by Here in western North Carolina, the hippies, Yankees, and vegans have turned organic grocery stores like EarthFare, Greenlife, and the French Broad River Co-op into shrines for politically correct food. The next time I’m tempted to go shopping at one of these places I’ll remember these wise words from Tam.
People browse the organic breakfast food shelves for the muesli that tastes most like authentic sawmill floor sweepings, because that’s how you know it’s good for you. It’s not food, it’s a hair shirt you eat. When you’re doing penance for not going jogging this morning or for having that extra martini last night, it’s not supposed to taste good.
I’ll leave the hair shirts to the long dead saints and mystics.
I vigorously disagree with your post. At the local co-op here in Sacramento, they have better chocolate than any other grocery store. It's so good that I can't go back to the ordinary stuff.
I prefer to buy local if I can, but I won't buy local if I can't get anything tasty.
I'd be interested to hear what Tam tried that tasted like sawdust, if only so I can avoid it on my next trip to buy "politically correct" foods.
Chase,
I pay double grocery store cost for local free-range eggs from Locally Grown Gardens, not because they're local or because I care about what the chickens were fed or whether giving them aromatherapy every day reduced their carbon footprint, but because a chicken that runs loose and eats bugs lays eggs with thick shells, orange yolks and a white with more flavor than tapwater.
On the other hand, "the rich flavor of natural whole grains" in 90% of Nature's Whole Organic Goodness Breakfast Gruel reminds me of why baked goods always involve salt and/or sugar, and we don't just crop the stuff off the stems in the field with our mouths like ruminants.
Makes sense to me. Thanks!