Well, I tried. I tried to be a good citizen in my weekly shopping today. But the barriers were too overwhelming.

Barrier #1 is 81 years old and goes by the name of Mom. She wants Yoplait fruity yogurt. She wants Special K Vanilla Almond. She wants Blue Bell Cherry-Vanilla ice cream. I cannot buy those things at Whole Foods or the farmer's market. So off I go to Sprawl-Mart for $125 in Senior & Stubborn Foods. But I refuse to buy Sprawl-Mart produce--here, at least, it's really abysmal, nasty looking stuff.

So next I go to Whole Foods and run into Barrier #2. The only locally produced product in the entire store was strawberries. Now, theoretically, I could live on strawberries and splenda and Kefir. But instead I bought grapes from Chile, onions from California and managed to get the rest of my produce from Texas, which is at least not a half a world away.

So I need to make a big farmer's market run on Tuesday, which is the day the Green Market sets up in the parking lot of the building I work in. Maybe I can eat something local that isn't red with little black seeds.