the great EGG dilemma
Today I did the weekly shopping for the house.
It's usually a pretty straight-forward task:
The sisters put items on the list; I take the list to "Schnucks" ---a wholesome, lovable store---where I am a spectacle to young children in my nun-getup ("is that a nun? is she a nun? hey, are you a nun? I've never seen a nun before"). I fill up my cart, and proceed to annoy a whole line of customers at the check-out where I hand over coupons and pay by company check.
This little routine is a big event for me these days, so I tend to take my time.
The community is pretty environmentally conscious, so I'm armed with my reusable grocery bags and I evaluate products for both cost and recycle-ability. Being women with a vow of poverty, keeping costs low matters...but so does the environment...but so does health...which brings me around to today's dilemma.
I reached automatically for the carton of eggs priced at $1.91, but then spotted the free-range organic eggs carton priced at $3.46. Obviously, the eggs from hormone-free chickens who did not spend their lives confined to cruel conditions for my low-cost dining pleasure are a better choice. On the other hand that's a pretty big price difference. I know can recycle the cheap cardboard egg carton for sure, but I can't determine if the expensive plastic carton is a (1) or (2) plastic and if not, it is doomed to a midwestern landfill. Hmmm. What's a girl to do?
I finally decided on the expensive eggs; but skipped another item, which was unnecessary, to balance out the cost. This sounds noble, but the truth is if the item was unnecessary, I shouldn't have been buying it to begin with. I don't really think that the decision over the eggs is all that important, but it got me thinking about choices in life. Sometimes we are fortunate enough to have a clear "this is right and that is wrong" picture, but most of the time it's more complicated than that. There is a strong "pros" argument on both sides.
In the end I wonder if asking the questions and thinking it through isn't more important than the final outcome.
It's usually a pretty straight-forward task:
The sisters put items on the list; I take the list to "Schnucks" ---a wholesome, lovable store---where I am a spectacle to young children in my nun-getup ("is that a nun? is she a nun? hey, are you a nun? I've never seen a nun before"). I fill up my cart, and proceed to annoy a whole line of customers at the check-out where I hand over coupons and pay by company check.
This little routine is a big event for me these days, so I tend to take my time.
The community is pretty environmentally conscious, so I'm armed with my reusable grocery bags and I evaluate products for both cost and recycle-ability. Being women with a vow of poverty, keeping costs low matters...but so does the environment...but so does health...which brings me around to today's dilemma.
I reached automatically for the carton of eggs priced at $1.91, but then spotted the free-range organic eggs carton priced at $3.46. Obviously, the eggs from hormone-free chickens who did not spend their lives confined to cruel conditions for my low-cost dining pleasure are a better choice. On the other hand that's a pretty big price difference. I know can recycle the cheap cardboard egg carton for sure, but I can't determine if the expensive plastic carton is a (1) or (2) plastic and if not, it is doomed to a midwestern landfill. Hmmm. What's a girl to do?
I finally decided on the expensive eggs; but skipped another item, which was unnecessary, to balance out the cost. This sounds noble, but the truth is if the item was unnecessary, I shouldn't have been buying it to begin with. I don't really think that the decision over the eggs is all that important, but it got me thinking about choices in life. Sometimes we are fortunate enough to have a clear "this is right and that is wrong" picture, but most of the time it's more complicated than that. There is a strong "pros" argument on both sides.
In the end I wonder if asking the questions and thinking it through isn't more important than the final outcome.
posted by smurp at 9:57 PM
3 Comments:
Welcome to my world of constantly analyzing, evaluating and thinking too much about things until it drives me crazy. :)
By the way, have you read Michael Pollan's "The Omnivore's Dilemma"? That was one book that made my grocery shopping awfully long and difficult.
ahh, yes. a great book!
Isn't it weird the the so-called better organic free-range eggs are packaged in unfriendly to the environment packaging? Trader Joes used to package their half-dozen eggs (just my size!) in a plastic shell but all the other varieties of eggs were in cardboard. They have changed it now - yay TJ's!
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