I like my job, I really do. And I love the grocery store where I work–I miss it when I leave for college each fall, and throughout the school year. But after reading The Omnivore’s Dilemma, which I mentioned in the last post, I just can’t look at my lovely grocery store in the same way. It’s the end-result of the monster of industrial agriculture.

Yes, it still has it’s positive aspects–the best produce in town (of the large chain stores, of course, the farmer’s market is a bajillion times better), an extensive health food section for your average grocery store, and Chinese food that will make you ridiculously fat and happy. If you read the previous post, you might guess that most of that glorious Chinese food is off limits now, and it is. But I had the lone vegetarian dish–vegetable lo mein–during my break today, and have decided that it will be my unhealthy treat for when my arteries need a good clogging. Oh, and for all of you plastic-phobes out there, dining in the grocery store’s seating area means eating on a real plate, with real silverware! The only shortfall is the styrofoam cup, but that’s my own fault for forgetting my water bottle.

Then there’s the dark side, when you move away from the naked produce smiling happily up at you and into any other part of the store. It’s all covered in PLASTIC. Even the bulk bins are accompanied by little environment-killing bags on a roll. And when you move away from the edges of the store, everything is not only ensconced in plastic, it’s all PROCESSED too. It’s evil to the core! And for hours on end, I stand at a register, happily asking “Would you like paper or plastic, today?” ringing up all of this food. I always hope they ask for paper–I’ve heard most of it’s made from recycled paper, but I don’t know the specs on my bags–and I always smile when they say, “No thanks, I’ve brought my own bags,” and I get to give them a $.05/bag credit. Then I fill those reusable bags with countless little bags of plastic. And it makes me sad all over again.

The worst part of it is that what’s inside those plastic bags is indirectly derived from petroleum (unless it’s organic). It probably has at least one of the many products derived from corn, such as high-fructose corn syrup, and that corn is grown using fertilizers made from petroleum. So we’re eating food grown with petroleum that has been wrapped in a product made from petroleum, all while we’re running out of oil and complaining about high gas prices. Oh, Lord.