considering the farmer's market
8/23/26

going grocery store shopping is such a depressing, danger-filled proposition right now. every item on the shelf is questionable. where did it come from? how many safety protocols were repealed in the name of the almighty dollar and thus now, this item is contaminated with something that could hurt me?

next weekend, i think i'll go to the farmer's market. i haven't been to a farmer's market in years. and no, small vendors, farmers, etc aren't always necessarily better. but something about it feels more real. like if i buy a head of lettuce from a farmer who grew it in my county that has something contaminating it, at least then it's just an honest to goodness mistake. and not an inevitibility thanks to shortcuts and priotizing a profit margin over safety. if that makes sense. i tend to think the small farmer, looking me in the face when i buy one of their items, doesn't actually wish ill will on me. whereas every food company CEO out there couldn't give less of a shit about me, personally. i'm nothing but a consumer to them, and i'm also disposable because there's always more consumers to be had.

i keep thinking there has to be a tipping point in our society, that finally makes people stand up and fix things, but there's really not. it's a constant goal post move. and how could it be anything but that, when they've maneuvered the majority of the population into barely surviving? nobody can risk a job or a living situation. we're all just trying to hang on. it's all by design and it's worked perfectly. and the few people who have tried to be progressive and effect change on a political level are being drowned out even by their own party. the old guard democrats are battling against the democratic socialists - crazy how they'll fight harder to squash an offshoot of people who come from the same cloth than they will fight against republicans.

but i digress. every day is a battle, and we're all just silently fighting it. i don't know where the end point will be. but in the meantime, i'm afraid to eat salads and it's depressing me. so i want to go to the farmer's market and look another human in the eye who values me as a customer and not a consumer, who will sell me a head of lettuce that is, to the best of their ability, sustainably grown and without diarrhea disease.

and the funny part is, the reason i've historically never really bothered with farmer's markets is because they're so expensive (i understand why they're expensive, but that doesn't mean i like paying the higher prices) but now, food in the grocery store has risen in cost so much that it's not *that* much more expensive anymore. i'm already paying so much, what's another couple extra dollars to buy locally?

it feels political as much as it does practical. the main goal is to try to buy healthy food that's not laced with some contaminant. but also, i just want to stop giving my money to big corporations. i'm tired of it. it was always a necessary evil, but before, we had some semblance of government to try and keep these corporations in line. and now, that's entirely gone. it's a free for all. companies can do whatever they want at the expense of the rest of us peons. we are nothing, we are disposable trash, we are here to be sucked dry of our last dollar then thrown away. so wherever possible, i would like to stop giving them those dollars. it's impossible to be pure about it - some things are just always going to have be purchased at large stores. but like anything, i can't let perfect be the enemy of good.