Shopping

I made a lot of purchases this past week.

I bought my very first e-book. I figured after reading all about Mike Moss' book -- Salt, Sugar, Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us -- I should probably try it on for myself.

As books go, it's a well-done series of chapters written so as to easily be excerpted for publication elsewhere. Each chapter dwells, with slight variations, on the same thing: some man (and once in a rare while a woman) worked for some food giant - Kraft, General Mills, Nestle - and, while being the best company executive possible, struggled with, scientifically studied or revelled in the overwhelming truth that processed food is not good for people and sales must grow.

None of the men interviewed still ate the food their companies made. Some never ate it.  

Having pounded home the point about the terrible health and social costs of the combined impacts of convenience food and capitalism, Moss' last two sentences say more than the whole rest of the book: 

"After all, we decide what to buy. We decide how much to eat."

Ain't that the truth.  

When I shop for groceries, here's a list of what I might decide to buy:

• salad greens
• grape tomatoes
• fresh vegetables like mushrooms, celery, carrots 
• fresh bread
• fresh meat
• basmati rice
• uncooked pasta 
• butter / Becel
• eggs

and so on. You get the idea.

When Bruce shops for groceries, all on his own without a list from me, here's what he might decide to buy:

• tostitos 
• salsa
• snack crackers 
• cookies

and so on. You get the idea.

I shop for the meals I make. Bruce shops for the snacks in between the meals. It works. So long as there's two of us.

Grocery shopping is really the only kind of shopping I even halfway enjoy and that's probably because I do it frequently and the stakes are comparatively low. 

Shopping mob at Loblaws Maple Leaf Gardens

But, mostly, I dislike shopping and I dislike shopping for shoes the most. Maybe I feel this way because women's shoes are marketed as if they were junk food.

At any rate, one day this past week while I sat bored and inattentive during the second hour of a three-hour-long teleconference, I absent-mindedly took off my shoe and looked at the sole.

And then I knew I needed a new pair of shoes. 

Here they are: 

These are beautiful Italian suede loafers with maybe a thousand rhinestones appliqued to each shoe.

Of course I decided to buy two pairs.

Wouldn't you?

Have a great week!

Karen