Food Fear

In my grocery shopping cart:

-whole wheat flour
-cheddar cheese
-rice noodles
-raw garbanzo beans
-brown eggs
-a cucumber
-a bunch of spinach
-a bunch of lettuce
-tofu
-chicken thighs
-Amish butter
-unsalted peanuts
-wheat bran
-a beer selection from Deschutes, Alaskan, and Kona

The total comes to $49, and I pack everything up into three reusable bags (5c off for each bag, score!) and carry it the three blocks back home. Nearly all of the items are for meals that we'll share with people this week: pad Thai and mac and cheese, for example. Today I'll make and freeze bread and pizza dough.

To be honest, though, I'm not all that happy with many of these items, and I spent a lot of time deliberating over some of them (like the flour; and chicken always keeps me walking up and down the aisle for ages, while people give me polite and worried smiles). I chose non-organic lettuce over organic because it was less than half the price; I picked flour distributed by a company across the country because it was my only option; and I'm almost positive that the garbanzo beans have been sitting on the shelf for a while.

My mother-in-law, Mary (a nutritionist), says to buy ingredients rather than anything pre-made. That philosophy makes a lot of sense to me, and it's certainly easy to remember, especially compared to any number of trendy diets. Still, lately, as I've become more educated about how America's food is grown, I realize that even ingredients straight from the ground are frequently grown in ways that are unethical and (to put it mildly) unhealthy. And even labels like "organic" and "free range" are complicated and don't automatically mean food is safe or that its production/distribution wasn't harmful for the environment. If I could, I'd get everything local, grass-fed, pesticide-free, antibiotic-free, non-GMO, non-synthetic, etc. etc. In other words (forget the labels), as God intended it. Actually, I guess that ideally I'd live my life tending a garden. (That would be an adjustment!)

But we don't have the budget, time, or space to get all the fanciest stuff or garden or do large-scale preserving of produce in season. We often have to (and, to be honest, want to) go with what's convenient and cheap. Being aware of where our food comes from is a double-edged sword, because in the end we have to make realistic choices for our lifestyle.

I suppose we learn to be content with a reasonable balance. We celebrate little treats like going to Greenbluff, a community of farms just outside Spokane, in the summer and fall and bringing back heaps of fruit to eat and freeze; growing herbs on our apartment's one window ledge for a few months out of the year; finding a Groupon for a delivery of local organic produce; perusing the co-op downtown for sales. We make compromises, like baking with whole wheat flour, even if it isn't sprouted, and cooking with plenty of fruits and vegetables, even if they're not organic, because that's better than not having them at all.

And, when I start to feel discouraged or even get nervous about the food we buy, Isaac reminds me how much enjoyment there is in eating, whether it's a big meal with friends or our favorite dinner of sweet potato kale enchiladas. We do our best in picking the ingredients and focus on making things delicious.