As I browse the produce aisles of Safeway on 18th and Pearl Street, the only food I really have my eye out for is an avocado. It’s the creamy goodness I look forward to at every meal and the only fruit that I make single store trips for. I daydream about the fresh green slices that I’ll pair with my eggs in the morning and the too ripe ones that’ll turn into guacamole, all while I pick up one avocado after another, groping its widest point, seeing how deep my fingertips sink into the thick, glossy green skin. While I judge each fruit and pick out the ones I think are as close to perfect as possible, I can’t help but imagine the journey that avocados take to reach this exact Safeway I’m shopping at in Eugene, Oregon.
The store employee who was manning the produce department let me know that Safeway avocados are shipped through the distributor Charlie’s Produce and they either come from California or Mexico, but mostly Mexico. So I guess the “Avocados from Mexico” company and commercial that we all first saw during last year’s Super Bowl is true—my favorite fruit really does travel all the way from our neighboring country in the south and lands in grocery stores like this Safeway in the Pacific Northwest.
Now, I know that avocados aren’t people who can feel emotions and make their own decisions, but if they were, let’s just say, what an incredibly unfortunate way to live in their first few months of existing. They come for a better life, sure, where they will grace our supermarkets instead of roasting in the sun after falling from commercial avocado trees, but only to be used and often abused by Americans. The chosen ones are picked and packaged into crates to travel up north, while others that are bruised and unusable are left without opportunities.
And then there’s after the whole process. After the travelers make it into our stores, there’s more judging that happens with buyers. If they weren’t physically bruised when they came off those transporting trucks, emotional bruising is about to happen. Picked up and prodded, just as I did in Safeway this week, examined and contemplated, these avocados’ lives are determined for them by us. We, the American clientele, have control over the Mexican fruits and their futures. Their beauty and usefulness got them to the U.S., but at this point, it is the beginning of the end for them.
Whether they are picked up by a college student who neglects to turn them into anything, who let them rot away in their refrigerators along with moldy bread and a carton of milk they forgot to dump out, or they go home with a family of five who only wants them for a couple bowls of guacamole for Sunday Night Football, these avocados are finished for.
Mexican Avocados are food and they are devoured just as bananas from Costa Rica are and wheat from Ethiopia is, but the journeys these imported foods take often go unknown to consumers. I hold avocados very dear to my heart and I’ve developed an emotional attachment to them in recent years. Because of this, I felt the need to trace their origins and learn about their experiences before they make it onto a slice of Dave’s Killer Bread for my breakfast.
I think it’s worth it to see where the food we eat comes from and the conditions they are regulated under. So next time you’re at the grocery store, try to read a few labels and ask workers any questions you might have. Look up recipes to use your ingredients in the most delicious ways, and in the end, appreciate the food you’re able to come by.