Cast Your Vote!

If you’ve seen Food, Inc. or read any books by Michael Pollan, you’ve probably heard about the concept of casting your vote.

One of the most common reasons or barriers I hear from people for why they don’t buy healthier food at the grocery store or why they don’t stop buying fast food is that healthy food is more expensive.

Is it?  Yes, sometimes healthier food is more expensive. Organic is often more expensive than non-organic produce too. However, over the past several years, the gap has narrowed, especially between organic and non-organic food choices. I don’t know exactly how this happened, but I know that a major contributor to the reason behind it comes from more people purchasing organic. In other words, the demand increased and the market has responded.

If you’ve taken any economics classes, you probably understand this concept in more depth, but for our purposes—it’s not really necessary to get it. All we need to know is that every time we purchase something healthy (and don’t purchase something unhealthy) we’re casting our votes!

I truly believe our votes count. Remember this post?

Last week, I mentioned this new creative salad restaurant, Half Moon Salads, that opened across the street from where I live. There have been many restaurants and shops going in and out of business in this neighborhood since I moved here almost 2 years ago (I believed it was because of the horrible traffic and parking conditions, but that’s not important…Starbucks sure doesn’t have any issues with accessibility!).

Half Moon opened on Earth Day (a great sign, if you ask me), and Joe and I went there that night.  Not only were the employees super nice, but the salads were awesome and reasonably priced. Joe went back the next day, and then Joe, Petra, Matthew and I returned on Saturday for lunch.  I think we’ve done a good job casting our votes so far!  Even Matthew (age 6) loved his salad (we shared one), and wanted more. I can’t tell you how thrilling this was!

Anyway, we want to keep casting our votes in Wegmans and at Half Moon to support more healthy food being priced reasonably in the grocery store and for Half Moon to stay open! I think I can cast a general vote as I walk through life making choices, but I want to make sure I also focus on certain things that are important to me.

Where can you focus on casting your votes?