This *bleep* is Bananas...

...B-AN-AN-AS!

What's the worst thing your man can come home from the store with after you just finished reading (and loving) Animal, Vegetable, Miracle? Answer:

I picked up Animal, Vegetable, Miracle in Alaska because I needed a new read for the ride home. I read the Omnivore's Dilemma earlier this year and it totally opened my eyes to where our food comes from and the impact it's having on our culture, bodies and environment. Since then I've been learning more and we've been slowly trying to make changes to our food habits: eating less meat, shopping at farmer's markets before hitting up the grocery, eating out less and trying to find responsible restaurants to support when we do. I've even been picking up old-school, used gardening books for when we graduate to life with a backyard (hopefully sooner than later!)

I hate to admit that we still don't make our lunches as often as we should, and have still been known to find a drive-thru window at 1am, but we're aware and we're trying! Well, at least I thought we were...until Raf came home with the dreaded bananas!

Why the banana discrimination? Here's the premise of AVM: "Author Barbara Kingsolver and her family abandoned the industrial food pipeline to live a rural life--vowing that, for one year, they'd only buy food raised in their own neighborhood, grow it themselves, or learn to live without it." One driving force behind this decision is the unreasonable amount of fossil fuels consumed by the industrial foodchain--partially because we demand produce that is out of season and not native to the US. The banana is picked-on in the book on more than one occasion. Why? How many banana trees do you cruise by in your neighborhood? Exactly. Think about the amount of fuel it takes to ship all those bananas from South America everyday. And (side note) what's the deal with our addiction to 3 fruit options? I mean seriously, how many of us deviate from the daily apple, orange, banana formula? It's time to diversify! (Seasonally, of course.)

The worst part of this purchase--it's still summer! There are still beautiful fruit options at our local farm stand. Oh yeah, and we live in California, so those options are never more than a hillside away! Silly boy.