The Orange Diaries

This site is modestly funny, though it smells mildly of a big corporation's sweaty attempt to be cute and folksy.

Still, I sympathize with their cause -- it ENRAGES me that, in my local Publix, it's hard to find frozen OJ concentrate from Florida, or that I have to go out of my way to get local juicing oranges, or that my blueberries in April come from Chile. I realize that it's a complex, economic system: Publix needs to compete with WalMart, so it searches for the least inexpensive possible necessities, like OJ concentrate from Brazil. And because of wage differentials and inexpensive (relatively) energy, Brazil can produce juice more cheaply than Florida, where groves are being turned into subdivisions. But it is enraging that we here, in Florida, do not, on principle, drink orange juice raised here, by farmers whom we know who buy their equipment from workers whom we know. In theory, I believe in free trade and international commerce; but when it comes down to my own personal preferences and instinctive beliefs, it almost always turns out that I prefer to buy local, even when it's not in my own economic best interests.