Tuesday, August 5, 2008

Think shrimp

I had a disorienting moment yesterday. I pulled out of the fridge the small tray with shrimp I had bought at the supermarket. USD 2.52. Very cheap, OK, a small tray, but still cheap. Then I played back in my mind my purchasing process. I was standing in front of the fish sector and comparing prices. These shrimp were cheaper and looked good, they were from Thailand. There were others (not sure from where) that were more expensive. I bought the Thai shrimp. But yesterday, as I looked at it, I said to myself - USD 2.52 -? REALLY?? What is the hidden ticket, the invoice that I am automatically charged, without even knowing how much it is or agreeing to it? Because these shrimp came all the way from Thailand. They were maintained frozen across the oceans, shipped and unloaded and re-packaged and distributed in the US - all thanks to fossil fuel. Which is making the CO2 layer thicker, the air warmer, retaining more polluting particles like in a mesh, which we breathe and try to cough out. It's warming the ocean which creates a different wind dynamics and we have more storms, my insurance costs raise, not to talk about real storm damage. We get droughts, forest fires, bacteria spread in the waters - what is the REAL invoice I'm being charged? I thought back, four decades, not more. Imported goods were a luxury, not a daily convenience. We seemed to be smarter those days, considering a luxury only for selected occasions, if bought at all. When did we lose that good judgement?

1 Comments:

At August 9, 2008 at 3:54 PM , Blogger RalfLippold said...

Hello Isabel,

a great posting on what the real bill of food is nowadays.

I have recently been up in Scotland where at Falkland (one of the royal hunting grounds) they have turned the area into a sustainable food producer -at least 20 hectars). There is so much your famer next door is producing in a way that is so much more sustainable and energy saving than importing stuff from places thousands of miles away.

My explanation for why we did lose the sense for the real price is my neighbor has bought it and it tastes good. Why not also buy it?

Cheers and keep up the great work:-))

Ralf

 

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