I have been reading The Omnivore’s Dilemma off and on. It is an interesting and fascinating book. It is also frightening in many ways and although it is not difficult to read, and is rather gripping, I cannot read it for long periods of time because I must put it down and digest what I have read and deal with the basic mental unrest the book causes me. There are times when I think I should just stop eating all together.
Those moments don’t last for long, luckily.
Today was grocery shopping day and as usual I purchased a great deal of fresh vegetables and very few foods from the remainder of the grocery store. After reading Pollan’s book, just walking through the aisles of the grocery store, looking for raisins and canned beans, was an almost horrifying trek through a world of non-foods.
I was reminded of an article in the Tucson paper while we were there last month about how to spend less on groceries. There were several important points such as always shopping with a list and sticking to the list or allowing only a fixed number of items that weren’t on the list. Well I have done that for years. I don’t see how people shop without lists and I rarely buy extra stuff. Of course there are exceptions. I will go to the farmer’s market (in season) or the butcher’s or fish monger’s with only a vague idea of what I want, waiting to see what is fresh, but those foods are always eaten and meals are planned around them. The thing that surprised me in the article was that the first rule was to avoid the produce section. The author’s point was that most produce was purchased and never consumed but allowed to spoil. If I avoided the produce section we would not eat as I stop very rarely in the wide middle expanse of a grocery store, spending all my time in the produce section and the dairy section at the opposite end, traversing the great wasteland in between as a means to an end only.
Obviously this particular reporter from the Tucson paper hadn’t read Michael Pollan.
I am increasingly grateful that I started purchasing grazed, grass fed (with the exception of winter feeding) and local meat from the farmer’s market this past summer. Although there will be no farmer’s market for another two months, there is a butcher who sells only locally raised, grazed meats. I have not always been good about going there and have often picked up a piece of meat at our local supermarket, I am not so sure I can bring myself to do that anymore. I am not about to become a vegetarian, and I don’t think that is necessary, but eating more difficult to procure and more expensive meat will automatically reduce the amount of meat in the diet. Besides I am not convinced that eating this kind of meat is all that bad. Just as I don’t watch our fat intake per se, but it is tracked on my computer as I plan menus on the computer, I know that we eat so many vegetables that fat is not a particular worry.
But as I shopped today, I was much more aware of labels on those few packaged products I purchased, and the provenance of the food I ate. I am not so worried about whether the produce came from Mexico or Chile (as one shopper was) and I do recall that the recent e-coli scares have been centered on US grown produce, as I am concerned about what is in the food I eat. A vegetable is a vegetable. But what about those canned and packaged things. Should pasta contain high fructose corn syrup? I would think not.
I did not purchase meat today. I have some in the freezer, not all of the kind I think we should be starting to eat, which I want to use up. I am very grateful that we were able to purchase some fresh wild salmon and Bluefin Tuna last summer and have it packaged and flash frozen for us by my local fishmonger. I realize that I am very lucky to be able to do such a thing, and these options aren’t available to everyone. If faced with farm-raised fish (and corn eating farmed Salmon) I think I would have to stop consuming fish. Luckily there are a great many fishermen in this area who love to go out catching Bluefish, and they sell their catch to my local fish market. I can always get fresh bluefish; more than likely caught that same morning and served on my plate that evening.