The first day a piece of fruit has touched my lips in a week. I was so excited the first thing I did when I woke up was to raid the fruit drawer of the refridgerator. I have to say, Target grapes are not too bad! It did diminish the flavor when I began thinking about how far these grapes must have traveled to get to my house. These have come from somewhere it is warm enough in late March/early April to grow grapes. While it was depressing, I couldn't help but think about how Vitamin C deficient my body must be right now. That made me feel better about eating them.
For lunch I ate a ham and swiss cheese sandwich, but with mayo, something that was not available on my eating locally diet. I was surprised at the taste of the bread for some reason. Compared to my local bread, this bread tasted foamy and sweet. It made me think of King Corn and I wondered if there was corn syrup in my bread (there wasn't, just straight sugar). With my lunch I ate broccoli and cauliflower and I drank orange juice from Florida.
My lunch tasted great, but I couldn't get my mind off eating locally. I felt a little guilty eating food from so far away.
When I got home I ate chocolate eggs from Easter. These were also from some far away land and were definitely not a healthy choice. For dinner we ate (yikes!) Chinese food... not from Target! But, my parents did not want to waste food and they were leftovers needed to be eaten. My dad told me that most Chinese restaurants will ship in all their food frozen from one place in the country so they can just cook it up. Urban legend or truth? Anyway, it made me think again about eating locally. If I am planning to eat a local diet, no more Plymouth Garden for me. And for that matter no more fast food, school lunch, or restaurant dining (unless they advertise locally grown food).
One thing I love about this Target diet is that I can bake! It did not seem possible to bake with a locally grown diet. It may be that I simply could not find the right ingredients, but some basics were hard to find locally grown. I made a devil's food cake for dessert tonight. It was very fun to make and tasted good.
The most compelling thing (to me) about eating at Target (or non-local)is its incredible convenience. It requires no thought and no planning. Its easy.
ReplyDeleteBut it is not necessarily good either for you or the world around you.
Sadly, we are a convenience-based society and what is convenient typically trumps that which is good. The question I raise is how that can be changed when we are all so busy, with frantic lives, and never-ending demands. In that context it is pretty easy to see the lure of the convenient.
As I read your blog I see planning, thought, and sacrifice -- none of which are the ingredients of the average American life. It will be interesting to see how in your experience this plays out.