Home Refrigerator and Non-Green Vegetable Purchases
Before
readers misunderstand the heading, let me offer an explanation. This post is
not about purchasing root vegetables (like potatoes, carrots, beetroot, sweet
potatoes) and setting them out in the refrigerator at home–not done, of course.
When
I was young, before I got to double digit age, my parents took me and my
toddler brother to a temple and on the way back we stopped at the then large road-side
vegetable shop. She would ask for, if I remember correct, quarter pound of
green beans, half a pound of potatoes and a few more quarter pounds. But, that
is not the point. What she would do, almost murmur to herself but ensuring my
father heard, “green beans for Tuesday, cluster beans for Wednesday, broad
beans for Thursday, potatoes for Friday (a break from beans!), okra (ladies
fingers) for Saturday (if I had to go to school, half-a-day) ...”
She
was, in a way, saying what the family would get to eat over the next four or
five days and ensured that my father heard it! If he had any comments at all,
it had to come in real time; if not, what she has said goes. She would haggle
with the vendor, to the extent that six annas means thirty seven and not thirty
eight paise! Yes, each paisa was worth something, in the early to mid 1960s!
My
mother, in her own way and not realizing it, was Green before that word came
into its current meaning. No refrigerator in our house and that mattered. She
was forced to plan the consumption of vegetables at the time of their purchase,
so that food waste was minimized.
I
learned something new recently. In a newspaper opinion/commentary piece, I read
the following: there is food loss, and then, there is food waste. The former
arises due to “poor storage, transport and handling”, mostly in wholesale; the
latter due to processes of manufacturing (I tend to think of it as processing),
and retail to restaurant and households.
We
have a refrigerator in our house but my wife, steeped in the ways of mothers of
60+ years ago, still plans her cooking for
the subsequent three or four days, when we go vegetable shopping. And, that
drives me nuts!
I
would much rather that we reduced the frequency of our trips to the vegetable
market. This despite my love for observing people and eavesdropping on them for
how their habit of haggling has not changed since the time of my mother! We are
three in our family, and truth be told, I love vegetables, cooked medium (when
I bite into a vegetable, I want to feel the crunchiness, like I am munching
potato chips); the other two would rather have the vegetables cooked well, and I
consume the most. Because we have a refrigerator, I want to buy half a kilo of
each vegetable whereas my wife would insist on buying only half that.
The
article I referred earlier throws down a number of statistics to quantitatively
emphasize how food waste, as distinct from food loss, contributes to global
heating (global warming was in the past; now, it is global heating).
Taking
particular reference to household waste, the blame is justifiably attributed to
“over-purchasing”, my half kilo of each vegetable v. my wife’s ¼ kilo of each;
“improper meal planning”, full credit to my wife for front-loading day-wise
meal planning on the way to or at the market, much to the amusement of the
vendor; “limited storage”, with respect to the refrigerator, I feel we should
limit ourselves to what and how efficiently we store what is needed to be
stored, but my wife seeks a larger one, more power consumption; with respect to
storage of rice, lentils etc. my wife is managing what we do have in terms of
pantry-space, though not particularly cool; “cultural habits” of preparing food
in excess of what can be consumed, and my wife scores maximum on this without
the guests feeling underfed.
Place
my wife at the 95 percentile as regards minimizing our family’s contribution to
global heating via food, and me at, say, 70 percentile or less. After reading
the article, the next time I venture into the vegetable market, I would take a
conscious and conscientious effort to increase my score, say, to 80 percentile.
Though
the article is silent on food packaging, I would reduce the amount of store-bought
crunchies (fancifully packaged at vacuum or otherwise) I frequently buy and
rapidly consume, only to visit the store again. You see, I am not forced to
limit myself exclusively to the items contributing to global heating that the
article mentions. I am an individual agent and I will put that agency to use,
good not just for me, but to a few more around me.
I
wish to get closer to my wife. Yes, I am competitive, and so be it.
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