When I was young, I had a deep penchant for grocery shopping. Nothing thrilled me more than my dad (who by-stepped gender lines & did all of the household shopping) electing me to tag along on his shopping adventure. Well, it was an adventure for me, but more of a business venture for him. Y'see, while I reveled in being able to “play store” in the real world, my dad marveled over the knowledge that, with a brick-like stack of coupons in his hand, he could waltz out of Alpha-Beta with $200+ worth of groceries for half the amount. His action was a snub against “the man” who figured that the population at large wouldn’t set aside time to collect, let alone cut out and organize tiny, colorful pieces of supermarket currency. Well, my dad was wise; he knew, that a family of twelve was not going to eat much if he didn’t find loopholes in the food industry.
So, growing up, I was a mega lo mart gal. I was brought up in supermarkets, k-marts, and safeways. But in time, w/the exceptional lazy jaunts to Vons, I morphed into a Trader Joe's woman. As I got older and began living on my own, my health consciousness increased with each year; if I didn't start tending to my body now, I'd pay financially and emotionally later with increased risks for disease. Despite those fast food impulses, which pounce on my self-rule from time to time, I vowed to be more healthful and limit the amount of foreign, and sometimes toxic, substances entering my bloodstream. Since LA air is 30 proof in toxin levels, and we're asked to block out UV rays with a vat of sunscreen, the natural way I found to sustain a more organic lifestyle was monitoring what I ate. Not only was I improving my eating habits, but I saved some green by eating green.
This epiphany altered my mindset and, I thought, everyone should have the luxury of eating healthy foods. But why isn't this the case? The transition from single to married life has me beached @ my mom's house in El Sereno for a few weeks. In this time, I have become outraged @ the lack of healthy food choices accessible to inner city families. The closest market to my mom's is Albertson's, where with $200, my brother and I barely bought enough food to last our family of five for a week. I was incensed, not only by the lack of organic food choices, but at the steep price tags attached to semi-edible crap!
A dozen cage-free eggs @ TJ's is 99 cents; a dozen “who knows” eggs is around $4 @ your local Albertsons. A loaf of bread w/natural ingredients is $2 @ TJ's, but @ Albertsons, yup, $4 for nutrient free slices. Sure you can get the cheap stuff, but the cheap stuff is...well...CHEAP! The market did carry a few organic lines, but they were often 2-3x the amount as the processed stuff. If you live in the inner city and shop for a family of five, what are your thoughts? If you're of lower income and grasp tightly to ever cent earned, which item are you ultimately going to reach for: expensive, but organic, or cheap and plentiful?
Well, why don't urban families just go to TJ's? They do not bc of awareness and the proximity of such stores. My mom always though TJ’s was a posh and pricey joint; and, if she did decide to go there, she only has one to frequent, which is 15+ minutes away. At the end of the day, she's going to go to Albertsons bc it's 5 minutes from her house. When I lived in Pasadena, I had 3 TJ's to choose from! And, they were all about a 5-minute drive.
In essence, it's easy to suggest that people clip their coupons and try to eat more healthy. Yes, they should drive the 15+ minutes if it means saving $$$ and getting quality food. But why can't a person merely go to their local market and get wholesome food w/out having to take out a 2nd mortgage? Why are the simple things...the fundamentals of life hard to attain in our society? Capitalism? I suppose. Yeesh! And DON’T even get me started about gas prices!!!!!!!!!!!
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SO TRUE...you and i must be on the same wavelength because i've been thinking about accessibility to healthy options (and information about healthy options) a lot lately.
i've come to the same conclusion-- the realization that that food is definitely a class issue with political sources and ramifications.
even in a city like pasadena (that features a bunch of natural food stores and several tj's), you can tell where the lower income neighborhoods are located simply because they're PACKED with fast food joints. my neighborhood had at least 5 fast food places within a 3 block radius! my private hs on the other side of pasadena had NO fast food within at least a mile or 2. (we had a tj's instead!) food for thought indeed!
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