Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

I could afford to eat organic all the time if I wanted to. I rarely if ever do. Much of it is just marketing to increase profits. Ellen Ruppel Shell comes across as economically illiterate. As a very wealthy country we are lucky to have so many choices about what we can buy and eat. Many people don't.

oh yeah... and the famer markets arent as expensive for veggies as the grocery store. some fruit are close, but still more in the grocery store....

It's one thing to praise cheapness, it's another thing to praise unhealthy convenience food that indirectly contributes to a disproportionately high rate of obesity and suffering in the poor.

I once saw a photo of very poor people in the 1930s Dust Bowl--eating biscuits, green beans grown in their garden, a very small bit of salt pork, eggs, apples...sadly, it was probably 100% healthier than what people under similar economic conditions are eating today.

And @pumpkinbear--there is much to criticize about Alice Waters, but I don't think that's true about her eating habits at all.

Doing one's best to eat organically and locally is one thing. Being crazy obsessed about it to the point of belittling others who may not necessarily do it makes the person a big fat pain in the ass and definitely NOT a poster child for the effort.

@Heart of Glass: It was a joke. I'm well aware that Alice Waters would probably shoot herself before eating off the dollar menu at McDonalds.

@lexophile--exactly--the author shouldn't be defending her right to buy cheap ice cream, but asking why ice cream is cheaper than real food.

It's funny, I mentioned in another thread about reading Mark Bittman's Food Matters... he discusses certain amounts of protein that are healthy and we were trying to figure out what that translated into in real terms. We were quite panicked at the idea of buying more produce (and less meat) because we already spend an exceptional amount of money on produce and we try to only buy what is on sale.

@lexophile -- I agree with your original point. To add, I find a lot of ambivalence about cooking (or learning how to) from a lot of my coworkers; they say they don't have the time to cook on a regular basis, or they just don't want to because they can just dig up a pre-packaged microwave meal which is cheaper on their budget.

To be honest, I find it just as bad that people belittle me for the way I eat. While we try to eat as organically as possible, it's also a choice we've reflected within our monthly budget (at the expense of other costs, such as entertainment). It's daunting that people think that we're overflowing with money when we've made a monetary decision to go down the local and organic road, whatever our personal reasons for it are -- and certainly we've taken the time to bargain-hunt!

I buy food before anything else. IF I have money after buying food, I may buy something else, or just maybe more food. I've read all of Michael Pollan's books and I am a convert to the real food movement. I'm not rich, but I buy what I can. You should read this recent Time article.
http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1917458,00.html

It's not just the shoppers at Wal-Mart--it's everywhere. One of my hobbies, besides reading T-shirts, is observing what people have in their shopping carts. It just floors me that most people will walk right past the herb section to pay extra for meat that some corporation has pumped with water and salt and herb flavoring and chemicals (and, in some cases, has been cooked). I do not see a lot of carts filled with raw fish, whole uncooked chicken, eggs, flour, sugar, butter, oatmeal, nuts, non-microwave popcorn and every color of fruit and vegetable.

I don't think the battle should be between organic and non-organic foodies. There's a bigger war to be fought:

One of the women I work with is 20-ish young and newly married. She was complaining one day about the high cost of food; I asked her for examples so I could give her a couple of money-saving tips. She had no clue that guacamole was related to the avocado, didn't know that she could make 20 eclairs for what she normally paid for six, didn't know that a serving of meat is about the size of a deck of cards (except in my house). She paid $3.50 for four "signature" oatmeal cookies and $3 for a package of 12 chocolate oatmeal no-bake cookies from Wal-Mart that were pale, dry, crusty and two dainty two bites big; I gave her my recipe that makes, at a cost of $3, about 40 of those dark, moist delights that my sons call "turds," and I told her that if she wanted them to be just like the Wal-Mart ones, to leave them out on the counter uncovered for about three days. The plastic packaging for both kinds of cookies probably cost as much as the cookies themselves.

My granddaughter's 30-ish kindergarten teacher last year chided her for coloring some carrots red, yellow and purple. Poor Sophia came home upset because her teacher didn't believe her, so I sent her back to school with the packet of rainbow carrot seeds. When Sophia starts school next week, she'll bring her old and new teachers some rainbow carrots, orange and yellow tomatoes and purple beans.

I already told the story on SE of my neighbor who went to a family gathering and told me that her aunt made mashed potatoes the old-fashioned way. I was expecting a story about a food mill or ricer, but she said no. "You know, the kind where you have to peel the potatoes."

And then there's the 30ish cashier who asked me just today what the artichokes were.

These are the people I battle, and I do it kindly and gently by teaching them how to make (and pronounce) a satisfying but cheap poulet pot a feu and bouef bourguignon and fun things like turds. I will not bother with people who already know that fresh is better but who waste energy arguing about which kind of fresh is best.

And I will buy stock in a company that makes mono- and di-glycerides and non-fat milk solids because there's way more of the food-challenged who don't know and don't care that they're eating this stuff than there is of me.

Dang it! Someone kicked the soapbox out from under me. Just know that it's nice to be among you fellow SEaters who are serious, yes, but who also play with your food.

@betteirene - I completely agree. Well said.

@betteirene Get back up there on that box. I know you have only just begun to speak the truth!

I have to be careful among my friends and clients not to get up on my box in regards to their cooking and food choices. It has long been my opinion that if you can read than you can cook. That's what I hear a lot. When I began I made biscuits that were like rocks and my chicken corn soup was very gelatinous. I thought a beef tenderloin was a pot roast. It was a very tender pot roast. Whether you are talking budget, organic/non-organic, local, fresh or frozen it is about the effort and let's face it, some people don't want to make the effort. It took some flops for me to be the cook that I am now.

@pumpkinbear I have found that our local farmer's market it charging what the market will bear and unfortunately, they are gouging me. I go there for the corn and a few other items, but I have tried to find other sources like unattended stands that seem to be just sharing what is too much for them. At the farmers market they were charging $3.50 for tomatoes that I found out were hothouse grown. I found a guy around the corner that I could get 3 lbs for $3.

I try, too, not to angst too much about organic/non-organic, but I do try to buy the most healthy and nutritious food that I can buy.

There are those who are choosing to fill their carts at Walmart with junk food, soda, etc. There is no reason why they couldn't choose to buy things like potatoes, carrots, cheaper cuts of meat, beans,etc. For years people immigrated to this country and lived on meals that they actually spent time cooking. Then they actually sat down and ate together.

I don't tell anyone how to eat because I am still learning, even after all these years. I do much better with vegetables and fruit than I once did, but sometimes I crave Doritos. Small bag should do me. For days!

Our farmer's market is fairly inexpensive. I can get several bags of vegetables and fruit for about $20.00. Can't do that even at Wal-Mart as the quality isn't the same.

And yes, fruits and vegetables should be cheap, but they aren't. The price of food continues to increase and many of us don't have the space to grow our own. -

I don't have a problem with our local farmer's market--it's the local Co-op that is out of control. I decided to try it last week and they charged me over $10.00 for 3, count 'em, 3 heirloom tomatoes. I also got a season pick box for $20.00 which contained 2 acorn squash, one eggplant, a bag of okra, and one mango! Really!!??? Really?? Are you crazy?