Of Food and Social Activism

Part of my day was spent running errands and paying bills. It's something I usually do, given that I work from home and have a freelance job. At the moment, I've chosen to extend my vacation, and officially start work on  Monday next week. Anyway, since I'm too lazy to cook, I decided to eat out and be a little adventurous with the menu. I live close to a number of fast food restaurants and quite a few new eateries which I haven't tried yet, and since I'm on this pretense of eating clean this year, I decided to try this "organic" vegetarian restaurant (Tri Mona) that was just a tricycle ride away from home.

There's something about mixing food with social activism that just rubs me the wrong way. I find that eating around posters promoting fair trade and gender equality--while I support both causes-- kind of makes me lose my appetite. How do I explain this in simpler terms? When I go out to eat food, I want to be focused on absorbing the ambiance of the place, enjoying the taste and how the food makes me feel. While I appreciate knowing that the food I'm eating may be helping local farmers, and is presumably not the pesticide-laden bunch of veggies that I find in supermarkets, I don't need it spelled out to me in big red letters. Having that kind of setup makes me feel like I should somehow be enjoying the food more because it's for a good cause. It's similar to the guilt-trip/ scare-mongering that I associate with the "all-natural, chemical-free" movement in beauty and skincare products.

 Anyway, I digress; let's get back to the food: I ordered baked eggplant with brown rice and had plain 'ol water to drink. I didn't enjoy my food, and I wasn't able to finish it. In all honesty, it was quite ordinary. The only thing that I enjoyed was the organic brown rice, which I could've purchased from the supermarket and cooked myself. Perhaps I'd have more luck with the other items on their menu, but I seriously doubt I'd go back. The small restaurant also doubled as a shop selling handcrafted goods and local produce (presumably 'organic') and you wouldn't know that the place was a restaurant if not for the big sign outside. The reception wasn't at all warm, and for the first few minutes, I seriously doubted that anyone was going to attend to me, since none of the staff came to greet me as I entered, and they didn't even seem to care that I was already looking around their shop/ restaurant. When I was finally done with my meal, they didn't even have change for a 500 peso bill and asked me several times if I had smaller bills (I didn't.)  Overall, the experience was unpleasant and I'm not likely to recommend the place to my friends.

I suppose there is a way you can combine healthy dining with social activism without stifling the customers who really just want to try the food, it is still a business after all.