Yesterday I saw this in Facebook and it reminded me of a post I wrote a year ago.
monicleblog.wordpress.com/2014/04/26/waste-and-gluttony-a-rant
I had just started working at the grocery store and was disgusted by all the wasted food that is thrown out. It was already bugging me that all the chain stores were starting to sell food, too, resulting in tons more food being thrown out. How can this be sustainable? I don’t think it is.
Just to drive the point home, at work yesterday, two women balked at the price of their squashes….. $4.46 for an Acorn squash and $7.76 for a Butternut! The first said she didn’t want it, the other took it reluctantly because it’s part of her Easter dinner.
Then you see a huge burger on TV with a bun and some anemic vegetables on it for $2.49. That’s a piece of a COW. Look what it takes to raise a cow, butcher it and send it out refrigerated. I can see the price of beef in the store as I ring it up. What the heck is going on? How much does it cost you to make a burger?
In last years post I commented that Raj Patel, in his book “The Value of Nothing”, calculated that a burger should cost about $148 considering all the costs of raising the cow and the cost to the environment.
If I want to go out for a vegetarian meal I have to drive somewhere (far from here) and get a plate of rice and beans for maybe $10. Nice vegetarian Indian dish….. $15. Needless to say, I don’t go to restaurants. If I want something delicious, I have to make it myself.
Beef and pork farmers are subsidized. Big corporations have big corporate farms with big farm subsidies. Who is making the profits? How can this be; with all the wasted food thrown out? With all the water being used to raise beef, the use of fossil fuels, insecticides and pesticides, how can our earth replenish herself?
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This post has been in draft for a couple of days so I could chew on it for a while but today’s Daily Prompt gives me a chance to air it……
Have you got a code you live by? What are the principles or set of values you actively apply in your life?
I’m a vegetarian and have been true to it for about 35 years but I don’t begrudge anyone who doesn’t want to give up meat. I’m not vegan and do not want to give up my dairy products. I get it. People are going to eat what they want to eat….. maybe we should just re-think how we get it.
https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/i-walk-the-line/
monicle's chronicles 
Excellent points.
Keeping kosher is expensive pretty much anywhere you go, but out here in the Midwest it’s even worse. Passover food costs are astronomical; $3.99 for a can of tuna. Even regular foods can be expensive. I would buy fresh food more often but alas, I throw away a lot because it just goes bad so fast. I can usually finish fruit pretty easily, but it seems like vegetables are so much larger these days. I also wish lettuce came in smaller packages; as one person, I can’t eat a head of lettuce in fewer than 4 sittings, and I don’t eat lettuce with everything. I have stopped eating out so much. The only non-fresh foods I eat regularly are canned tuna, Amy’s frozen meals, protein powder/protein bars, and boxed pasta. I have several emergency cans of veggies, but I think they’ve been through at least 1 move with me. Ever since a friend told me how much sodium they have, whenever I eat them I just taste the salt, even the low-sodium choices.
For some reason this made me think of “Waste not, want not”. Something my mother would say a lot. I’m with you on the cost of certain foods and then others practically nothing! ~Elle