Eating Vegetables To Hold Mortality Close

City compost programs, food waste, and poverty

"In his half-sleep he thought where he was lying was like a coffin." Hazel Motes, the young protagonist of Wise Blood by Flannery O'Connor, tries to sleep in a cramped, dark train berth and fears death. You can never be sure when you'll be reminded of mortality. Recently, for me, it's when I'm scrubbing potatoes and carrots or swishing kale and collards in a sink of water. I take care of the vegetables that are already softening. On the side of my fridge, I tape a note of what needs to be eaten first. Unlike the dry goods that can sit in my pantry for months on end, fresh vegetables and fruit require attention and carry with them a ticking clock. If I don't eat the produce quickly enough, it will decay—just as I will after I die. 

Natalie McGill recently wrote, "Study after study confirms that eating vegetables is not only good for us but essential to the health and survival of our home, Mother Earth, as well. Eating more vegetables is good for you and the environment, so why are people so married to their burgers and fries?" I'm not writing about meat today, but the question is worth considering. And: Why are people so married to food that stays good endlessly (and often artificially)? Because it's trustworthy. When so many of us are overworked and underpaid, food rotting is another failure. Picking up a pear when you're hungry only to find it covered with mold means time has run out. Too late.

In 2021, the "Uber for lawn care" (a cursed phrase) published a study that showed Arizona ranked worst in the country for food waste. The study sparked a flurry of articles with breathless headlines that reminded me of how publications write about the world's oldest Twinkie. I worry it becomes a spectacle for public gawking, not information that spurs change. I'm not surprised that Arizona doesn't rank well here, but it feels like a case without winners. Show me a state that wastes no food and feeds all its hungry—you can't. These are systemic problems. Arizona is also one of the states with the highest income inequality, and Republicans recently voted to "prohibit guaranteed-basic-income programs in the state, despite Arizona having the fourth-highest rate of homelessness in the nation." When money and time are impossible to get enough of, shelf-stable food is necessary. Still, it isn't (now or ever) acceptable that so many people experience poverty and hunger when there is more than enough food for all.

One of my favorite scenes from Moonstruck (1987)

What about people with the resources to buy and prepare vegetables? Why is there a preference for powders, elixirs, and capsules to deliver vegetal nutrients? A preference that the market capitalizes on and creates. Some of it is entitlement to meat and convenience, two pillars of American success. Maybe it's also because they fear death. Foods that stay good for a long time are how we want to see ourselves: nearly immortal. Vegetables, on the other hand, wilt and turn yellow, then brown. They mold and drip, attracting fruit flies to decorative bowls. They don't ship well. They don't taste good when grown to ship better. They smell when they rot. They ooze and mush and bloat. They behave like our own bodies. The experiment of the United States, especially since the Industrial Revolution, is predicated on permanence, growth, youth, improvement, and efficiency. To decay is to fail.

Tempe, the city where I live, used to sell compost directly to residents, but in January 2023 they announced a shift to contracting with a private company. Residents get a ten percent discount on compost, something that should be free. Among the reasons cited for this change were "increased operating costs and declining interest in the program." Elsewhere, like in NYC, compost programs are being shut down. Nonprofits fill in the gaps, with Let's Go Compost being a local example focusing on education and accessibility. There is good work being done, and there is so much to do. 

In December 2023, the City of Tempe, Local First Arizona, and Recycled City announced a new compost project: "a circular economy initiative that aims to turn food scraps once destined for the landfill into farmland to grow more food to put on your plate." Cocina Chiwas and Chen's Noodle House were the first two restaurants involved. By December last year, the city had invested $35,000 into the program and said, "Expanding food access and diverting waste through the Tempe Compost Program go hand-in-hand." In the zip code where the two restaurants are, at least twenty percent of "residents live at or below the poverty line and many residents live more than half a mile away from the nearest grocery store."

Despite the hold that meat has on US culture and the billions the government spends to keep it this way at the cost of so much else, things are shifting. At least partly because the gospel of "meat at every meal" is being seen for its true fruit: We, as a nation, are not healthier, happier, thriving. Very few can afford the good life, and that means it isn’t actually good overall. Produce (and eating no or less meat) is more affordable and offers a change. In The Checkout, Errol Schweizer writes, "Produce department sales have continued to grow faster than most categories over the past few years (and have seen less price inflation than the processed food categories in center store)." As the story of US exceptionalism wears so thin that more and more people see through it, vegetables come into focus.

The personal story of changing how one eats isn't always as complicated as the national and global view. Life changed, and I want to change something, anything. While I trudge through the first month after the sudden passing of a close friend, all I want are vegetables and fruit—fresh, roasted, pickled, steamed, and boiled—with beans, grains, some cheese, and yogurt. (Maybe a little fish, I’m still figuring it out.) Mortality ticks loudest when I'm eating fruits of the earth, and I relish that.

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The Good Enough Weekly comes out every Friday, alternating an essay with Of the Week. I also take on freelance editing and writing projects. Reach out if you’re looking for help in those departments — I’ve worked on everything from zines to textbooks. More info here. My zine of adapted Irish fairytales, Desert Pookas, is available for preorder now!