@john_geeshu YES! Nutritional literacy is the key to a lot of this and some people just do not have those skills, often because of where/when/how they grew up and went to school. Some of the people in this thread don’t socialize with (or at bare minimum consider) people outside of their socioeconomic circle and it really shows.
As a teacher, you see a lot of stuff. And you oscillate between “everybody is trying their best” and “what the hell is going on with some of these people”. It’s a balancing act.
But you are right that giving people the benefit of the doubt is the better way to try and be.
@coufalm Not everyone has time or resources to make everything at home fresh. Again. It’s a privilege. Some people have three jobs, are single parents, have chronic health issues. Everyone is just trying to survive.
@doubra I could have written this myself!!! It is all so toxic and wasteful. The adverts for crap that is damaging to you, the environment, everything. And those big box stores make me feel so weird and sad.
@doubra Target feels like some weird dystopian purgatory now, it used to be a fun afternoon just browsing now I only use drive up if it’s absolutely necessary to go there.
@doubra I prefer stores with a more limited selection because I also feel overwhelmed and frustrated in big stores. The majority of our consumables come from Aldi, Trader Joe’s, and the local organic store, with occasional things from Wegmans and online retailers. Even Wegmans feels too big for me, with too much variety.
@annmarkerls Half of those 18 brands are owned by the same corporation they just put different labels on the same peanut butter to make you feel like you made the best choice
@doubra I recently read Ultra-Processed People and it really opened my eyes to the endless cheapening of food production.
What primary ingredient can be removed and replaced with some cheap approximation? How can shelf life be extended so it can be processed and shipped from farther away? It's all so sad.
@doubra I have a hard time trusting any big company and it's exhausting. I got a few toys from Amazon early in postpartum from reputable brands because I was trying to be safe before I found out that those could also be fake. I have a hard time buying anything new that isn't consumable. I really need a new pair of dress pants and I'm very tall so I'm having trouble finding some secondhand. They don't sell tall sizes in stores so if I buy new I'd have to order a few and try them on and then return what doesn't fit but I don't want to do that because I know they will likely end up in a landfill. I really wish I lived somewhere with stricter regulations so I didn't have to think about it so much.
@christfollower1993 This is all where it really started for me, newly postpartum mom, with bad anxiety, worried about everything killing my baby. It wasn’t really until I got pregnant that I started focusing on more healthier options, and once you wake up to it, and all the different aspects of your life where we’ve been lied to About safety and necessity, it’s terrifying and exhausting.
@christfollower1993 When I told my vet we use Frontline on our dog, she asked where we bought it. She then told us how for a while there was counterfeit Frontline sold on Amazon that was just water in the vials.
Luckily we bought at wal mart because I was already wary of Amazon, but I think of that story any time I think I’m safe with purchasing a name brand product from Amazon.
