While on the subject of Supermarkets...it reminds me of something I concluded while reading Michael Pollan's book, Omnivore’s Dilemma. It became evident that supermarket perpetuate a lot of what's wrong in our food system...not eating in season. Yes, there are a lot of things wrong with our food system like corn/soy subsidies, the giant agrichemical corporations, monocultures etc..But supermarkets make us believe that we can have whatever we want whenever we want it. As a result, it fuels a system that requires food traveling long miles so we can have asparagus in the fall and tomatoes in February. We are so accustom to this luxury that we forget that fruits and vegetables are not available all the time. Not only does this occurrence increase a food's carbon footprint but it pushes local suppliers out of the game because they can't compete on price and year-round availability. Supermarkets don't want to work with a gazallion suppliers so they work with just a few and when those few say you can have tomatoes in February, they say, "Sure!" And the cycles continues. Ideally, it would be great if we could get back to more localized, privately-owned grocers who could manage the seasons and work with more local suppliers. So in addition to becoming a farmer, another career opportunity would be opening a market where farmers could sell their goods year round instead of just once a week at the farmer's market.
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