No more sowing Wild Oats for me

Today is shopping day. Yesterday I thought I'd get a jump on things and go to Wild Oats. Let's just say that today I'm going back to my beloved Sunflower Market. The prices at Wild Oats were outrageous. And just like Sunflower Market, the produce was a mix or organic and non-organic. Not only that, but as soon as I walked in the store I was hit in the face with this strong perfume-y scent. I thought it was the candle display right by the door. But I noticed a guy giving massages by the produce and the smell was coming from his area. Some sort of oil probably. I'm not usually so sensitive to environmental stuff, even though I have allergies, but whatever he was using made my throat feel like it was closing up and my eyes tear and sting.

Kevin bought me some cherries this morning on his way home from work. Isn't he sweet? He really is. As I was making myself a bowl for breakfast, I noticed that the bag said "product of Chile." The distance between Las Vegas, Nevada and Santiago, Chile is an incredible 5589 miles.

How much oil did it take for me to eat cherries for breakfast in January? Not to mention the petrolium that was certainly used in the pesticides that kept the Chilean bugs off my cherries. And the gasoline necessary to harvest the fruit and truck it from whatever port it was shipped to in the US to my desert grocery store. How about the petrolum used to make the plastic bag they came in?

I have a new goal for my family. I don't believe it's possible to eat entirely locally in Las Vegas. I truely believe that when eating locally becomes a life-or-death thing, Las Vegas will be a ghost town. But I can eat food that is grown in the western U.S. I found a farm in Ogden, Utah that will deliver local produce to customers in Las Vegas. It isn't really local--Ogden is more than 500 miles away. But 500 is a vast improvement over 5000, no?

It might mean no more cherries in winter, but maybe eating more responsibly will mean an easier transition later, when it counts.

I'm not sure if I believe that my eating locally, or even a bunch of people eating locally, will make a big difference in the global warming/peak oil crisis. But I do believe what Margaret Mead said:

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.

We've been a one-car family for about a month. It's working out really well. I have no doubt we could make this permanent. Beyond being better for the environment, we're saving $80 on our insurance bill every month, plus at least that much in gasoline. Plus the maintance required to keep a 15-year-old car with 200,000 miles on it running. More money for our "buy a house in Ely" fund.