Too many times in life we allow ourselves to buy the can, the jar, the box, the bag, the frozen alternative to nourish our bodies instead of taking a step back (and a minute more) to think about the ingredients in the can. Often what we are buying is a pre-made and heavily processed food-stuff that is made to simulate some delicious homemade staple from back in the day, for example: Salsa, spaghetti sauce, soups, mac and cheese, etc etc etc!
Why do we do this? For savings of time and money? Sure. That is probably it. Is this ok with us? Perhaps. But more than it being 'okay' it is rather justified until we find ourselves years down the road still mindlessly filling our cart with the same products that we have been buying for years, products that we rationalized long ago -- or more commonly still -- products that our mothers rationalized and handed down the 'tradition' of buying to us.
We are lifelong consumers of more products than any of us would ever care to admit.
Maybe it is time to wake up?
This is a back-to-basics recipe that I StubledUpon today: The Way Casseroles Were Meant to Be. It is an example of finding a middle ground. I am not asking you to make your own noodles or to go catch and cook your own tuna. Instead I am asking you to take pause and reflect on the reasons that you buy boxed mac and cheese...
29 March, 2010
09 March, 2010
Trains
Over break I was driving along a remote highway in Kansas City MO and I saw a train. It was filled with coal, and it spanned longer than my sight could reach. I have never taken much notice of what trains might be carrying as they race past or under me on the highway. This particular train was moving quite slow, giving the impression of a funeral procession. The analogy seemed quite fitting the more I thought about it. The coal had been ripped from the earth and was being hauled off to be crushed and burned. So maybe then the procession was more similar to an inmate on death row's last walk. Regardless, it made my heart sink.
The more I thought about it though, the more I justified it. We need that coal to power our lives. The workers in that mine need their jobs to feed their families. What if this had been a different mineral, such as iron, that was going to be used to make wind turbines, would I feel different then? This is just a part of our reality right now, maybe the future will hold a different one.
My brain never reached a conclusion, and my heart was not quick to rise. Visions like that always stun me. Seemingly everyday happenings that I have probably passed a dozen or more times in my life without noticing. I don't know what bothered me more, the cognitive dissonance or the fact that this was the only time that I had ever taken a conscious note of what the train was carrying.
I pride myself on being observant. On thinking about the everyday happenings of this world in a deeper way, through a fresh lens. Why then have I never taken much note of the trains?
On the drive home to Michigan on Interstate 80 I drove across what seemed to be a bridge spanning a canyon of sorts. It didn't take me long to realize that it was not a bridge, nor was that a canyon: I was driving across the only standing strip of land left, with a canyon on either side. I was driving across a massive gravel pit.
My brain started racing, and my heart started sinking.
The more I thought about it though, the more I justified it. We need that coal to power our lives. The workers in that mine need their jobs to feed their families. What if this had been a different mineral, such as iron, that was going to be used to make wind turbines, would I feel different then? This is just a part of our reality right now, maybe the future will hold a different one.
My brain never reached a conclusion, and my heart was not quick to rise. Visions like that always stun me. Seemingly everyday happenings that I have probably passed a dozen or more times in my life without noticing. I don't know what bothered me more, the cognitive dissonance or the fact that this was the only time that I had ever taken a conscious note of what the train was carrying.
I pride myself on being observant. On thinking about the everyday happenings of this world in a deeper way, through a fresh lens. Why then have I never taken much note of the trains?
On the drive home to Michigan on Interstate 80 I drove across what seemed to be a bridge spanning a canyon of sorts. It didn't take me long to realize that it was not a bridge, nor was that a canyon: I was driving across the only standing strip of land left, with a canyon on either side. I was driving across a massive gravel pit.
My brain started racing, and my heart started sinking.
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