Food, finance and election season

"The luxury of worrying about the quality of your food and the sustainability of your food is the kind of thing you do when your major economic anxieties are soothed." — Christine Barbour, Senior Lecturer in Poly Sci at Indiana University (taken from a recent article by Earth Eats)

(::crickets::)

So...

I wholeheartedly agree that lots of us are still facing major economic anxieties. We (rationally or irrationally) fear losing our jobs and ending up out of work for months (years!) on end. Our houses are under water, and if we sold we'd walk away with nothing. Many are probably even still filing for bankruptcy, although I'm sure the trend has slowed down a bit since the major economic crisis a few years ago.

But how can we afford to not worry about the quality of our food?

I mean, really?

MAYBE I JUST SPEND TOO MUCH TIME WORRYING, but...

I worry about:

• Am I wasting my money on small-operation dairy when really rBGH doesn't matter?
• On what level am I really ingesting pesticides when I'm at Target and I buy conventional apples instead of waiting to seek out the organic kind at the grocery store?
• Why is locally raised meat better than grass-fed from California? Is it? Or is grass-fed always better? (Organic? Local, grass-fed AND organic?)
• I know that antibiotics in poultry are bad, and I've seen Food Inc. But who DOES responsibly raise chickens if we can't trust the "free-range" label, since no one really regulates that? And why does Whole Foods "air-chill" their chicken? Is that the best I can buy?
• Okay, so no more rice. What will we learn next about how quinoa is packaged, or why cous-cous is a sham, or how Americans eat far too much pasta each year? (While we're at it, can you tell me which brand of the whole-wheat kind to buy?)
• I can't seem to get any fruits or veggies in at breakfast. Help me please. I cannot cook or blend anything for fear of waking up my family at 5am.
• Who, besides Eden Organics, makes canned food without BPA linings? Do I really have to start soaking my beans?
• Coffee or no coffee? (Only if I can drink it black? How many cups?)

You get the point, and by now you know that I could go on and on. (And on.) So excuse me, y'all, but this list of questions without straight answers is not a "luxury" to me. Because yes, I may secretly worry sometimes that my husband WILL get fired, or maybe even me, too. But then I say to myself, So what? What's the worst that could happen? You have to sell your home and move into a rental property? You ruin your credit history? You have to share one car, you have less presents to wrap on Christmas, you spend more time doing things that cost nothing, like going to church and snuggling with the kids?

But eating is something we do at least three times a day, at least in my house. Every single little CRUMB worries me. And nothing feels luxurious about that. We are in an election year, and although the President seems to disagree because the people in Congress are oblivious, heartless and/or too busy to care, there is a food movement taking place and people like me are fed up with not knowing what to eat. Where will the next crisis be, in the dairy industry or in fruits and vegetables? Which major processed food company will have the next recall? Will it be salmonella or E. coli?

I know I sound like a complete psychopath right now, but I'm doing so to prove a point, of course. I don't ask myself these questions every time I put fork to mouth. I'm not really this uppity and insane, because I don't always have time for it either. However, I'm also sick of focusing so much on the future (the whole will-I-lose-my-job-home-pension-savings-401k-vacation days-sick days thing) when what's right in front of me is, literally, my kitchen counter. Some grapes (not organic). A Diet Coke (purchased for a party). Coconut water that my son rejected (unfortunately, probably not "harmless"). And — my son's one "treat" from the grocery store this week (forgive me in advance): whole-grain goldfish crackers. The amount of guilt I feel for allowing him to eat snacks with autolyzed yeast does not feel luxurious, either, rest assured. But sometimes allowing a treat feels a little bit like balance to me, someone who is much more critical than the average person about what goes into my shopping cart at the store.

So to Christine Barbour, the President and all the senators, journalists and others who are oblivious to what's going on in the food industry this election year — and perhaps always — I disagree. Diet and exercise directly impact health and fitness. Health and fitness costs are skyrocketing. Government spending on treating diseases like obesity and diabetes is, arguably, way too high. I'm no politician, but that rhetoric alone to me says "hot-button issue" — and I didn't even have to mention mangoes, melons and peanut butter.