Monday, May 14: Tia Fay

View TF 5/14/2012 in a larger map

Today is a sad, sad day in Tia land.  My blindfold is officially off and apparently it was duct taped to my face, because gosh it stings on the way off.  The four corners statement “My purchases reflect my values” keeps replaying over and over in my head. STRONGLY DISAGREE.  I am making a declaration, here today, for all of you- I will do better.  Also, I beg for forgiveness as you read this painfully honest post- it is terrifying and I promise to do better.

Here is what I have learned about myself thanks to the food blog: 

 1.  I must be completely unconscious when I grocery shop- I mean literally it is quite possible I am sleeping.

2.  I have absolutely no idea where my food comes from.

3.  If I miss the farmer’s market on Saturday’s, I have no other options to buy local produce.  I have done lots of research- no luck yet. 

4.  I am Kroger’s ideal consumer.  I use my dollars to vote for all the wrong folks.  I shop at Kroger for the following reasons: I know how to get there, it is close to my house, it is cheap, and I can check out at the self-scan so I don’t have to stand there while the cashier stares at me while I dig through my bottomless pit unorganized bag and wallet and tries to figure out why I am using a SNAP card.  It makes me uncomfortable and the judging is often blatantly obvious.

A lot of my research tracing my foods I was able to do online, however I did make a couple calls to which I had just about zero success.  This call to Kraft (Maxwell House) pretty much sums up my experience:

Kraft customer service swears that my Maxwell house coffee was “made in the USA”, which I am extremely sure is false.  I asked if I gave her the barcode number, would she be able to provide me a more specific location, and she said no.  She also said no to a distributor location.  So, off to Bermuda fake land you go Coffee. 

Before this food sourcing research, I felt pretty good about buying my dry items from the co-op:  usually organic and I bring my own containers.  Now, I have upset the system.  The lady I spoke with was not super thrilled to go in the back and actually look at the packages for me as the bulk bins don’t have any of the sourcing information on them.  Out of curiosity, I traced a bunch of the other items that I buy from the bulk bins but didn’t necessarily eat today- they are mostly from giant organic companies all over the place- Yorkton Canada, Eugene, OR etc.  WHY WHY WHY.  The “Fresh! Organic! Delivered yesterday!” signs above the produce would have on another day, probably have been sufficient for my unconscious purchasing habits.  Not today though folks, I started looking a bit deeper- all the fruit is from the west coast and several of the veggies are from out of the country.  I just don’t understand, there are plenty of farms in West Virginia- why can’t I buy their items except for two hours on Saturday mornings.  What do the rest of these Morgantown residents do?  So much more work to be done.