Here's a beef. In the United States of America, we have miles of soybeans, rows and rows of those podded, phytoestrogen-laced legumes across hundreds of thousands of acres. Why then, can I not find a bag of frozen edamame that does not say, in tiny print on the back of the package, "Product of China?" Anybody? I even tried the local health food store. They had 'em, compact plastic, post-consumer-waste pouches with "Organic" emblazoned across the front, a blast of eye-catching, eco-graphics. But on the back, way down in the lower left corner, written in letters so small you have to squint to read:"Product of China."
Speaking of beef, in Hawaii, a place where I occasionally spend time, many of the larger, local cattle ranches ship their animals to the mainland for processing. Meanwhile, island supermarkets are filled with beef from the mainland.
"There are two things in this world you should never pay for," advises a wise (ass) friend of mine. "Fish and sex." Now, I didn't catch enough trout last summer to stock my freezer. OK, I never got around to buying a fishing license, and ice fishing ain't my scene. So, in these snowbound days, I buck by buddy's admonition and, with actual money, buy fish from the local grocer. It's wild caught Alaskan salmon, not farmed or die-injected, previously frozen but not bad for the middle of winter in the middle of the mountains, and cheaper than most decent cuts of beef. Ah, again with the beef. Beef. It's what's not for dinner, although I see them every day, lines of plump, woolly bovines nosing through hay, strewn thick across nearby pastures. Why is it that a sockeye hauled from the Cook Inlet and flown 3600 miles to land on a pile of crushed ice at City Market here in Gunnison, Colorado, is cheaper than a ribeye I could shoot from my yard if I were so inclined?
It's a mad world.
Speaking of beef, in Hawaii, a place where I occasionally spend time, many of the larger, local cattle ranches ship their animals to the mainland for processing. Meanwhile, island supermarkets are filled with beef from the mainland.
"There are two things in this world you should never pay for," advises a wise (ass) friend of mine. "Fish and sex." Now, I didn't catch enough trout last summer to stock my freezer. OK, I never got around to buying a fishing license, and ice fishing ain't my scene. So, in these snowbound days, I buck by buddy's admonition and, with actual money, buy fish from the local grocer. It's wild caught Alaskan salmon, not farmed or die-injected, previously frozen but not bad for the middle of winter in the middle of the mountains, and cheaper than most decent cuts of beef. Ah, again with the beef. Beef. It's what's not for dinner, although I see them every day, lines of plump, woolly bovines nosing through hay, strewn thick across nearby pastures. Why is it that a sockeye hauled from the Cook Inlet and flown 3600 miles to land on a pile of crushed ice at City Market here in Gunnison, Colorado, is cheaper than a ribeye I could shoot from my yard if I were so inclined?
It's a mad world.
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