Barbara Kingsolver is one of my favorite authors of both fiction and non-fiction. I just came across this quote in her book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, which beautifully and concisely highlights the problem with compromising on the quality of food, which was also the subject of my recent post, Food is Life.Whether on school boards or in families, budget keepers may be aware of the health tradeoff but still feel compelled to economize on food – in a manner that would be utterly unacceptable if the health risk involved an unsafe family vehicle or a plume of benzene running through a school basement.
It’s interesting that penny-pinching is an accepted defense for toxic food habits, when frugality so rarely rules other consumer domains. The majority of Americans buy bottled drink water, for example, even though water runs from the faucets at home for a fraction of the cost, and government quality standards are stricter for tap water than for bottled.
I agree -- let's get our priorities straight!
Please also avail yourselves of these witty posts that raise interesting questions from Jon Carroll at SFGate.com:
Food is good, and yet - it costs money
The local joints
Thanks for the link Carol-- though I think (in disagreement with Jon Carroll) that Seattle has got as much to offer as San Francisco in terms of awesome food.... :)
ReplyDeletecarol, i love the name of your blog. re water in plastic bottles: ironic that so many of us view that as clean safe water. what about the plastic leaching into the water? i would rather even drink some chlorine with my water than plastic!
ReplyDeletewe miss you!
love, t+j+s