Spinach and Tortellini at Home

For lunch, I had leftover tortellini, with a spinach salad and mint-water to drink.

Pretty boring and basic. I started making mint-water a few months ago in an effort to drink more water. It's working pretty well. I just use a few splashes of mint extract to give water a little flavor. It's even better with citrus slices.

In grocery news, it looks like produce is finally starting to pick up. I went shopping for veggies to make a quasi-ratatouille to go with tonight's salmon, and ended up with ridiculous amounts of fresh veggies because they were so cheap and tasty-looking.

I was going to write a big long post about poverty, obesity, crop subsidies, fresh produce, WIC, and my theories about all of the above. But I really don't have anything new to say. I'm sure everyone here knows all that. I just found it interesting that, at least at certain times of the year, it IS more economical to buy a boatload of produce than processed crap. I got two pounds of spinach, a large eggplant, a pound of organic carrots, three grapefruit, three zucchini, 3/4 pound of 'bella mushrooms, three tomatoes, a gallon of (scary) milk, and almost two pounds of steel-cut oats for under $20, including St. Louis' astronomical sales tax. I easily could have added some tofu, beans, and whole-grain pasta, and poof, two weeks' or so worth of meals.

Even more interestingly, my local grocery store is the typical semi-urban, WIC-heavy place where I usually see carts piled high with complete crap (sorry, I do judge) and morbidly obese children/teens/young adults. But today, I saw considerably less cart-piling, along with somewhat prominent signs highlighting the healthy produce. Maybe people are finally figuring food out.