As much as I hate to start the blogging day with a depressive note:

Immokalee is the tomato capital of the United States. Between December and May, as much as 90 percent of the fresh domestic tomatoes we eat come from south Florida, and Immokalee is home to one of the area’s largest communities of farmworkers. According to Douglas Molloy, the chief assistant U.S. attorney based in Fort Myers, Immokalee has another claim to fame: It is “ground zero for modern slavery.”

This story of one particular location’s migrant farm workers doesn’t get better. It gets worse. It’s so bad, I hope everyone who reads it thinks about it every time they look at tomatoes at the grocery store … and decides not to buy them.

This is the sort of story that should influence people’s food choices. It won’t though. Most people don’t care where their tomatoes come from or who is picking them. They only care that they are available all year long at the cheapest prices possible. What does it matter who slaves in the fields to get them there? As far as I can tell, most people don’t even care whether or not they taste like a tomato –or taste like anything at all. What matters is that they be stacked sky high –red, perfect and unbruised– and be on sale for 89¢ a pound.

Many things about the sources of my food matter to me. Where did it come from? How many chemicals were used in its production? Does it contain the nutrition I expect it to contain and does it have any flavor? What environmental costs are associated with its production and transportation? Is it safe to eat? Was anyone abused so I could enjoy it? These things cross my mind every time I am pushing my cart through a grocery store. These were the factors which led to us eating locally produced seasonal goods and growing our own. My long-term goal is to completely disconnected our eating habits from the corporate food chain. I don’t know if I will ever be successful and achieve this goal 100%, but it’s a worthy goal to work toward. Every step we take in that direction is one step away from promoting the international food machine that neither leads to a healthier body nor a healthier society.

I bought approximately six tomatoes this winter … all from Mexico, where things are really no better than they are in Immokalee, Florida. I had my internal conversations over which to buy, from where, and whether or not to buy them, every time I stepped into the produce department of my local grocery store. I knew the people who picked them were not being treated as well as they should be. I knew they’d been sprayed with environmentally damaging and health damaging chemicals. I knew entirely too many resources had been used to transport them to my location. I knew they might even be unsafe to eat and would disappoint me. They always disappoint me. But … sometimes I just want some color in my winter salad and just want to pretend I am eating a tasty tomato, even when there is no flavor at all behind the shiny red skin.

I felt bad when I bought those tomatoes. I felt bad when I chopped them up for salads. I felt bad when I ate them. All in all, the tomatoes were worth the low, low purchase price for me, and while there may be complaints from other quarters of the household come the winter of 2009, I will likely not be purchasing any off-season (or in-season) tomatoes not grown locally again. When the complaints about lack of salad color begin, I will be pointing out the above linked article for my reasons why. No one should be abused or enslaved so I can eat a tomato –or anything else, for that matter– whenever I like.

Note: I am not a pompous snob about this. I don’t hold everyone else to my own personal standards for living or eating. If I come to your house for dinner, and you’ve created a meal from countries I would never purchase food from or foods I would never have in my home, I will happily eat it and not even think about it. I would never preach to anyone about it, at least not over dinner. I even eat at restaurants from time to time, and who knows where any of that food comes from or what transpired to create those plates of tasty edibles. I realize not everyone has the means or wherewithal to produce their own food. Many people don’t even have alternatives to the sky-high stacks of imported produce at the neighborhood grocery store. I don’t know that we will succeed at moving further off the food grid, but I’m going to try. I guess that’s all any of us can really do is to try to educate ourselves on where our food comes from, how it gets to our plates, and whether or not there are alternatives that are better for our environment, our own health, and the health and safety of others and our society as a whole.

Making educated decisions about what we eat and when, who we support with our meager dollars or not, and thinking about and caring about what goes on in connection to our daily meals are the right things to do. Every effort –from the smallest to the grandest– helps.

And now I will cease reminding everyone about the facts of where our food comes from and how many people, animals, and places are hurt by our need for out-of-season tomatoes. I have to go work in my garden anyway, and I find I have a renewed vigor to do so after reading about the issues in the Florida tomato fields and being reminded once again that those bright and shiny orbs are simply not worth buying at any cost.

I could go on. Really, I could. But, I do have a lot of work to do in my own “fields” today. I know it’s a hard thing to think about –where your food comes from– and the answers you find are often depressing or confusing, if you find any answers at all. I’ll say this now: if you want to know more and want to educate yourself and make different decisions about what you are eating and from whence it comes, but you don’t know where to start or don’t have the time to seek it out on your own, feel free to ask me. I either already know the answer, or I would be more than willing to find one for you. This issue is just that important to me. It should be that important to everyone, and I pray someday it will be.