A recent course I took in Sustainability with Jeffrey Sachs has opened my eyes more than ever to all sorts of systems in place that create exclusivity rather than inclusivity, and how this creates social immobility, creates “poverty traps,” and hinders progress—by making the top 1% flourish while leaving a large chunk of the bottom 99% struggling to keep afloat. Usually sustainability speaks in terms of governments and infrastructures, social dynamics, economics, gender roles, and so on—but I think that if we’re talking about sustainability, we cannot necessarily ignore the fact that the UN itself posted an article stating that in solving the MDG’s by 2015, small-scale organic farming will be a leader in creating upward mobility in developing nations. The same tenet can be applied here in the United States, where organic farmers are currently fighting an uphill battle against corporations like Monsanto, who dominate the seed market with GMO seeds when little research has been done to prove their long-term safety in human or animal health. In fact, most of the evidence currently points to the opposite truth, though I can hear my critics rabbling away at this statement already. The problem with GMO anything, but specifically seeds that are meant to grow produce for consumption, is that they tend to overtake crops in neighboring fields due to their usually large-by-comparison yields and growth rates; and with the monopoly GMO seed companies currently have on seed production and growth (i.e., a farmer may have to go to Monsanto now to get bulk seeds for his or her farm since organic, heirloom varieties are becoming all the rarer), it is becoming increasingly more difficult to grow things organically for consumers; with consumers unable to find organic foods as readily in grocery stores, prices for organic skyrocket and consumers turn instead to the cheaper, more readily available GMO produce, and feed it to themselves and their children, day in and day out. Health problems ensue, then we blame everything around us—our environment, chemicals and toxins in the tap water, prescription medication, pet dander(!)—but we and our doctors rarely stop to think it has to do with what we are putting into our bodies three times a day—our food sources-- especially if one tells their doctor “but I eat homemade vegetables every day, doctor!"
We have been programmed to think that eating a vegetable is panoptically good for us, regardless of the conditions under which the vegetable was grown, harvested, and/or packaged/preserved. Most people buy into the mentality that “canned anything” is bad for them—and so opt for the fresh produce rather than the preservative-soaked, BPA-sodium-and-sulfite-containing canned. Okay, good step; preservatives are bad—I won’t deny your progress for the sake of my idea of perfection. But look closely at the labels of the fresh produce you purchase for yourself or your loved ones, and you won’t always be able to tell if what you’re buying is organic (pesticide, herbicide-free, GMO-free) or not—and many people don’t even think to check. The pervasive assumption is that if the grocery store put it there, and it looks clean and green, it’s good for you; after all, the FDA says so.
Only recently (2014) did a law pass in the state of Vermont that requires the labeling of GMO products in all grocery stores—the first law of its kind in the country (Now, VT is being sued by various food companies with shady practices who claim the law interferes with commerce and is thus unconstitutional). Other generally eco-conscious states are trying to follow suit: I predict California or Oregon to be next in passing a similar law. So there has been some progress, with the push from lobbyists who try to educate government officials on the dangers of conscience-free corporate monopoly on something that should be in the hands of the ones doing the growing. People are slowly but surely realizing a sort of Orwellian universe is beginning to rule our food quality and what we’re entitled to demand from its regulators. It is, after all, the consumer who benefits or suffers from the produce he or she consumes.
That said, let’s go back to the issue at hand: the absurd, almost comically-high prices of health foods. If you’re not a vegetarian or a vegan, or don’t know someone who is, you probably have no reason to know about just how high prices can get. But as a vegetarian, and someone who frequents places like Whole Foods and Sprouts for groceries, I am all too familiar with the way basic staples can add up to the prices of gourmet food. Ten ounces or so of artichoke hearts, for a salad or eaten raw or cooked— cost me almost $7 the other day. This was when the salad bar was “on special.” So I actually caught the lower end of the price spectrum. And I already shared how I would have had to pay $18 for—I’m telling you, the smallest—kale salad and a 16 oz juice at the Daily Juice. So it’s clear—these companies are trying to turn a huge profit—not a bad thing if it’s distributed properly, but I am getting the feeling that maybe it’s not.
When I wrote something to this effect on a review of the Daily Juice, I got a reply from a fan of the place who said that “health is an investment” and “it’s expensive, but so what?” and that sort of thing that proves one of three things: that a) he has a lot of money to burn and isn’t thinking in terms of savings or the long term; that b) he has been so brainwashed by the omnipresence of expensive health foods that he is in complete oblivion to the fact that he’s being overcharged, and violently so; or that c) he was paid to state his opinion to boost the company’s name to follow my critique. I assumed it was a mix of A and B. So I collected my thoughts and wrote back. Working in investment myself, I was more than ready to address the concept. An investment is typically defined as what occurs when some amount of one’s resources (financial or otherwise) are devoted to a single cause or purchase with an expected return. True. But speak to any investor and they will tell you, if it’s not a steal, don’t buy. If you don’t see a higher RETURN in the future than an INVESTMENT in the present, it’s a dud; invest elsewhere. As in real estate, so in health food. Don’t buy a half-a-mil residence in cash just because you’ll get five-thousand dollars/month in rent from the property, so long as its occupied by a tenant; meanwhile you’re own mortgage payments are falling through, your kids’ tuition is looking rather steep all of a sudden, and you can’t eat. By that same token, don’t put yourself into debt or make it impossible to feed yourself and your cat for the rest of the month just because you want an $18 kale salad + fresh juice combo once a day, presented to you just as such.
And let’s be frank. Most of us twenty-somethings are guilty of it to a degree: buying into the mentality that now that we own things, are making our own way financially, we can afford to splurge here and there on things and shape our lives into that middle or upper-middle class American ideal for which most of us were raised to strive. I use the term “guilty” loosely, as I realize there is a degree of freedom and joy that can be obtained from the power to buy and the power to own, and it is not all negative. But IDK, maybe, slow down? I’m telling myself, too, here. Yes, health is worth it. A number of personal and family health scares over the past five or more years have really made healthy eating a priority in my life, and I don’t think I’m ever turning back. But that doesn’t mean I am incapable of seeing what’s wrong with making the best quality of food accessible to only a select few.
Here’s the bad news: organic, local farmers are, for the most part, not getting higher salaries in exchange for their supposedly pricier organic yields. And employees working at these organic health-nut stores—the markets, the juice places--are mostly working on minimum wage, from what they’ve told me and from what I’ve read. So where’s the money going? Someone (hint, hint, an exec somewhere way up high on the financial food chain) is pocketing the excess. It is a speculation; I cannot assume. But based on past evidence from other companies with a similar business model, I don’t think the numbers will find me too far off.
When I say that organic is “supposedly pricier,” I mean that to grow organic is not more expensive, production-cost-wise. In fact, it’s cheaper to grow organic. Since you don’t need pesticides or synthetic fertilizers, or to purchase pricier GMO seeds, you’re letting nature take its course, and your only expenses are really in time/energy it takes to plant, weed, and water your produce, plus the cost of seeds and soil or any soil amendments you may want to add. Breaking it down a bit more: one packet of organic seeds typically contains between 500 and 1000 seeds, which can typically yield, using traditional planting methods, between 125 and 250 full-grown plants; some of these plants keep coming back season after season; others you would have to replant. How much does that packet cost—yes, even the ever-exclusive Kale (blue curled, Italian, or any other variety)? Between one and two dollars. For five hundred to a thousand seeds. Can you imagine how many mouths you could feed with between 125 and 250 full-grown Kale plants each season?! Lots. Now when we envision the work required to bring you that fresh-squeezed carrot juice or organic kale salad, we’re talking someone going into the outdoors, planting thousands of seeds, toiling for a number of months until the plants are ready for harvest, then selling the produce in exchange for a pittance. That same kale plant that cost little more than two tenths of a cent is now being sold in a salad for $8-$10.
Some profit, eh?
Well, yes, if the person growing it got paid relative to the market demand, which they usually aren’t. So think about it: building rent, utility and equipment costs, min wage for thirty or so employees, all those things aside—the same things most other non-home-based businesses are also responsible for paying for, but who turn a much smaller profit—what is the rest of the money going into exactly? PR in health-food magazines, maybe. But all of it? Come now. Someone’s getting richer and it’s at the expense of the acquiescent masses: you and I.
Here’s the good news: companies promoting inexpensive organic and heirloom seeds are still in business. Three of my favorites are Seattle Seed Co., Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds, and High Mowing Organic. These are the companies I’ve had the most success with in planting in my back yard this spring, my efforts to revamp my lifestyle and be more connected to the earth, sooner rather than later. It sounds overreaching, but why not consider growing your own produce--in a backyard if you’ve got one, or even in containers on a patio or apartment windowsill? You’d be surprised how many carrots you can grow in a solitary two or three-gallon ceramic pot, or how a small grapefruit tree of two or three feet can yield 5-10 fruits at a time (and they keep growing, so you’d best keep them pruned). And please, spare me the hoity-toity, I’m educated and getting my hands dirty is below me, talk. You’re educated--so educate yourself outside of the classroom and corporate world and realize that the systems in place are failing our health, and we are letting them take from us our hard-earned money and our basic human right to health.
If you believe in the power of positive thought and action, think of it this way: put good in, put good out. Put bad in, put bad out. There are theories linking healthy eating to more than just healthy body—healthy mind, healthy 'spirit ,’ if you’re so inclined. I can say from personal experience that, were it not for switching to an organic, alkaline, and/or raw vegetarian diet over the past three years, I would not be able to get up early every morning with a positive attitude, get domestic, creative, and paid work done, or to be there for the people that matter to me. I am active in my wellbeing, whereas before, the cult of medicine convinced me to be passive about my health, to accept ‘therapy’ and ‘medication' as the only remedies for ‘depression', and to be blind to other influencing circumstances, like shallow or unfulfilling social interactions, constant negativity, relationship hiatuses, stress, or a lack of dedication to a positive outlook—all things that, if acknowledged, would have turned my life around much sooner. Like I said, put good in, put good out. Mind over matter. And all the other cliches.
So what can we do about the places that charge your left arm for a tiny sliver of health? Well, for one, boycott them. Refuse to pay so much for something so basic. Learn to produce the same thing yourself, or get it from a small, local farm. Or invest in a $100 juicer to last you five or ten years. Then, write your lawmakers regarding the prevalence of GMO’s in your produce and your concern for the effects this might have on your health—to push for them to at least be labeled, if they insist on putting them on the grocery store shelves. Then, the buyer has a choice as to what he or she purchases, cooks, and eats. Venture to grow something yourself for a season—it doesn’t take long if you start small (rareseeds.com is a good place to start; or, highmowingseeds.com), and taste and feel the difference. Get your produce from a co-op that let’s you work a few hours a week in exchange for good, wholesome food; or a farm-share where you can occupy a tiny plot of land with your growing plants until you harvest them (these even exist in rooftop gardens in cities, if you’re far from farm life). Let your friends know what you're doing and why. And hey, maybe it’ll catch on. My crazy idea is that our generation (the “millennials”) will not be a generation solely representing detached materialism, and consumerism, and books-only-but-as-yet-impractical intellectualism, and obesity, and other illnesses, and of sitting down 70% of the day so the cycle repeats—but rather, one that embraces the world’s and country’s current need for its’ land’s cultivation, the need for applications of the intellect to sustainability concepts, the need to stop large-scale corporate greed from taking the honor out of a beautiful and humble tradition of natural growth of produce, and the need for young people to see examples of smart people getting their hands a little dirty at the end of the day-- despite their numerous academic degrees and resulting high social status.
It is up to smarties to put a face on the permaculture movement, and get the word out. Gone are the days of the podunk farmer in overalls, whistling through missing teeth and listening to fiddles as the sun goes down. The cultivators of today are not at all that: we’ve got our city lives and our culture and our digital devices on hand to measure soil pH while checking Twitter.
But I don’t know. Overalls? Maybe, some day.
Why the hell not?
And while I consider that, maybe we'll all think twice (if we hadn't already) before buying into the high-cost, highly capitalized upon health food craze. You don't need to pay ten dollars for a sad amount of Kale. There are ways to eat well that dont make you break the bank, and the key to this is modern day self-sufficiency and community reliance.
*For more information on the UN statement regarding the necessity of small-scale organic farming see: here.
For more information regarding the status of the MDG (Millennium Development Goals) see: here.
For more information regarding the law change in Vermont, see: here.
For more information regarding the law change in Vermont, see: here.
For more information on Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds see: here.
For more information on High Mowing Organic Seeds see: here.
*For more information on the dangers of pesticides on your food, see: here.
For more information on the Permaculture movement from the NYTimes see: here.
*For more information from UC Berkeley on what Monsanto is capable of doing to the little guys, see: here.
For more information on finding a local farm-share see: here.
For more information on finding a local co-op see: here.
For more information on sustainable, low-cost solar products from One Earth Designs see: here.
For more information on Urban Harvest Houston see: here.
For more information on MY first season growing what I eat see: here.
* = CRUCIAL links:
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© erika simone 2014
