eat more organic foods

Costco now sells organic corn and organic peas, both frozen, of course, in large bags. We had some of the corn this evening with dinner and it was excellent. It’s the peaches and cream variety, and had large, sweet, juicy kernels. Way to go Costco.

I live in a small, somewhat isolated, right wing kind of town in northern Canada. Organic food has always been hard to come by here, but recently it has been easier to find in common outlets. It’s still expensive.
The goal of eating more organic food is sort of tied to my weight loss goal: more organic means less junk food, means less fat and sugar and empty calories, means weight loss. But I was also motivated by a more general wish to be healthy and by the fact that Christine has food allergies which are less pronounced when we eat organic.
I’ve never been secretive about eating organic food, and I find (and this links back to the conservative northern town thing) that women and men react quite differently when I mention organic food. With women it’s usually curiosity: what got you into that?, where do you buy it?, does it taste ok? With men the reaction is usually a sneer or a derisive comment. Often they confusedly think that organic means vegetarian, and that I live on a diet of tofu and kale.
The media report a lot on women and food and eating disorders. Men have food hang ups too. The big eater syndrome, the large chunk of red meat addiction. It’s interesting that the media (and society too) more readily treat under eating as a disorder than over eating. Men are too often insecure about their “manhood,” whatever that means. And equate big eating with masculinity. And also equate carelessness about food with manliness. Organic eating is usually not “big eating” and it’s not carelessness. You have to go out of your way to pursue it. and that’s not a guy thing, yet.

We live fairly far north. Our growing season is short. It’s early September and the season is basically over. There are a few small organic operations, but very few. Most of our organic food has to be trucked in. It’s about 350 miles to the US border.
Because of these factors organic food in my community is expensive and it is hard to find. When you do find it there isn’t much variety. Organic fruits are the rarest because they don’t travel well without pesticides, which would kind of nullify the organic thing. We get a few types of apples, some bananas, and the odd orange. We get a slightly wider range of vegetables: carrots, lettuce, extremely expensive tomatoes. Packaged foods are easier: broth, canned tomatoes. We do have an organic bakery so bread is accessible.
I’m lucky because we both have good salaries and don’t have children to feed.
Organic foods taste wonderful. The flavour is fuller; the mouth feel is superior. They are worth the cost.