Food Rules #44: Pay more, eat less

Rule 44 is the start of the 3rd and final section of Food Rules. This section tries to answer the question: "How should I eat?" and these rules become, for me, a bit more personal. I've been trying hard to be more conscious about what I'm putting in my body and when. I also run a business that sells foods made "the old-fashioned way" and I've made it my mission in a sense to preach the virtue of supporting small food entrepeneurs (without being too preachy, since I know that this is not necessarily a concern to many people who shop here). As my friend Dana Joy recently observed, they "are not just vendors, they’ve become my collective muse. They motivate and inspire me every day and I love that my stores are a platform for such tasty, sincere and honest work in the world."

So back to the Rule. "Pay more, eat less". It's interesting because yes, the cost of many if not most of the items on our shelves cost more than other "versions" of those items may cost somewhere else. Take for example the $9 jar of Sir Kensington's Ketchup vs. $1.99 for a 28oz squeeze bottle of Heinz. But is it really cheaper? Don't we end up paying for the tax cuts of the large conglomorates who own the factories and distribution systems which get the bottle of Heinz to grocery stores all over the world? Don't we subsidize the production of the corn that is made into HFCS? Don't we pay for the clean up of the water supply for the runoff of the chemicals from the phalates that are used to make the squeeze bottle "squeezable"? How about the health costs of kids with early onset diabetes? Ok, so maybe I am getting a bit preachy. But we need to think about these things. The phrase "nothing worth doing is easy" comes to mind. We've been so consumed as a nation about getting our food really accessible and really really cheap that until recently, we hadn't been aware of the negative impacts. We may balk at the cost of certain items that seem like they should be cheaper and think about why they aren't. Iliana forms her One Sister Pierogi by hand and makes her own dough and buys from farmers who don't use pesticides on their vegetables or hormones for their animals. The pierogi aren't filled with anything that resembles potato, then formed by machine to spit out a cheaper version of pierogi. Kris picks her own strawberries for her Nice Cream from local sustainable farms and hand labels her containers. Her ice cream is not filled with GMO-laden dairy, HFCS and run through a giant labeling machine in a factory somewhere (a factory that may also process soups and soaps). Her "factory" is the Logan Square Kitchen, an energy-efficient shared kitchen incubator that has a goal of being zero waste.

Now, I do understand that it's difficult for many of us to justify spending our little and hard-earned money on certain foods we've always deemed as "luxuries". But I challenge us all to think through why things are priced the way they are and the potential impact it has on us. And ask your grocer (that means us!) why if you don't understand the difference in price between a pint of the ice cream we sell and a gallon of Breyer's. We'll tell you the story of the producer, we know their name, the vendors and processes and ingredients they use, too. And chew on this: the average American spends 10% of their income on food, less than any other nation. Prior to WWII we spent closer to 30%. Now compare to the cost of healthcare then vs. now, environmental damage, obesity, depression...the list goes on. Even the smallest changes and awarenesses CAN help.

Ok, off my soapbox - but really, these things are important to me and through this blog I'm hoping to help educate and excite readers about why and how things can be better. At least when we're eating!