Taylor Ward

There are 23 of us sharing the kitchen where I live. Two of us each share a cupboard and two of us each share a fridge, which is actually a lot more space than I've had subletting in other places. The person I share a cupboard with moved a few weeks ago and left a bunch of random food behind. I have been putting things on the counter with a Free sign and most of it has been going. There were two things that no one wanted, so I walked down to a Food Library- kind of like the free library's people build outside of their houses. I dropped those two things off (tea and ranch powder) and was surprised to see a bunch of rice and beans and whatnot in the Food Library. I'm really glad that people in the neighborhood are being generous to one another. If I had my own place I'd love to set that up out front, because it's an excellent way to sustainably leave out dry goods that you no longer feel inspired to cook with. It would be great if we could do something like that on a large scale. 

I used to throw food out a lot. Usually I'd just get bored with something I made in bulk and just choose to eat other more interesting things instead. Then eventually the thing I made in bulk would go bad and I'd throw it out. I made a bulk dish with lentils and I immediately froze half of it. That way I'll just eat it in a month or so when it's not as boring instead of letting it go to waste in the fridge. 

I bought at pound of greens, however, they might be going bad quicker than I can eat them so I've needed to up my game. Note to self: buy more manageable quantities of greens. 

I'm thinking about all of the externalities-unaccounted for costs- associated with food at the grocery store. If the food isn't local, for instance apples from China, you see the price and you think, well that's a lot cheaper than buying a local apple, I wonder why? And it's shocking how subsidies given ($775billion-$1 Trillion/ annually) essentially cheat to make their product more alluring versus the local product which isn't getting any subsidy. There is a reason factory farms have replaced small family farms in the U.S. and it is because it is built into the system. 

A few days ago I ordered groceries online for pickup. This means that workers have to pick my groceries for me and then I drive there and pick them up. It made me think about our reading today about how there are externalities- unaccounted for costs- at the present moment. One of the externalities would be the human labor and how I don't think these employees are being paid proper hazard wages for the risky work that they are doing and then on top of that many of them probably don't have healthcare. Convenience for me at the expense of others. However, the situation might be safer if there was a system where only employees were navigating the interior of the stores so as to avoid coming into contact with sick consumers- however we don't yet have any systems in place for that to happen large scale. I wouldn't say that I am affluent, as I am living below the poverty line, but I am somewhat privileged. This made me think about the part in the reading where they talk about how affluent communities are privileged with cheaper goods while poor communities bear hidden costs. 

I threw away some fish but as this is the first thing I've thrown away I'm still consuming 90% of the food I buy. 

Meals are getting random + boring but I want to finish all food before I get more. 

Good. I'm waiting until I eat all my food to do another grocery shop.