Do the math

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 Seattle that I’m planning to do on Saturday will cost me $4.60 in gas alone. I decide instead to hitch a ride in with Darling Husband and take the bus back home. That should only cost me $1.25, and takes the same 20 minutes to cross the lake, 20 minutes that I can spend reading instead of driving.

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.

A spade is a spade

I read a great article this weekend in the Seattle P-I about local produce. The article itself didn’t put any real new spin on any of the information, but they did manage to get a particularly damning quote from Jim Sinegal, co-founder and CEO of Costco: "We sell blueberries from any place we can get them."

I suppose I should admire him for his honesty, but it’s difficult to get past the egregiously Machiavellian capitalism. He rightly defends these actions as all being in the interest of the consumer, who should share the blame with us as we vote at the cash register. I do bite my tongue however, when they say that sending third party inspectors to their suppliers is part of sustainability.

There’s a lovely juxtaposition to cookbook author and food consultant Greg Atkinson of Bainbridge Island who cuts to the quick on eating locally: "It sounds kind of woo-woo, but it's almost a spiritual thing, it's about being fully present in the moment. You need that genuine connection to the time and place where you are. That is our job on Earth, to be here and to be fully present."

And only two paragraphs after that insight, the ‘smart’ technology that’s supposed to divine context and display appropriate advertising completely backfires.

Yup, Mickey D’s, the antithesis of local, good, slow food. Wonder how many people clicked on that one?