Eating: fair-trade organic milk chocolate (I love you green & black!)
Whum, straight into the 8th day frizzle-frazzle. Ima tired. So durn tired, but I will write. What should I write about? Wade sez I should write about the ‘rhythm of the universe’. Herm. Instead I think I will write about why we spend so much time and effort to ensure that we eat an organic diet and why we try and support fair trade whenever available.
Our grocery bills are large. We spend a significant portion of our income to ensure that we eat organically. We feel better and enjoy our food more when the food in our pantry and refrigerator (our building blocks) is organic. Yes, we pay a premium, but we also strive to eat in season and locally as a way of keeping costs reasonable. We also try to avoid processed food to keep our costs down. Making granola has almost completely eliminated our “need” for cereals. Making bread has become joy and our lovely assortment of soups keeps us going.
Over the years we have moved towards a more organic diet. In the last ten years we have switched from an almost completely conventional diet to a mostly organic diet. The changes were small. First it was fruit then vegetables then meats. At first we shopped at the Henry’s and Trader Joe’s around the corner from our duplex in PB. When we could, we’d buy the organic version. Then Whole Foods opened up and we moved into the area. One of us would stop by on way home from work to grab the necessities and we’d always choose organic. Over the course of years we noticed that ‘ordinary’ food, which once tasted good, no longer had the same oomph. In addition, we’d started feeling better. When someone had bad news for us, we felt elastic like ‘well, that’s not too good, but I’m sure I’ll figure my way outta this’. Of course, some of this could be attributed to maturity, but our intuition was also telling us that since we were eating higher quality food, the fundamentals of our life were more wholesome and healthy and less saturated with poisons like pesticides.
Since then we’ve become more and more aware about the need to eat locally and sustainably as well as organically. There is always more to know. We’ve become suporters of our local farmer’s market and have come to appreciate the remarkable flavor of a locally grown, in-season peach. O. M. G! Never again will I be able to eat an out-of-season peach. Tis like comparing the sun and the moon! For us, we have found that the effort and money to ensure the ellimination of chemicals from our food stream has had a benefit beyond dollars and cents and that reason we are committed to keeping it so.
