Ever since reading The Omnivore's Dilemma and learning more about the benefits of buying local and sustainable farming, I've been fascinated by the food system. One particular line in Omnivore's Dilemma stuck out: it's a quote from gregarious, no-nonsense farmer Joel Salatin. It's something like "Organic food is the cheapest there is. It doesn't cost the environment or your health like the processed stuff."
Currently, our industry works so that the most processed stuff is cheapest. Thanks to major conglomerates and government subsidies, these industries are financially supported in ways the small farmer growing real food is not.
I wondered: what would our grocery store shelves look like if items were priced according to their actual cost to the world?
Imagine this:
$30 ramen noodles
$40 easy mac
$60 twinkies
$30 fruit loops
$75 hot dogs
2 cent apples
1 cent bunches of kale
3 cent onions
Somebody should make an infograph on this....
In some parts of the world, that is much closer to the truth. For example, in Uganda the local market fruits and vegetables are dirt cheap and the supermarket food is considered very expensive. You probably remember the markets of Thailand as well ;)
ReplyDeleteWell, it's sort of true in Thailand. Fruit and vegetables at the market are cheap, but so is everything at 7-11 and unfortunately, this is where my students used to purchase all of their snacks and sometimes their meals. The more Western culture influence a places, the more uneven and unnatural its food system becomes.
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