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January 07, 2007
conflicted
like 99 squintillion other people, i think that january is a good time to improve my eating habits (among other things). i don't usually make resolutions, so i haven't resolved anything in particular. but this is a logical time to reduce after the excesses of december.
eating lots of fresh produce is key, of course.
i also want to reduce my footprint in another way: i want to eat more locally grown foods.
this is tricky.
i went to the grocery store today with local in mind. fortunately, we've got a store that labels the origins of all the fresh foods (or most of them). i wanted snow peas for a stir-fry and for salad, but they were from peru so i didn't get them. i found local hydroponic lettuce and compromised on a carrot and a cucumber from california. did you know that a lot of mushrooms come from pennsylvania? and from oregon.
sigh. i'm a spoiled, modern westerner. not only do i have enough to eat, my biggest problem is choosing things that are good for me and for the environment.
yeah, i'll go cry into my soba noodle stir-fry.
Posted by lisa at January 07, 2007 08:07 PM
Comments
I thought it was pens that came from Pennsylvania :-)
Anyway -- three cheers for having such problems! Long ago I heard a political leader from some Latin American country who was asked what she thought of America's frequent focus on trivialities. It was both surprising and refreshing to hear her say something like, "it's a side effect of America's greatness that you can complain about small stuff. It's because you have so much of the big stuff taken care of. We look forward to the day when we don't have to spend our whole days complaining about the big stuff."
(And now, let's return to our regularly scheduled broadcast of "If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention.")
Posted by: Phil on January 7, 2007 11:41 PM
have you been to king's red & white at the corner of roxboro & club? they carry tons of local produce. the farmer's market is still open through the winter, too, in the school across from manbitesdog.
of course, you won't be able to get everything local. i love pineapple & bananas, but we don't grow those in north carolina. ;-)
Posted by: xta on January 8, 2007 03:11 PM
Squintillion is my new favorite word. Thanks!
I wonder if sales of produce go up in January and February when everyone resolves to eat better, and then go down again when many of us fall off that wagon. Hmm.
Oh, and hi, Xta!
Posted by: minty on January 8, 2007 08:49 PM
ok, so a) your comment won't post right away because i have to approve it first and b) you might get a server error but your comment probably posted anyway and c) previewing doesn't work so i've removed the preview button.