Me and a Mango
My path to sustainability started with an organic mango
in New York City. My apartment is in the East Village,
a place known for its political and social awareness,
where today four organic vegetarian restaurants are
just outside my front door. When I first moved here,
there was an organic vegetarian health food store a
few doors away. It was one of those hippie-type places,
where the people that worked there wore black and smelled,
and everything looked dirty and run down. To tell you
the truth, I was afraid of the place, figuring it to
be some kind of socialist hippie commune, or a front
for some cult.
So I avoided the store called Prana. At the time, it
was the only organic health food store around (there
are now five just in my area, including a Whole Foods
- but Prana is gone). For a couple years, I walked by
it every day on my way to and from work, and I’d
look at the strange people going in and coming out.
I can’t remember what happened to finally make
me go in the store, but, with much trepidation and a
deep breath, I stepped inside.
It was what I’d expected – run down and
a bit dirty looking, with products sometimes there,
sometimes not. I don’t know why I did it –
I don’t even know if I’d ever had a mango
before – but I bought an organic mango and took
it home.
I peeled back the skin and bit into it. As juice dribbled
down my chin and squirted all around, I leaned back
and groaned with delight. It was the sweetest, tastiest,
most heavenly piece of fruit I’d ever had. The
flavor was out of this world! I ate the entire thing
and sat in my chair afterward, reveling in one of the
most amazing food experiences of my life.
From that day on, there was no turning back. I started
shopping in Prana and ate almost all their vegetables
and produce – and my tastebuds danced. They would
source as much produce from local sustainable farms
as they could, and you could tell most of the food was
freshly picked and brought to the store only a couple
days after harvest. The only other place that comes
close to that experience is at a farmers market.
Health food stores are good, but as organics and sustainable
food becomes bigger and bigger business, the food is
shipped longer distances through distributors, picked
sooner, and is sometimes raised on industrial farms.
All of that will take away from the pure taste of something
just taken from the ground.
Prana went out of business a couple years ago –
their landlord had raised their rent so high that they
could no longer stay open. And, since then, I haven’t
found a store that sells food nearly as good as they
did, which is a shame. As the East Village has become
more and more popular, rents have risen to unbelievable
levels, pushing out the people and stores that made
the area popular in the first place.
 After
my Prana experience, I started working at GRACE and
eventually founded the Sustainable Table program. Once
I started learning about industrial agriculture and
all the problems with conventional foods, I went almost
100% organic or sustainable. Waxed, injected, perfect-looking
food from a large supermarket looks fake to me –
I find it very hard to eat these days and will never
buy it for myself.
I think everyone should have their own mango moment,
whether it be with kale, peaches, eggs or beef. And
at Sustainable Table, that’s what we’re
trying to do.
- Diane Hatz, October 2006
Diane Hatz is Sustainable Table’s Founder/Director. She currently resides in New York City.
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