Day 17: Dinner With a Side of Politics

Last night the BF and I met at Nature Mart to pick up some needed additional bulk goods. We got pasta, cereal flakes, raisins, almonds and oat bran. They were out of unsulfured molasses and olive oil so I'll go back next Tuesday or Wednesday to pick those up.

Afterwards, since we really haven't eaten out since this whole blog began (which is a seriously long time for us) we decided to go eat at Tropicalia Brazilian Grill. Despite having a very limited vegetarian selection, I would recommend this place to anyone I know.

As a side note, I was vegetarian for about 15 years and have slowly moved into being a flexitarian. That means I don't usually eat meat at home, but will totally eat limited amounts of meat at restaurants, friend's houses, etc...

I was ravenous and ate all of my braised pork with fresh veggies and tomatoes over fried polenta. My BF ordered the huge Salad Brasileira with steak and was only able to eat about 1/2 of it.

Oh no! What do we do? Do we leave it and waste all that good food? Do we take the plastic take out container? Wait! I have my upcycled milk jug lunch container with me! SWEET!

It worked perfectly, but I do have to admit that I felt a bit embarrassed about pulling it out of my bag, filling it up and stashing it away again. What is that about? My answer came in a bit of a political going off...

What does it say when we are so willing to throw away something as highly manufactured and designed as a plastic take out container? Think about it.

• the oil has to be drilled, refined and made into plastic
• someone has to design, and test the package
• the package has to be manufactured on a special machine
• it has to be packaged in bulk and shipped out to the restaurant

That's a lot of work for something most of us are just going to throw away. If all that work has no value, what work is valued?

If we buy a head of lettuce for $1, do we value the fact that each head is hand harvested? (Did you even know that? Lots of our food is hand picked.)

If we buy a pair of $5 shoes from any number of stores, do we value the fact that it probably took at least 10 different people to make those shoes?

Do we value the amount of gas that was used to ship our cheep goods here from all across the globe?

How are a $5 shoe and a $1 head of lettuce even possible then? Through exploitation of workers, through exploitation of the earth. You know it, I know it, but it's worth thinking about again, especially when your ego is taking a hit for being frugal.