November 23, 2005

Life of Caesar

In the L.A. Weekly, Vince Beiser has an article on the life cycle of a Caesar salad, looking at all the underpaid labor and overtoxic chemicals that go into making one, from start to finish. Good piece. It's also worth quoting Mark Krikorian's bit on the economics of immigrant farmworkers: "Foreign labor is concentrated in the harvest of fresh fruits and vegetables. And if you look at the actual numbers, you'd see that since labor accounts for such a small part of the retail price fruits and vegetables, giving farm workers a 40 percent raise would increase grocery costs for the typical American consumers by $8 a year. Eight dollars. A year." Okay, then.
-- Brad Plumer 6:48 PM || ||