Because sometimes it should just be made in America ...

I don’t eat only GMO-free foods.  I don’t eat only organic fruits.  My chicken is normal raised chicken, and not free range, cage free, sang-to-once-a-night-but-we’re-still-going-to-kill-it-anyway chicken.  But I do try to buy American grown food.

I don’t buy anything but Florida Natural Orange Juice.  Because Florida grows oranges.  A ton of them.  We don’t need non-Florida oranges.  But I get it.  South American countries need to grow oranges, and apparently their native people don’t eat enough so they send them here. 

But most recently I was appalled by a purchase I made.  I’ll be honest.  It was one of those “ooh look at the fun character” purchases.  I usually do buy the Honest Kids juice pouches when I buy them for the kids.  Cut out HFC and extraneous preservatives when you can, right?  We use Natural Peanut Butter, Natural Jam, and try not to feed the kids stuff with more than six ingredients.  I’ve learned a lot from the 100 Days of Real Food lady.  It’s important that our kids aren’t raised on stuff their bodies can’t digest.  Fight the fat-kid-syndrome.

Anyway, back to my purchase.  It was a Monsters University juice box.  It was Juicy Juice Apple Juice.  Juicy Juice is 100% juice.  That’s good, right?  WRONG. You are COMPLETELY wrong.  Why?  Because the juice comes from concentrate made in CHINA!  CHINA people.  Seriously?!?? 

Apples.   “As American as Apple Pie” – Johnny Appleseed – Apples.  Apples are like one of the most American fruits there are.  Granted that China produces more, but they are a MUCH larger country.  Beside the point – how much does it cost to get APPLE JUICE CONCENTRATE from China?!? And is it really THAT much cheaper than just, oh, getting AMERICAN APPLES?!?  Two points I’d like to make here:

11)      Chinese Apples are probably cheaper to process because a Chinese worker doesn’t have to make $30/hr with a fully vested 401K after working in his company for just one year to put apples into a giant juicing machine.  So probably, yes, it is cheaper. Shame on us.  But then, he doesn’t get to live in America.  Where our largest problems tend to be whether or not we want whipped cream on our skinny frappe-mocha-latte-chino and how it’s so hot in our air conditioned 2,000 sq ft house with a stocked fridge and how we don’t want to drive to the store to get whatever medicine we need because it’s too far and why doesn’t McDonald’s deliver?  And can you believe you still have to microwave stuff for more than 30 seconds and there’s no app for that?

22)      We need to stop discouraging American Farmers from growing American Food.  We need to make it easier for them to sell their stuff, no matter how small they are.  We need American Apples.  We need to at least support companies that use American fruits and vegetables.  Nestle doesn’t.  I contacted them to let them know how sad that makes me.  I just can’t believe that it’s more cost effective to ship fruit concentrate across the world.  And if it is, we need to fix that (see point one).  American Farmers grow fruit for Americans.  If it costs more to process it because some union thinks it should, well, that’s why we keep going to China, or Vietnam, or Chile, or Peru, or Argentina, or Guam.  Wherever. 

I’m not saying go vegan.  Or organic. Or cage free, roam free, grass fed, hugged and kissed every night.  I’m not saying you should go figure out what brands have GMOs.  I don’t even care that you have things with High Fructose Corn Syrup.  Or Cellulose.  Or Castoreum (vomit).  What I am saying that whatever you do buy, make sure it comes from here.  Clothes, toys, shoes, linens … whatever.  They come from China.  They do because of statement #1 up there.   Why would I have a toy made here when I have to pay someone $30/hr to make it and if I sell it for more than $10 it’s a “rip off”?  Can’t have your cake and eat it too, loves. Of course, it’s starting to backfire isn’t it?  Did you see that guy trapped in his factory?  Yeah.  That’s Karma.  And contact companies. You can Contact Nestle here.  Tell them you want American food.  There are millions of farms here in America and most are suffering right now because of big business and congress.   Buy American food.  Food grown here.  Not concentrate from China. Seriously folks.  Because sometimes it’s a no brainer.