A "Nice" Cup of Coffee

Well, it has been one month since I gave up sugar & shopping and began my new year-long journey. I am loving my new life and feeling really great. I have actual cheekbones again now. The other morning I thought I had detected a hint of a hip bone, but when I stood up it got all covered up again by a roll of fat so I think it would be cheating to count that yet. :) But my clothes are getting looser, my mood is calmer, I feel much more easily content and at ease with the world. My meals are simple and easy, cooking is a cinch and I have had no cravings since eliminating the sugar, corn syrup and white flour. Still working out the kinks with the kids, but their habits are improving along with mine. It turns out that we are not saving billions of dollars as I had hoped from my not shopping or buying, because the grocery bill is much higher now which I think is due to the fact that I am buying groceries. :) Healthy food can be more expensive, but it feels so good to pay money for such good things. We are finally starting to level out, eat a little less and I am becoming content with very simple meals that never seemed adequate before. Grocery shopping is MUCH simpler now, as I have had to pretty much eliminate 95% of the products in the store. :) Haven't had to deal with any holidays or occasions without sugar yet, except for my birthday. I asked for a fruit basket in lieu of a birthday cake and knowing Gaston would forget (after 24 years of marriage I know these things) I went out that morning before the snow started and bought myself some beautiful fruit & fresh berries, a nice thick steak, some red, yellow & orange peppers, a bottle of Perrier & a used scary book. And yes, since you MUST know, of course he forgot. :) But he did walk home in the snow carrying two six packs of beer...for himself. My Hero. New blog- "Gaston's Year of Living Simply Single". I didn't share my steak. :) Then that afternoon the electricity went out. Clyde-Pierre claims I walked in from outside looking "all peachy" because I thought I may have just heard a neighbor get electrocuted which meant 8 hours of no technology, no television and no phones. It was a lovely day.
Of all the habits I have changed this month one of the biggest adjustments and hardest habits to give up was a daily stop at the local convenience store for an industrial sized iced coffee. I LOVE COFFEE...
I had already eliminated using sugar in my coffee at an earlier attempt at weight loss last year. I lost over 25 pounds while still consuming almost a pint of cream everyday and drinking LOTS of coffee. (so don't let anyone convince you it's the fat we consume, it really is the sugar and corn syrup) When I gave up my Pepsi addiction, I had replaced it with my iced- coffee-with-lots-of-cream addiction. But when I gave up shopping for the year, I knew that also meant my daily coffee at Sheetz. Yikes. That was My Thing. My Treat. A trip to town, dash into Sheetz, grab a huge soda cup, fill it with ice, pour in 1/3 full of half & half and then a nice dark roast coffee. Yum. My Routine. When they were replacing the ice machine, the cashiers always kept an ice bucket out for me because they knew I was coming. The highlight of my day. (yes, I am aware I need a life...I am working on it here) But No Shopping meant No Shopping, no buying. So No Daily Coffee. Most people in our country don't get the $1.50 cup at Sheetz I tried to reason with myself. We all know folks who don't blink at spending 3-4 dollars for one cup of designer coffee. Well, I did the math...it hurt, so I cheated & rounded some numbers instead. Let's be kind and go with the low end of what I know most people spend and say they put out $3 a day. I was spending about a $1.50, so let's say $2.00 a day average for a nice coffee out. Let's assume people don't stop by Starbucks on the weekend,(HA) just during the work week. So $2.00 a cup (which we know is a way low estimate) five days a week for a year. You are talking OVER $500 for a cup of coffee in a year. Bare minimum. Add to that if you spend more than that, or buy more than one cup, etc. So I figure your Average Joe is spending between five hundred to $1,000 a year for a cup of joe. Not including the can sitting at home in the pantry. Whoa. I realized that wasn't gonna fit into my new simple life so it had to go. So I happily made coffee at home this month, bought nice organic cream, good stuff. Then I had to go and read again. (Reading has ruined my life more than once and my kids and friends really wish I would give that up too. Next project, My Year of Ignorant Bliss.) My oldest son Clyde-Pierre is a Barista at our local coffee shop. I thought he just made coffee for people, but nope, turns out he is a Barista. But I found that in order to be true to my desire to live 'simple that others might simply live' I, the proud mother of a Barista, was going to have to ditch the coffee habit too. Lord in heaven, will this never end? I learned that what the coffee companies pay farmers to grow coffee sometimes does not even cover the cost of growing it and leaves people in more poverty & debt. The land is used by major corporations instead of the local people so I can have my latte. Yikes. No deal. But I found a way around that. (I am very clever) If you purchase only certified Fair Trade coffee, then you are supporting small farmers, their families, their local economy and caring for the land in a way no corporation ever will. From Globalexchange.org ~"The United States consumes one-fifth of all the world's coffee, making it the largest consumer in the world. But few Americans realize that agriculture workers in the coffee industry often toil in what can be described as "sweatshops in the fields." Many small coffee farmers receive prices for their coffee that are less than the costs of production, forcing them into a cycle of poverty and debt. Fair Trade is a viable solution to this crisis, assuring consumers that the coffee we drink was purchased under fair conditions. To become Fair Trade certified, an importer must meet stringent international criteria; paying a minimum price per pound of $1.26, providing much needed credit to farmers, and providing technical assistance such as help transitioning to organic farming. Fair Trade for coffee farmers means community development, health, education, and environmental stewardship."~ Groovy, huh? Before you go to Starbucks and support them , I have a little video excerpt to show you about their business practices. It is from a documentary called This Land is Your Land which I haven't been able to locate. Before you buy a yummy cup of their Christmas Blend or anything else please know about an article my friend JL ran across & shared with me. Several years ago Starbucks took a MONASTERY to court (yes, as in people who have taken a vow of poverty) for the rights to the name of that coffee. The monks there depend upon the annual sale of this coffee as a significant portion of their income . Does anyone else find this extremely disturbing or at least Not Nice? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGkTvkpo6as Your consumer dollar is a vote. I began thinking about the power of coffee in our society, not a harmless pleasure, but something used to destroy some people's lives and make others rich. I thought about how driven our world is by this, the anxiety & rush & speed at which most of us live our lives. Knowing what I now know about sugar and its affects on our health and lives, knowing that it is a socially acceptable and legal drug, I had to admit that coffee was in the same category. Legal addiction. Oh Lord, that makes my son a pusher, a supplier. But he is very cute and brings me flowers & laughs at my jokes so we are going to ignore that. I saw a woman the other day zooming in her huge SUV with a Latte in one hand and a cell phone in the other . That's two hands...(I did more math). I am fairly confident had she been holding a joint instead of a coffee she would have gotten pulled over...not to mention probably driving much better. Or at least slower. :) So in the spirit of trying to live a more calm gentle life, (no, I am not taking up pot) I have given up the coffee as well. Did I mention that I LOVE coffee?? One day I may enjoy some fair trade coffee again on occasion, but not this year. I am burning less gas not making the coffee run and am happier knowing I am not contributing to a harsh corporation or feeding an addiction. Please look into Fair Trade coffee for your home and request it at local family owned coffee shops ! Tell them the Barista's Mom sent you. Peace.