A Valuable Lesson
When I first started to learn about the problems with
our food system, it took me a long time before I was
actually compelled to make changes in my lifestyle.
I made a lot of excuses for why the food issue wasn’t
important: “How can we worry about America’s
food supply, when people all over the world don’t
even have enough food to survive?” I would say.
“I’ve been eating this food all my life,
and I’m perfectly healthy!” I told myself.
“I don’t have time to go to the farmer’s
market – it’s out of the way,” I lied.
These excuses helped me keep up my resistance for a
while, and they were good ones to pull out when I felt
my industry-friendly stance was being challenged. But
the more I learned about the food situation, the more
I realized that these excuses weren’t good enough.
Eventually, my excuses started to fail and I threw them
away.
But one excuse endured: “Sustainable food is
really expensive.”
I’m frugal. I haggle, I hunt down bargains and
sales, and I buy used and second-rate items even when
I can clearly afford stuff off the top-shelf. I’ve
always been proud of this quality – I’m
the lady who brags loudly and publicly about the low
price of her outfit when someone compliments it. So
when it came to shopping sustainably, cost became my
greatest and final hurdle.
And somehow I managed to get over it. Somehow, after
reading about the small farmers selling their land to
developers, and hearing the gruesome details behind
milk production, and talking to people whose families
had been poisoned by runoff from CAFOs, and learning
about mad cow, and pesticides, and antibiotics, and
hormones, and the corporate greed that drives it all,
I somehow stumbled across the lesson that would fling
me over that last big hurdle and land me at the farmer’s
market.
The lesson was about value. I finally realized that
the extra dollars I spend on my food are not wasted.
I’m getting a whole lot in return for that money:
delicious food, health, a clean and green environment,
protection for a rural America that I do not want to
live without, and the pride that comes with boycotting
corporate irresponsibility.
I’m still frugal. You won’t find me shopping
for designer clothes and fancy cars, because I simply
can’t afford them. The extra money I spend on
food did not magically appear one day (sadly), but rather
it’s come from my deliberate choice to cut back
on other, less important, expenses.
And I couldn’t be happier.
When somebody compliments my outfit, I still get pride
out of telling them how cheap it is, but I get even
more pride out of feeding them a delicious and healthy
meal. I’ll buy my family a $20 pound of grass-fed
organic cheese and get joy because I know the woman
who made it and I know that it’s as healthy and
delicious as can be. I take home a $6 dozen of eggs,
and fry them up with a smile on my face and the knowledge
that they came from hens that spend their days running
free and eating fresh, wild forage and bugs.
I’ve learned a valuable lesson, and even though
it wasn’t cheap, it was totally worth it.
- Gwen Schantz, October 2006
Gwen Schantz has been Sustainable Table’s Program
Assistant since January, 2006. She currently resides
in Brooklyn, NY.
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