RE: The Sins of Being Poor, or Conscientious Frugality.
There´s a saying in German which translates to:
ALDI has done more for poor people in Germany,
than all Social Democrat politicians together.
I buy almost all my food there, because it´s the nearest supermarket for me and what I buy there is all organic. I don´t eat meat anyway, but even there they start to bring organic choices.
Until recently they had the organic cucumbers totally wrapped in plastic and the conventional ones had no plastic whatsoever, the irony of it.
But now the organic ones have just a ribbon which tells you they are organic.
SO ALDI is constantly improving, because they have discovered a market and I guess, the people in charge now are also more environmentally conscious than 20 years ago.
And you are right about poverty and the environment. Somewhere I heard, and I guess this was referring to developing countries, that once your material needs are somewhat comfortably covered, once you don´t have to worry about next day´s food, you start to care more for the environment. So people who would make about 5000 $ a year, I guess that´s middle class in those countries, would start to think environmentally.
I guess that´s Maslow´s hierarchy of needs.
As the great German writer Berthold Brecht once wrote:
Erst kommt das Fressen, dann kommt die Moral.
First comes food, than comes morality.
I can believe that saying! Are you in Germany? The Aldis here stock organics in long life forms, but not fresh. Their fresh veg is usually very good quality, just wish they had organic too.
Aldi is actually a recent arrival to South Australia. They've had them in the other states for a white, but only started building and opening them here maybe a year or two ago. They've been a huge hit, despite all the complaints about them and when they nearly half your grocery bill, they're bound to be popular. Even in the wealthier suburbs they're doing well. The Australians are very for supporting local, so one of the concerns was that they believed Aldi would just import. I guess they listened, because their first marketing campaign was about how much of the food is Australian grown and made.
I guess it's hard to think about much else when you're biggest concern is putting food into yours and your family's stomachs. Once you no longer have to worry about that, you can worry about whether the way it's getting to you is sustainable.
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