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Feeding Myself In Kansas
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.
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.
no subject
no subject
What's your point?
no subject
no subject
Another mistake is the attempt to claim "racism" as a response to disagreement in opinions.
no subject
no subject
====
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.
no subject
Racial discrimination differentiates between individuals on the basis of real and perceived racial differences
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discrimination
no subject
So it's a prejudice when you equate to racist anyone who mentioned differences between people.
no subject
"Differences" is THE fundamental, vital concept that is absolutely required for the definition and application of racism. It is at the core of discrimination, which is at the core of racism.
There is no logical fallacy in stating that "belief in differences between people" is fundamental to racism. If there were no differentiation, there would be no discrimination, and therefore racism would not be possible.
But this is all a red herring, summoned by you in response to maggiedacatt's first question:
"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?"
You have not answered that question.
Do you?
no subject
Whether I believe that people are fundamentally different or not fundamentally different depends on definition of "fundamental difference".
The logical fallacy is in implying that belief in differences between people necessarily lead to racism.