SamPratt.com

Comparative Burgerology

Does healthy, organic food cost more than “regular” food? And what’s a hamburger supposed to cost around here, anyway?

Ever since Grazin’ revitalized a formerly-empty restaurant space on Warren Street, one has heard more than a few hyperbolic discussions about prices, with little actual relationship to the reality of the 21st Century cost of delivering a decent meal.

The chart below collects some representative menu prices for burgers in the region. For the purposes of a fair comparison, the price of a side of fries was included if those don’t come automatically with the burger:

As the hard numbers above show, the price of a burger in these parts can range from a low of $5.50 to a high of $13. The average burger price of the 15 establishments list above is $9.98—precisely 3 cents higher than than that of the Grazin’ all-organic, Animal Welfare Certifed burger.

In short, getting a healthy, organic, responsibly-created, locally-sourced, farm-to-table burger is no more expensive than eating at most any other non-fastfood restaurant in the area... which just points up the irrationality of some of the anti-organic voices in our midst. Those who denounce $9-$10 for a burger as outrageous clearly haven’t been getting out much lately.

Now some Rush Limbaugh listeners may cry foul, noting that they could get a slider and fries at McDonald’s or Burger King for even less than any of the prices above. Yes, you could... except those aren’t hamburgers. Those are reprocessed sewage patties masquerading as food. If you eat them regularly, you will almost certainly die early. And the price of that to your family and society far exceeds anything that buying organic ever could.

Berkshire & Ulster population changes

I’ve had several requests for charts showing population changes for Berkshire and Ulster counties, similar to the ones already posted here for Columbia, Greene and Dutchess. Here you go:

If you want to work with the raw data, here it is as a PDF. As ever, this info is presented with the caveat that population figures, taken in isolation, should not be interpreted as a measure of prosperity.

For example, though Berkshire County is widely regarded as more prosperous than Columbia, their population fell slightly over the past decade, whereas Columbia’s stayed essentially unchanged—up by two residents. (Meanwhile, half of the entire Berkshire population loss is attributed to Pittsfield and North Adams, which are very different in character from much of the rest of the county.) Such trends ought to be examined in a fuller context of other demographic data and on-the-ground observations.

The Big Pool

Any excuse to say “quahogs”

Marilyn Bethany interviewed me about the problems with the plans for the Hudson waterfront at Rural Intelligence—click here to read the Q&A.

But what I’d really appreciate you doing is to click through to Hudsonwaterfront.org and take action right away to help ensure that a greener, more sustainable, and more economically-beneficial plan gets enacted.

Signal achievement

The Berkshire Eagle reports that WBCR, the marvellously eclectic and progressive community radio station in Great Barrington, has secured a license to boost its FM signal from 100 to 550 watts. This means that once they raise the funds for the new transmitter, WBCR would reach most if not all of Columbia and Berkshire counties, as well as parts farther east and south... More details are at their website.

Smoggers

 

It's heartening to see that the victory over St. Lawrence Cement (now rebranded as Holcim) is still fresh in Berkshire minds—particularly, that the lesson about regional pollutants not respecting state boundaries is still being applied:

It was with good reason that Berkshire environmentalists joined the opposition to the giant cement plant proposed for construction along the Hudson River five years ago. Had it been built, the plant would have sent an estimated 10,000 tons of pollutants a year into the air over the Berkshires courtesy of the prevailing winds. It's those winds that the federal EPA must take into consideration in enforcing the new standards for smog-causing pollutants it proposed last Thursday. [...] The bucolic Berkshires are in violation of existing smog standards, let alone the new standards, even though the region produces little air pollution. Our smog comes flowing in from the west, just as the pollution from the cement plant would have. There may be areas of the Midwest that have better air than the Berkshires because pollutants from their industries are carried east.