The problem is the home-made Egg McMuffins. Organic, cage-free eggs are not a dime dozen but can be had for under $3 a dozen in most Boulder stores. American cheese -- actually not as unhealthy as you think if you get it with reduced fat -- is required on an Egg McMuffin as is the bacon (uncured, low sodium) that is an item, and smell, of great contention in our house. I can get those anywhere. The problem is the muffin. For years, we have been using whole wheat Whole Foods English muffins. The whole wheat a concession to the Michael Pollan acolyte who lives in the house. For some reason, the child who can detect and reject the smallest amount of whole wheat in any product actually ate these muffins with relish. Who knew that an English muffin would require me to temporarily end my Whole Foods boycott?
First I tried Thomas' English Muffins -- the gold standard. I had no idea this kid would notice a difference in the muffin -- not exactly the most flavorful part of an Egg McMuffin. But he noticed and said it ruined the entire thing. Several tries later -- white, whole wheat, sourdough, store-brand, national-brand -- nothing has worked. (Parenting coaches would tell me to that he should eat what is served or make his own breakfast; nutritionists would tell me the entire thing is an abomination and that it should have never been served in the first place. My motherly prerogative is to ignore these voices).
This week I will venture back to Whole Foods for just this one item. I am not boycotting Whole Foods to make a dent in their profits. My former $600 a month habit is irrelevant to their economic health. I am boycotting Whole Foods to remind myself that we each need to make sacrifices to remember what is important. In my case, real health care reform is important. Not because my family of four pays more than $13,000 a year in premiums for a plan that has large deductibles, requires significant co-payments and does not cover preventive care. But because my family can afford to spend 25% of my salary on medical and dental costs and we know that many others cannot.
My family can afford to shop at Whole Foods but knows it is a fallacy that eating good foods alone will remove the need for a public option. My husband, who has been running for more than 40 years and watching his diet for at least that long, is willing to make sacrifices I won't -- he will forgo certain foods in the quest to keep his cholesterol in the right range and takes the vitamins and supplements that are de rigueur among the health conscious. He still can't get his cholesterol low enough because of his genetics (his doctor father dead at 50 of a massive coronary in the hospital he had built). So my husband can do everything within his power (and my willingness to cook wild salmon three nights a week) and he still should take statins and get annual stress tests (neither of which is inexpensive). Tell my mother, aunts and cousins that eating more organic apples would have kept them cancer-free. No amount of Whole Foods groceries would have changed the courses of their diseases.
I wish John Mackey, Whole Foods CEO, had not decided to publish his health care opinion in the Wall Street Journal because once I read it I knew I had to take my own little stand. I wish my kid would eat another brand of muffins. But he did and he won't.
I could stop making home-made Egg McMuffins altogether but I am not a believer in having others suffer (even trivially) for my choices and the rest of his diet pretty much follows the Boulder guidelines of healthfulness.
I could ask my teenager or my neighbor to pick up the muffins but that seems worse than doing it myself. I will walk in to Whole Foods and grab those muffins and marvel at the beautiful produce and remember that we all need to make sacrifices and hope that real health care reform passes soon. Because whether or not my kid eats Egg McMuffins he might need it.