My grocery complications began freshman year of college. I took a human-geography class that educated me on where much of our food comes from. Thus, I was introduced to the concept of fair-trade food.

Concern for the origin of my food deepened when I took an ecology class second semester. I learned about hazardous chemicals that are often used on commercial farms and became interested in the benefits of organic food.

Armed with this new information, I said goodbye to Walmart and hello to a local store that sold a plethora of fair-trade and organic foods. With my “for the love of the earth” bag in tow, I set off to save the world one organic head of lettuce at a time.

My excitement faded somewhat when I checked out and my total was twice as much as it usually was for half the amount of food.

Once I realized the effect this type of conscientious grocery shopping was going to have on my wallet, I came to the conclusion that shopping fair-trade and organic all the time was just not practical, so I decided to approach grocery shopping in a different way.

I began to buy groceries based mainly on their price. I left the local market, journeyed back to Walmart and exchanged fair-trade coffee and organic tomatoes for Kraft macaroni and cheese and Chef Boyardee ravioli. Fully aware I was probably contributing to the oppression of someone somewhere, I swung in the completely opposite direction and focused on buying food for as cheap as I could.

Then came Christmas, and with Christmas came food in excessive amounts. When I came back from the break, my waist suddenly was not what it used to be. Hoping this problem would balance back out on its own, I didn’t decide to take action until I ripped my jeans trying to pick up a dropped notebook.

In addition to giving the ole’ running shoes a workout, I decided to health-proof my diet. Instead of looking at the price on the back of products, I began looking at the number of calories. I traded in my macaroni and cheese and ravioli for Weight Watchers fruit pops and Lean Cuisine pizza.

I am currently still shopping for healthy food at Walmart and will probably continue to do so until my jeans loosen their death grip on my thighs.

When that glorious day comes, perhaps I will find another way to make something as mundane as grocery shopping into an incredibly complicated and thought-provoking process.

— Janna Gentry, English junior