The Great Lettuce Quandary

I can't afford to fix my car or fix my house, but I buy this fancy boutique lettuce that costs a million dollars a pound. I don't know for sure, but I think it is free range organic, grown hydroponically in Evian water and picked by opera singers singing arias and wearing velvet gloves while angels strum on dulcet harps floating softly above on gilt wings smiling their approval. For what I pay for it, I imagine that's what it's like. This stuff is so expensive it must get its own ticker tape parade before being lovingly caressed by a virgin and then gently placed in an Earth friendly package to be shipped on hovercraft so bumps in the road don't perturb its slumber.

I like this mixed green lettuce. I like the thicker more bitter lettuces that resemble dandelion stems and small oak trees. And think the color and texture and peppery tastes bring a lot to a salad. If your lettuce has more flavor, you can put less stuff on it making a healthier salad. Not to mention the colonic benefits to eating what are essentially grass clippings from an untended field.

But no matter what the size of the lettuce container, or the price, or the quality or the expiration date I can never - NEVER finish an entire container of it! Half of it simply gets tossed because it turns slimy or spotted or just decomposes into oil. I can understand wasting some of a big head of iceberg lettuce, but throwing out half a small container of very expensive lettuce is harder to swallow. To be honest, I have to sort of pick through the stuff upon opening it for the first time since some of it seems be be dead on arrival.

It's bad enough that the food I buy thinks it's better than me, but when I fail to even eat the whole thing it proves itself right. Think of all the poor children in the third world who will never know the crispy refreshing mouth feel of a big bite salad made from mollycoddled prissy lettuce, dried cranberries and walnuts because I am throwing it all away.

And what of sustainability? What will happen when we burn through our supply of fancy-schmancy frou frou lettuce? What will come of $20.00 salads at the Four Seasons? How will Julliard go on? When will we learn that our precious supply of precious lettuces is precious and shouldn't be treated so cavalierly?

I say we should, nay, we MUST put an end to the hatred against poofy-doo hyper-expensive lettuce and resolve to sell it in smaller containers. This way when we throw out half the container, because we always throw out half the container, we will be throwing out less than we were before. It's like the new toilets that use less water. Sure, it's still a waste, but it is less a waste than it could be. This method is consistent with America's propensity toward half-assed holier than thou activism and will allow us to be both wasteful, (which we love), and conservation minded, (which we think we love).

I should have voted for the Green Party candidates as I am pretty sure this is the core of their platform. Alas, they receive so little of the popular vote a fact which only galvanizes me to try harder. From lowly iceberg to girl next door cute but still approachable romaine all the way to haughty stuck-up prom queen arugula we will fight! Lettuce Fight, Lettuce Win! Lettuce Eat!