Community Building in the Co-op and in the Kitchen

Eating Economically at the Co-op

by Ruth Ann Smalley

A Scoop reader graced me with this glimpse into her refrigerator: “In my fridge are a jar of rhubarb topping from Laurie to go over frozen yogurt, a half pint jar of green tomato marmalade from Nancy, leeks and garlic from Greg’s garden, and in the freezer a loaf of zucchini bread from Donna. I swapped a leek and potato soup, kale and smoked linguisa soup, and my husband’s muffins. This is fun! Just think about doing this in a more systematic way, and perhaps in a more organized and larger scale way! Is this not also building community?”

What a wonderful tale her refrigerator tells! And her insights are integral to a current economics of eating.

“Developing a culture of sharing is extraordinarily important.”Speaking locally on global warming, environmentalist Bill McKibben argued that all our technologies combined are inadequate. Rather, we require a “technology of community,” in which we turn to “doing things together to allow us to do things more efficiently.”

This technology is the core of the world’s traditional cultures. It lives on in various ethnic communities in the U.S. and among many of our elders. However, it has been rapidly eroded by what McKibben calls the “industrialization of food.” Even while we struggle to maintain social ties through bonding around food, the food system trends loosen these ties, while contributing to our “peak oil”and global warming problems.

Camaraderie around food takes many forms, as two men doing yard work in my neighborhood reminded me. “Yeah, Bill, Italian wedding soup! Really good!” I overheard. “Italian Wedding soup — buck and a half at [mega-mart]!” But how easily can we cultivate community in the retail landscape that provides canned Italian Wedding? How does the geography of shopping affect our ability to do things together?

Here are some statistics to consider:

• Almost half of Americans’ food expenditures are now for away-from-home meals and snacks, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

• Americans increasingly dine at chain restaurants. According to Stacey Mitchell, “the top 100 chains currently capture 52% of all restaurant spending.” Such chains rarely contribute positively to local communities and Mitchell’s book, Big Box Swindle, provides stark evidence of their negative economic, environmental and social impacts.

• The grocery shopping picture is similar: fewer choices with large chains dominating. Compared to independent grocers’ 17%, the top five grocers “now capture 46% of sales,” while independent grocery wholesalers have declined from 350 in 1990 to fewer that 100 today. Moreover, the giant that sells the Italian Wedding soup “now captures one of every five dollars Americans spend on groceries” (Mitchell). Food for thought.

• Due to the way chains size and site their stores, Americans drive more: “Between 1990 and 2001, the number of miles driven by the average household for [all] shopping increased by more than 40%.” This leads to the clincher: “The extra 95 billion road miles that Americans are logging for shopping (over 1990 levels) account for 40 million metric tons of carbon dioxide, 300,000 tons of hydrocarbons, and 150,000 tons of nitrogen oxide released into the atmosphere each year” (Mitchell).

It’s tough to fight global warming and build a culture of sharing when you’re spending more time behind the steering wheel — tough just to feed yourself if you live in a community with few non-chain choices and lack access to transportation. But every time you take a friend with you to a farmers’ market, join a CSA, participate in city zoning talks and vote in local elections, walk to a neighborhood store and yes, shop at Honest Weight Food Coop, you help build a different food system and revive a flagging culture of sharing.

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