After driving a field trip for Number One Son’s class last week, I opened the back of my car in the school parking lot to excavate the inevitable forgotten items. For a change, there were no jackets or backpacks, just an orange, a half a bag of Tings and the bottom half of a quart container of fresh fruit from Whole Foods. One harried mom had apparently “packed” a supermarket lunch for her kid, something we’ve all resorted to at times.
But then I glanced at the label on the lid: “Berries and kiwi produce prepack” it called itself. And the real shocker, “$11.27.” That can’t be, I thought. So I looked closer. Yup, 1.41 pounds of raspberries, kiwi and blueberries at $7.99/lb. It’s no wonder organic produce has a reputation for being expensive. But the fruit in this container isn’t even organic. It was simply completely out-of-season produce, prepackaged for convenience. I thought of the organic apple in Number One Son’s lunchbox – it cost me just over 90 cents (8 apples at $2.49/lb. came to a whopping $7.32). That’s still a bit steep in comparison with conventional, but the bananas we had at breakfast only took $2.42 out of my pocket, less than 50 cents each (there were 7 in the bunch).
On the way home, I sighed a long sigh and ponied up $38.94 for a tank of gas. Some quick math tells me I’m getting just a smidge over 20 miles per gallon, mostly city driving. Yuck. That means that the 28-mile round trip to
I’ll save even more by tucking a snack in my bag (another of those apples and a handful of pistachios, as well as some chocolate, natch!), so I won’t be tempted to grab a bite.
Virtuous? Yes, a bit. Expensive? Absolutely not. But it is fodder for the grist the next time we take convenience for granted and start harping about high prices. Imagine what would happen if we all did just a little math.
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