Feeding Myself In Kansas

[garote]

I went shopping for food at a store called Aidi. I have now shopped at enough stores in Kansas to reveal a pattern. The easiest way I can describe the pattern is by saying, "I have been totally spoiled by living in California."

To me, many supermarkets in Kansas are have an atmosphere of resignation and sickness. Everything is jarred, canned, or wrapped in plastic, and most things are either frozen solid or have a suspiciously long shelf-life. There is absolutely no such thing as a fresh vegetable in these Kansas supermarkets. The closest I have found was vacuum-packed unwashed lettuce, and when I read the labeling I discovered that it had been trucked out from Salinas, CA. The only thing that stands a chance of being fresh is the beef, and that depends on where you shop. You will not find the word "organic" used on any label anywhere. I think it's actually a curse-word in this part of the country, like "democrat" or "Colbert".

Today I examined every shelf of the Aidi market twice, in search of something I could eat that wouldn't just widen the nutritional crater that Kansas is digging inside my body. I found a bag of tiny "Ocean Spray" oranges that had been shipped from Chile, coated with wax and sprayed with thiabendazole, and the vacuum-packed lettuce from Salinas. I opened the lettuce in my motel room and carefully washed it in the sink, and that is how I am enjoying my first real salad in two weeks.

Actually, "supermarket" is the wrong word to use for these places. A more accurate description would be something like "junk-food warehouse and butcher's shop". More than half of Aidi's floorspace is taken up with pancreas-destroying sugar snacks and bleached-flour milk-chocolate crap. You could eat a different "food" from this section for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, for a hundred days... But by the end of the first month you'd probably be dead. Sure, there are stores like this in California. But in Kansas, in many small towns, this is all you get. When you are planning your meals for the week, for yourself and your kids, this is what you work with.

Walking around here, I tried to imagine what it would be like if I was a local, with limited travel range, trying to improve my eating habits. Would I have the knowledge to categorically dismiss so many of the things in this store as harmful? Would I have the guts to, since it runs counter to the eating habits of my friends and family? The only things we could all agree on would be meat and perhaps a few of the dairy products, and even then we'd have to argue about quantity. Assuming I made enough money to choose where to eat, how would I even be able to locate fresh vegetables? Decent oil? Eggs that didn't come from some tortured wastrel of a factory chicken? These things are just ... not here. At least, as far as I know. Perhaps it just takes some determined searching.

But compare this to where I come from. In Oakland, the supermarkets are loaded with produce. Then, for an appreciable number of residents, it's not of sufficient quality, so they shop at Whole Foods (and moan about the price - I know I have). But that's not enough either, because they also raise a stink about how far their food travels, and who owns and manages the outlet, so they have places like Berkeley Bowl and Rainbow Grocery. But that's not as direct as it could be - so Oakland itself has at least FOUR Farmer's Markets that assemble every week, rain or shine.

Back in Oakland, I live five blocks away from a store that ships gourmet chocolate from Europe and Africa, and I won't buy most of it because I'm not impressed with the flavor. Here in Topeka, if I want dark chocolate, I choose between the large bar that tastes like wax, and the small bar with the oily texture.

Is it really just geography causing this? California gets the fancy weather, so it gets the fancy food? Is it the farm bill? Is it just what people are willing to put up with - a cultural thing?

Some optimistic part of me wasn't expecting it to be true - but as I rove around these cities, I am lost in a sea of people "living and partly living", as T.S. Eliot would put it. Planted behind desks, browsing Facebook. Arguing about high-school football over dinner. Sitting inert in bars. Kicking around in back lots, doing nothing. How much of this is boiling up from their physiology? How much of this is happening because they don't feel right, in a way they can't explain, for a reason that would never occur to them - to most people? Everyone is too busy trying to get any kind of food at all.

Perhaps I'm taking this all to seriously. However, an hour ago I finished all the lettuce in the box - enough for three salads - and my stomach and intestines are feeling better than they have in weeks. My head feels clearer too.

Comments

[juan-gandhi.livejournal.com]

Weird but true. My wife lives in Kentucky, and she notices this kind of problem there too. She's kind of lucky to be close to Cincinnati, so it's not as desperate.

I myself find that about 90% of the stuff in our (South San Jose) Nob Hill is unedible for me - same kind of sugary, floury, corny stuff... but they still have fruits and vegetables and broccoli.

But they sell what people buy, right? It's not evil MacDonald poisoning our citizens, it's our citizens poisoning themselves with the help of MacDonald.

[maggiedacatt.livejournal.com]

People can only buy what is offered to them.

[dennisgorelik]

Businesses can sell only what people are buying from them.

[maggiedacatt.livejournal.com]

Do you really believe that people in different parts of the country (/world) are fundamentally different from one another, and that's the reason for their different circumstances? Because that's the fundamental "logic" behind racism, and just because the people in this particular instance are white doesn't make it any less flawed.

In diffusion of innovations theory, there's a term individual-blame bias, or the tendency (of people trying to spread an innovation, mostly) for people to blame individuals for their non-adoption without considering systemic factors or reasons other than stupidity, laziness, what-have-you.

Why might it be especially hard to find fresh produce in the midwest? Because big, government-subsidized agribusiness is using all that prime farmland for grains, meat, and food for the meat. Thus, they have to truck in produce from somewhere else, which adds to its cost both because of the transportation costs AND because there is no competition from more local sources (as 'expensive' as it is to buy organic/local at Whole Foods or the farmer market, the fact that we have those options in our fancy-schmancy coastal cities means that the stuff shipped from Chile has to be cheap to get purchased at all). Fresh produce has a short shelf life, so it's tough to experiment with stocking different options and with price-setting. Because of all of this, it's considerably more expensive to feed people with fresh produce than with packaged food. People in the rural midwest tend to have pretty low incomes, so this matters a lot. Add in the fact that packaged food is faster and easier to prepare than fresh food, and now you have a lot of barriers to eating fresh produce. Then, it's just a self-reinforcing cycle. If people have grown up NOT eating much fresh produce, why would they think they need it?

[dennisgorelik]

I see you noticed that people have different income. Does that make you a racist?

[garote]

An observation is not the same thing as an explanation. What is your point?

[dennisgorelik]

My point is that maggiedacatt's reply has logical fallacy.

What's your point?

[garote]

Where is the fallacy?

[dennisgorelik]

The fallacy is in claiming that "belief in differences between people" is fundamental "logic" behind racism.

Another mistake is the attempt to claim "racism" as a response to disagreement in opinions.

[garote]

It isn't? Then what, in your opinion, is the fundamental logic behind racism?

[dennisgorelik]

Discrimination is at the core of racism. In particular, discrimination based on racial differences.

====
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism
Racism is the belief that inherent different traits in human racial groups justify discrimination.
====

For example, when maggiedacatt chooses not to answer my question based on our differences in opinions - that's not racism.

[maggiedacatt.livejournal.com]

And what does discrimination mean?

Racial discrimination differentiates between individuals on the basis of real and perceived racial differences

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discrimination

[dennisgorelik]

Concept of "differences" is a part of racism, but it's not the key part and it is a part of many other things.

So it's a prejudice when you equate to racist anyone who mentioned differences between people.

[maggiedacatt.livejournal.com]

*blink*

No. Different income is circumstance, not something that is fundamentally different about them. I'm not saying that they have different income because they're too lazy to have high-paying jobs, just as I'm not saying they eat a lot of crappy food because there is something about THEM in particular that makes them not want good food, and just want crappy food.

[dennisgorelik]

In this case food choices are also circumstantial.
And food selection in grocery store is circumstantial too.

What was the point of dragging words "fundamental" and "racism" into that discussion?

[maggiedacatt.livejournal.com]

In this case food choices are also circumstantial.
And food selection in grocery store is circumstantial too.

*nods enthusiastically*

What was the point of dragging words "fundamental" and "racism" into that discussion?

My original comment that you replied to was in response to this: "It's not evil MacDonald poisoning our citizens, it's our citizens poisoning themselves with the help of MacDonald."

I said in response to that, people can only buy what they're offered. You replied that businesses can only sell what people buy. Both the original comment (by ivan_ghandi) and your response to my response imply that it's NOT the circumstances that people are in, but the people themselves who are to blame for what they purchase. I am arguing that no, there is nothing unique about the people that makes them want to buy shitty food.

[dennisgorelik]

So you are saying that what people earn is circumstantial, but what people buy is not circumstantial?

I imagine you can easily bend definition of "circumstantial" to fit one of your claims, but in order to fit both these claims you need to twist the definition really hard.
I'm looking forward to your definition of word "circumstantial".

[dennisgorelik]

Perhaps you've meant that it's circumstantial in both cases (earn and buy choices).
But how did you derive from my and ivan_gandhi's comments that it is not circumstantial? And how that circumstantial/fundamental classification is even relevant?

[garote]

Ahh, I see. So when maggiedacatt said "People can only buy what is offered to them.", you weren't disagreeing. You were in fact agreeing, because, as you say, what people are able to buy is circumstantial.

And when you responded by saying, "Businesses can sell only what people are buying from them", you were just making an observation that does not in any way contradict maggiedacatt's statement that "People can only buy what is offered to them", and you didn't mean to imply anything - anything at all - by making that simple observation.

Glad that's all sorted out.

[maggiedacatt.livejournal.com]

*like*

[dennisgorelik]

Actually I did imply something.
I implied that both sides volunteer in market transactions (shopping for food).
And neither of these sides should blame another side for the choices they are making.

[garote]

How is it possible for a corporate entity to "blame" their customers in the first place? Wouldn't it make more sense to declare that it is basically all people blaming people, at the core?

[maggiedacatt.livejournal.com]

Um... No, I'm saying they both ARE circumstantial.

It is clear that we are not understanding one another, I'm not sure how I can be any more clear on my side of things, and I have a lot of very important things to do today, so I'm going to have to bow out of this conversation for the time being.

[garote]

I think that of people became aware of how much their own federal tax dollars were subsidizing the production chain of McDonalds, they would demand a change. Whether that would actually happen, with state senators protecting their federal subsidies like dragons guarding treasure, is a different question.

[juan-gandhi.livejournal.com]

Right. You are opening my eyes. Shit, it's too late for occupying anything... but yes!!! omg.