I don’t normally rant on this website or the food blog I write for Country Roads Magazine, but sometimes you have to call it like you see it. In a world full of self-delusion (and who can blame us), sometimes it pays to own up to the consequences of our actions even if it might not change our behavior.
“The first thing you should know is that I don’t lose things. Not, physical objects anyway. I might lose my dignity after too much bourbon or a hand of poker or something altogether more personal, but I don’t lose objects. My key ring came my first car, one I was given in high school. I have never lost my wallet (well there was this once in an abandoned wood mill, but I recovered it). It would be impossible for me to say if I keep some sort of unconscious inventory of my belongings, because I don’t have a regular place that I always put them down. I tried that and I didn’t use it. My things may be scattered around my house, but I never have trouble putting my hands to them.
At this point, any reasonable reader will be asking what this has to do with a food blog. Just to be clear, it is subtle but legitimate subject. This thing pictured here is a water bottle, made by a company called Nalgene. They started off making vessels for science labs but found a niche in the camping, greenie, holier-than-thou nitpickers (of which I myself am a member, on occasion). The crux of this matter is that this water bottle, bought in an mildly-obnoxiously chipper (and also holier-than-thou), food coop in Carrboro, North Carolina in 2005 has probably saved more carbon emissions, waste, depletion of natural resources and long-swimming polar bears than all the shopping at Whole Food or biking to work or buying at the Farmer’s Market could ever accomplish.”
Full article posted over at The Good Feast for Country Roads Magazine.