmers market. I chat with the people who grew the food I'm going to cook, or raise the chickens who laid the eggs. I pay $4.50/dozen for amazing eggs, with gorgeous orange yolks and thick brown shells, laid by chickens who walk around in a field and eat grass and bugs.
(Whereas a dozen eggs laid by chickens crammed a dozen into a cat-carrier-sized cage and de-beaked so they won't peck each other to death cost $2.50 for Eggland's Best; less presumably for store brand.)
When I can't get something at the farmers market, which is fairly regular; sometimes I need a veggie out of local season, I buy at the co-op. They get organically-grown produce, with a preference for local and regional farmers, when possible. (We don't exactly get mangoes in NC...)
It costs more, probably. I pay more for my food than someone who shops at Food Lion or Walmart. Until you think about the true costs of food. Hidden in the cheap food is the cost to the animals confined in CAFOs, the cost to the environment of hog lagoons, the cost to human and animal health, the cost of antibiotic resistance... If these costs were added up, "cheap" food would cost more than sustainable food.
(The problem is, though, that people without the means to purchase sustainable food, those who live in food deserts, those who don't but don't earn enough to pay the premium for sustainable food, those for whom Walmart is the only game in town, are already at a disadvantage as far as nutritious food goes, and making food even more expensive without having some sort of offset, like, I don't know, wage increases, hurts them far more than it hurts me.)
One problem with the consumer goods market in the US is that we're being told that we can put our dollars where our mouths are, to encourage our corporate masters to do responsible blah blah. Hence even Walmart sells organically-grown produce now. But it's still mass consumerism, just with a shiny label on it.
You gotta eat, though, so you can't just say fuck it, I won't buy food. Subsistence farming is damned hard work. Even growing veggies in your back yard/on your windowsill takes a lot of skill. (I'm still sad that my yellow pepper plants only produced 2 peppers all last summer. I can grow rosemary, but you can't make dinner out of rosemary.) So you have to pay people for your food.
Sustainable farming practices and humane treatment of animals are important to me. I buy as many veggies as I can, and all my eggs, from the farmers market. I chat with the people who grew the food I'm going to cook, or raise the chickens who laid the eggs. I pay $4.50/dozen for amazing eggs, with gorgeous orange yolks and thick brown shells, laid by chickens who walk around in a field and eat grass and bugs.
(Whereas a dozen eggs laid by chickens crammed a dozen into a cat-carrier-sized cage and de-beaked so they won't peck each other to death cost $2.50 for Eggland's Best; less presumably for store brand.)
When I can't get something at the farmers market, which is fairly regular; sometimes I need a veggie out of local season, I buy at the co-op. They get organically-grown produce, with a preference for local and regional farmers, when possible. (We don't exactly get mangoes in NC...)
It costs more, probably. I pay more for my food than someone who shops at Food Lion or Walmart. Until you think about the true costs of food. Hidden in the cheap food is the cost to the animals confined in CAFOs, the cost to the environment of hog lagoons, the cost to human and animal health, the cost of antibiotic resistance... If these costs were added up, "cheap" food would cost more than sustainable food.
(The problem is, though, that people without the means to purchase sustainable food, those who live in food deserts, those who don't but don't earn enough to pay the premium for sustainable food, those for whom Walmart is the only game in town, are already at a disadvantage as far as nutritious food goes, and making food even more expensive without having some sort of offset, like, I don't know, wage increases, hurts them far more than it hurts me.)
New faucet installed!
20 Jul 2010 08:35 pmBen is extremely sore, mostly from wrangling the 9-year-old fixtures off the sink, but we now have the ability to use the sink without turning the water on with a pair of clamps. And we have a functional sprayer hose thingy! Ours broke, uh, 4 years ago? Kind of got stuck in the "on" position, so we had to take the handle off. Now the sprayer is inside the spout, which is cool.
And the sink-side soap dispenser actually works now! It never worked before.
If the pic I sent to twitpic from my phone ever loads, I can link it.
And the sink-side soap dispenser actually works now! It never worked before.
If the pic I sent to twitpic from my phone ever loads, I can link it.
