i've tried to refrain from joining in to all of the hubbub surrounding the new cp book, knowing that i wouldn't really have anything new to say. but i just read this interview with alice on salon, and something in it really struck me, and matched up with some thoughts i've been having lately.
i have a friend--who is a cook--who has been around me, and my food values for over two years now. he's cooked with our ingredients at the restaurant, seen what i bring back from the farm and the farmer's market, and acknowledged how special they are, and how much better than safeway produce it all tastes.
the thing is, he buys everything from safeway at home. i don't really understand that. he says it's because it's too expensive to shop my way. i don't believe that it is so much more expensive to buy food in this way, and i certainly know it's not prohibitively so, because if it were, i wouldn't be able to do it myself. but when people bring up the cost argument, i usually just let things drop. there's not much you can do short of pulling out receipts and comparing them to convince people otherwise.
but what hit me recently is that this very same friend drives a porsche (a newish one), uses designer deodorant that costs about $30 a stick, and wears mostly designer clothing (at least one item a day, let's say). so it's not that he can't afford to buy sky high ranch eggs, it's that he chooses to spend that money on other things. me, well, i wear clothes mostly from jeremy's or ross.
i think food is the most important part of my shopping list, because it's what i put inside of me, it's what makes me me, literally. there are enough toxins in my everyday life that i'm not going to be able to avoid (this computer and what it's emitting out at me probably make the top of the list), but i can avoid feeding myself pesticide and chemical-laden food. i know that this is going to sound terribly judgmental, but the truth of the matter is that people's values are all mixed up. since when does it make sense to care more about what you wear or drive than what you eat? even darwinistically speaking, it doesn't make sense.
poor alice gets so much crap for going around the country trying to get people to eat things that are good for them. she's an easy target, and it seems kind of silly at first that she wants the presidential candidates to make food the number one issue. but we all eat food, we all need to be healthy, and the way our food is grown affects us all again through the environment. it's so easy to say that her arguments and ideals are elitist. but all she's saying is to eat your vegetables, and to know where they came from. is that so snooty?