putting money where our mouths are

One of Declan's classmates that he regularly plays with after school is the grandson of one of the kitchen workers at their school. As I was chatting with her (the grandmother of Declan's classmate) this afternoon, another mother came up to ask her about this month's lunch and snack items to make sure which dishes have meat--in which case, she would cook an alternative dish to bring into school with her child that day.

I was pretty amazed by this mother's dedication. There's one kindergarten I came upon during my research for a school which strictly serves vegetarian. I found that really appealing, but it's on the high end of private school tuitions. I wonder if that mother knows about that kindergarten but was also turned off by the monetary cost.

Gave me extra motivation to return to cooking every day for the family again. For the first month of our arrival and several days each week since then, the university dining hall has been the main food source to our daily routine because (1) our apartment has only a communal kitchen down the hall which makes it a bit inconvenient to cook and clean, and (2) the dining hall is more convenient and relatively cheap. But now that I've started ordering organic local produce again from a startup organization that wants to return more power and profits to aborigines farmers, I want to return to knowing where our ingredients are coming from and how much seasoning (and what kind of seasoning) is being added.

Organic produce in Taiwan is more along the lines of in the US--a lot more expensive than convention products one can buy in the traditional markets. (In Israel, organic produce is only marginally more expensive than in the souks.) And I was torn for a few days over finding an egg source that is about NT$5/egg with a good reputation--but sadly, I found a youtube interview with the farmer that clearly shows the farm uses battery-cage chickens. So now I'm back to paying NT$9/egg for certified free range organic eggs.

Certainly if my mom were to find out, this would not help her impression of me as an extravagant spendthrift, but how the family as consumers inadvertently support, for better or worse, the workers and animal living conditions behind the food industry matters to me... I just hope all this extra money spent won't be completely futile.