I walked out of the grocery store today feeling defeated. I had only three things on my list so it wasn't the cost of the purchase that weighed heavily on my mind. Instead, it was the fact that I made the purchase at all.
At the beginning of the month we were eating the last of our fresh tomatoes from the greenhouse in the garden. The greenhouse and the cold frame had prolonged our growing season this year, and are even still producing broccoli, carrots, celery and radishes inside their wooden walls. The tomato plants; however, had accepted their fate towards the end of November, and were finally pulled out and the last green tomatoes left to ripen on the kitchen windowsill. Now those tomatoes are gone too.
Yesterday I had made a pasta salad; a sun-dried tomato basil pasta with tomatoes and basil that had been dried from the garden, and eggs from our chickens. I added green peppers that had been frozen from garden's surplus, and served it beside homemade potato chips (from our potatoes), strawberry-lemonade (that we had canned this past summer from strawberries we handpicked at a family-owned strawberry farm in the next town), and cookies (that used our eggs). It was a beautiful feeling to have so much of your own produce being served as a snack at a meeting, and I was overjoyed to know that our energy went into the food that we ate.
But, we don't always have that feeling.
That was the problem as I walked into the grocery store after spending the better part of last year reading up on community supported agriculture, the shop local movement, and how to save the family farm. Presently, a book by Joel Salatin sits next to me that is going to preach the merits of Christian farming, and just why knowing where you food comes from and how it's raised matters. Yet as I walked into the grocery store to get those three things, I knew all too well just where they did, or didn't, come from.
The milk came from a farm somewhere semi-local that likely used a confinement operation, and the cows probably had only limited time, if any, on this green thing they call pasture. Around here, that's how most of the farms are, and we pass plenty a feedlot on our drives through the countryside. The milk was then shipped by a tanker, and combined with the milk from countless other farms, before it ended up in that plastic jug. To top it all off, it wasn't raw milk, but skim, so you can add a handful of other steps and processes between the cow and our fridge.
No one has been producing lettuce around here in the ground for a few months now, and even the lettuce in our unheated greenhouse didn't make it this far into the season. It's unmarked plastic sleeve spoke volumes on how it didn't come from the Amish farmer up the way, but was shipped in from some other destination (perhaps a warmer climate) before it would end up on our sandwich tonight.
Then there were the tomatoes, which hit me the absolute hardest. Plastic container and plastic lid with a neatly printed label that clearly read "Product of Mexico." How did we get to this point? Tomatoes from our garden at the beginning of the month, and tomatoes from another country by mid-month?
So now, as I turn my attention to Joel Salatin's words for the afternoon, I would like everyone reading this to think about something.
If it matters where our clothing and cars are made... if we made the decision to eat organic or healthier in the new year... if we, as a country, care so much about our health and fitness that we spend over $20 billion on it during the course of the year, then HOW did we come to a point in this nation that we can grab a cheap burger at a fast food place, a box of cereal with ingredients that we cannot even pronounce let alone identify, or a bag of baby carrots that were grown on a farm across the country (before being mechanically shaved down to make them appear more appealing) when the farmer down the road struggles to feed his family, and feel okay about it? Do we actually know where the food comes from that we are putting into our bodies every day?
If we want the family farm to exist next week... next month... next year... maybe it's something all of us need to think about.
Being a farmer, I struggle with purchasing produce, ever. And a big question you don't address in your post, but one that goes hand in hand, is whether you need to eat certain things, like tomatoes, every week or month of the year. Like you, we had tomatoes well into winter, using the last about Christmas. I have some sauce I canned, dried tomatoes, and some frozen puree to use in cooking, but I won't have a fresh tomato again until late June or early July at this point. Store bought ones don't meet my expectations for taste, and I really try to be mindful of sourcing locally. For me, there is just no reason to eat a fresh tomato or cucumber right now. They are not in season, and I do without and plan meals accordingly. I do buy organic salad greens this time of year though, I guess we all have our own weaknesses ;)
ReplyDeleteYes, I understand that we do not need to eat tomatoes every week of the year. I have canned tomatoes, dried tomatoes and also frozen cherry tomatoes as well in the freezer for these tomato-less times; however, for certain dishes I notice their taste just does not seem to meet (or come close to) that of a fresh tomato (especially one from the garden if available). I have certainly noticed that we do buy less out-of-season produce now than we used to before we started growing our own produce; however, in this case our cravings kicked in. So all that being said, I don't need to eat an out of season tomato; however sometimes, I just have to give into my cravings. :)
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