this post was submitted on 25 May 2024
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[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 months ago (5 children)

Farmers markets are not universally available. The closest to me is a 40 minute drive, and while the prices are… usually good, what exactly am I to do during the winter?

It’s a good solution, when it’s available, but by no means is it a silver bullet against the issue of corporations taking shortcuts to save money in the short term, and costing everyone in the long.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago (4 children)

what exactly am I to do during the winter?

Are you kidding me? Not have crops from a country 10s of thousands of miles away deliver deliver super cooled fresh produc at the cost of our planet.

You eat the preservatives like we used to. We should absolutely be getting more produce as locally as possible and as in season as possible.

We live in a collective society so trade and import is totally fine and will happen but everything we want all of the time is not currently sustainable.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 months ago (3 children)

Farmers markets don’t operate during the winter months here. Not using a crop for thousands of miles away has no bearing on the fact that I literally can’t utilize a farmers market for 4+ months of the year.

And if you’re really suggesting I buy and preserve/store 4 months worth of food you truly don’t understand what it means to live paycheck to paycheck. You’re essentially saying to throw money at the problem.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

You're seriously claiming that doing some pickling or salting in the fall is just too hard and expensive, when people have been doing it for millenia? Salt is under $1/lb in the US, and you can get next-day delivery of pickling jars to your doorstep. Your ancestors would be rolling on the floor laughing at you.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Some pickling and salting? I support a family of 4. Some anything isn’t going to last 4 months, good god. I literally need over a years worth of preserves to last between farmers market availability in the winter. Not to mention the time it would take to process it all.

Look, I’m glad you live in a self sustainable world where you can get months of food for cheap, and have the time to preserve it all. Good on you, you’re doing great.

The idea that millions of people are in the same position is just… insane.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago

Oh, don't get me wrong, I don't pickle everything I need for the winter. That's a shitload of work. I go to the grocery store and buy food like everybody else, and just try to make reasonable choices while I'm there.

I just don't fume the whole time about how Safeway is destroying the planet, and suggesting that everything would be great if only they were gone. I deeply appreciate the fact that we've built such an incredibly efficient system of food distribution, and that I can get all the calories I need and more in the form of fresh fruit & veggies even in the middle of the winter, even if I also acknowledge that we really need to tweak it to reduce the damage it's causing.

Point is, corporations aren't generating 99% of global emissions. We are producing 99% of global emissions, by choosing to buy mangos and pineapples from Whole Foods in January instead of pickling carrots and asparagus in September. You can't get rid of the corporations and then live off of tropical fruits without generating any CO₂.

Also, for the record, my grandparents supported a family of 10, and they lived through the winter largely on pickled and canned foods. In the fall, all the wives would get together and pack vegetables into jars every weekend. That was already a huge improvement, because a lot of what they pickled came from the grocery store: their grandparents could only pickle what they could grow. There was a whole room in the basement full of pickles & canned food. It was totally doable then, and it's only gotten easier in the intervening decades.

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