Res/volution

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has - Margaret Mead

What if our New Year's resolutions could change the world? What if each person found a way to make a change, however small, in the way they eat? Ideally, it would be a small, daily change so that it becomes habit, but weekly, or even monthly would make a difference if enough people did it.

I figured out the change we will make just before the New Year; in the wake of the Spinach E. coli scare, I realized that I was relying heavily on the convenience of bagged salads. I was using my salad spinner in the seasons when we grew our own, but when our lettuces cowered before Jack Frost, we harvested the last spinach, mâche and kale and resumed grabbing bags off the shelf at Trader Joe's. But there was a little niggle in the back of my mind as I tossed yet another bag into the garbage (why do I need scissors to make salad?). I recalled reading that same plant processes nearly 75% of the country's bagged salad. Then headlines blared and spinach was off the shelf in a big way, with the remaining bags touting "no spinach" on bright stickers. But the local co-op still had a mound of fresh, local spinach--it is incredibly easy to grow in our temperate climate. And then the penny dropped: yes, bags are convenient. But if processing foods is problematic both in terms of food safety (the harvest from one field, contaminated by manure from a few wild boars, spread its pathogens across the country via shared equipment), environmental impact of packaging and transport (4 empty salad bags a week x 52 weeks x 100 million people = 20,800,000,000 bags entering the waste stream each year, in addition to the petroleum and energy needed to create the packages, move the product from farm to processing to distribution all over the country), then why on earth am I buying spinach from anywhere but here?

I took my salad spinner out of its winter home, and am now buying lettuce (not salad!) from local organic producers. A rediscovery-winter lettuce tastes different than summer lettuce, different types of lettuce prefer the coolness (tender butter lettuce gave way to iceberg, spinach and mâche). My youngest enjoys pushing the plunger to see how fast he can get the spinner to go, and is now sneaking a taste from the salad bowl. One small resolution for me, that could be a giant revolution.