Closing The Divide, 17

It is the small hours of the morning, Gentle Reader, and while waiting for my eggs to cook, I thought I would begin with mis pensamientos al dia, or my thoughts for the day. I am listening to the early broadcast of the Ideas program on CBC, it is not yet 5 am, and the topic today is food security. I did just hear one little thing that gives me a little encouragement. The subject of food becoming more expensive, and this being a good thing, was raised, and the guest emphasized the importance of keeping affordable food available to the poor. So, finally, they are admitting that we exist. It is quite interesting, this claim that Canadians spend, on average, ten percent of their income on food. I wonder to which Canadians they would be referring? In my case, the cipher is a lot higher, given that I, like a lot of Canadians, am not being paid a living wage, even with subsidized rent thrown in. I estimate that I spend around thirty percent of my monthly income on food. I eat carefully, and responsibly, and being vegetarian also helps. I am neither fat nor vegetarian, by the way, so please spare me the insulting insinuations of what happens when poor people like me have easy access to food. Being poor is not synonymous to being stupid or uneducated. But I really think that the eggheads in the CBC think tanks need to stop thinking of people in statistical categories and more as individuals. Perhaps this might also help them avoid their habitual embarrassment of falling into tokenism whenever they want the rest of us poor unfortunate bastards to feel included, or at least like we're part of the party. Even though we are not, nor ever will be. My eggs are about to start boiling so I will have to give this a bit of a rest for now. They are regular eggs, by the way, not free range nor organic, and that isn't because I don't like chickens but for the simple reason that this is all I can afford, if I want to eat eggs on a regular basis... it is now two and a half hours later. Breakfast was followed by a two hour nap (I got up a tad too early this morning). My non-organic and non-free range eggs were enjoyed with two slices of toasted homemade bread (made by me, of course, whole wheat, naturally) As well as healthy and enjoyable it is cheap and affordable because I pay around five bucks for a bag of ten pounds of flour. It could very well be GM, but I'm not going to worry about it. This is what I can afford. Likewise the jam, Smucker's strawberry purchased cheaper than the norm at No Frills, the Food Dollarama, and a slice of white extra old cheddar, my one real indulgence, but still affordable at thirteen dollars for five hundred grams. Eating well and decently is still possible, but it's all basics and in most cases I simply can no longer shop fair trade and organic for the simple reason that such ethical luxuries exist well outside of my budget. I am not complaining. As long as I keep my conscience in harness, I am actually pretty darn happy. I'd be even happier if I didn't have to restrict my conscience in order to live within my means, and I do plan to keep my conscience free and robust enough to keep writing these annoying little rants.