Sunday, January 10, 2010

Backstory Part II

As I said in my first post, I started writing why I planned to start a blog before I actually had a blog and it quickly became more than a single introductory post. Here I present part two of that initial exercise:

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We were watching more movies at that time because my wife and I had agreed that television was not just a waste of time, but a waste of money. We still had a TV, but the only signal coming in from from the DVD/VHS combo. I'm not sure we would have checked out Super-Size Me if we were buying cable television.

Some months after seeing Super-Size Me I found myself staying for a few weeks in a guest house while traveling on business. There were a few books and magazines about the house and one book that caught my eye was Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation. I was contemplating a big life change which put me in the right frame of mind at a moment I had the free time to really dig into the book. My family had already been buying more meat from the local butcher and finding that it was generally better and I was learning to smoke my own jerky -- again, because I could do it better for less money. I called my wife while reading Fast Food Nation and discussed it with her. By the time I returned home we agreed to cut out fast food entirely.

It is common knowledge in psychology that, for a person to make a real change, they must change their habits. Smokers, for instance, often find it less difficult to quit smoking if they also avoid places and situations where they ritually smoke; i.e. bars. I hold no illusion that our next jump was propelled in part by moving 3000 miles away and having to learn all new ways to get every thing we needed. Yeah, sure, we could have gotten a Whopper or a Big Mac on just about any corner, but we had decided we did not want to support those businesses (it is very interesting to me the difference in thinking when one shifts focus from what one wants, to what one wants to support or wants not to support, but that's another blog). As a result having to seek out a place to shop, we found a co-op that focused on natural and organic foods. Don't get me wrong, there were plenty of grocery stores, but none that we had any habits with, and that right there is my point. It is easier to change when change is a given.

So we shifted our diet to organic food where ever possible. We were able to find just about everything -- produce, soda pop, potato chips, cereal, ice cream, canned beans, beer & wine -- with USDA Organic labels. Yes, it did cost a bit more, but our move across the country landed us in a steady income to which the likes we had not previously been accustomed. It was win-win! We reveled in our success in feeding our family an easy, USDA-organic-sanctioned diet. Then we started reading the labels closer and asking questions.
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More later...

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