Diary of a Conscientious Eater.

• Author: SIMES, DEBRA
• Position: Shopping for organic food

What does it take to translate a passion for whole and organic foods to actual meals on the table for a busy, ex-urban family?

It's Monday morning, and I've just delivered my five-year-old to one of her last few days at pre-school. I chug along in my politically incorrect minivan, replete with bumper stickers quipping "Defend the Earth," "Say No to Pesticides," and "Eat Organic." As I cruise past the local supermarket, I glance wistfully and think, "Why can't I just shop there like a normal person?" Most of my cohorts in this ex-urban eastern town do not spend several hours every week flitting from one venue to the other to flush out organic provisions for the family's weekly subsistence. They go to the local mega-market and wrap it up in under an hour. So what's my problem?

Well, I have this thing ... this passionate belief about how we come by our daily bread. I think what we eat matters. I think where it comes from and how it's grown and processed and transported matters--to our individual health, to the health of our environments, to the viability of agriculture, to the state of our collective psyche, and even to the soundness of democratic institutions! You see? It is kind of a problem. And I enjoy it enormously.

Now, I grew up on the same pallid diet that many 40- and 50-somethings in this culture did: white bread, TV dinners, canned veggies, and plenty of burgers. My conversion to whole and organic foods, to greatly reduced meat consumption, and to a re-vision of the classic food pyramid was a gradual one. I think it may have begun the summer after high school, when I was flipping burgers and had the random, if focusing, realization that it was actually flesh I was intentionally razing on that grill. So much for lunch on the job. In the 30 years since then, I've gathered information about health and nutrition, environmental degradation, soil dynamics, agriculture, agribusiness, and the chemical and agri-biotech industries. It has all led me to ... my problem.

I drive on, and the next errand surfaces in my multi-tasked mind: a stop at a local organic wholesaler to indulge in the giddy purchase of bedding plants for the vegetable garden I do most summers. Today's haul includes a few tomato varieties, that gorgeous new Italian kale, several herbs, and some celery and lettuce starts. Somehow, this week I will get all of these, plus seeds for cucumbers, peas, corn, beans, pumpkins, and carrots, into the soil my husband and I tilled and...