I don't usually like to talk about things that "set me off" as it were. However, working at what seems to be an epitomized product of globalization gone wrong, I am often reminded of the declining sense of morals and community from regular every-day Canadians. Today's shift at work took place at the customer service desk, the grocery store post that is easiest to work, yet full of complaints, senseless returns, and lottery-goers. Tonight, however, one bright woman who not only an hour ago purchased what seemed to be a 30 kilo turkey, decided it was too big for her family to handle. Whether it was the size of her stove, the strength of her arms on the walk home, or the cheque book that made her clue in, my question still remains... What has changed between the time you lifted the turkey out of our freezer, and the time you purchased it and left the store: a period of approximately 95 minutes...
God only knows what made this woman change her mind, but she did. As a product of this unfortunate series of events, I was inevitably required to inform her that we do not return meat. Just to make her (and her disgruntled daughter) happy, I called my manager, called our meat department, and confirmed a policy that hasn't changed since my training two years ago. Yup! We don't return meat, because all we'd do is throw it in the garbage and lose the $35 you spent on it.
Being a polite attendant as usual, I figured it was probably most seemly and courteous to let her know that this poor bird would go to complete waste if she decided to push us to process an exchange. A life the bird lived simply for your week's worth of potential meals, cramped up in a festering light-devoid barn, genetically modified to feature impossibly large breasts, and driven to insanity [link]. A life we would never wish on any of our fellow creatures. Some people say it's a disconnect between the source of our food and our dinner plates. Although I agree with this (correct) idea, I believe we need to be thinking much further along this line of thought. The fact that this woman was found to be incapable of feeling guilt about the senseless production of a miserable life, followed by a purposeless death made me sick to the stomach. How is it that we have lost so much respect for life in this world, and for what? $35?
Unfortunately, such a story reflects an even more disturbing trend towards the globalization of food. It's time we start asking hard and basic questions about our diets. Do we really need bananas every day of the year? Do we really need chocolate biscuits shipped 8000 kilometers from Australia when we have a local baker down the street with a family to support, struggling to make ends meet because he's being driven out of business by subsidized Australian biscuits? Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against Tim Tams, they are delicious (especially when you drink milk through them), but there's a time and place for their consumption (in Australia, when they're being made independently).
There isn't a clear conclusion from this story - I just hope it makes you ask some hard questions about your own diet, the carbon footprint you've caused, the price you pay for food, and the kind of economy those dollars /euros /francs /pounds /yen /etc... support. Consumers do have power to vote with their money, but you have to reconnect with your food, care about where it comes from, and what you're putting into your body, because after all, you are what you eat!
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