For the past couple of years, there has been a growing interest in getting local foods whenever possible, largely because it is perceived as helping the local economy, being better for the environment and better for your health (assuming the local food is organic, etc., not factory-farmed). There is one food - a drink, actually, that has strongly resisted this trend, where "'distance and exoticism are marketed as advantages": bottled water. Fiji, one of the more expensive store brands, is now the number 2 selling premium bottled water in the US.

At $1.50 and up per bottle, Fuji is not cheap. Some will say that a thing is only worth as much as someone is willing to pay for it, but others wonder how much the water is really worth. A reader asked Triple Pundit what the true cost of a bottle of Fuji water was. Sustainability Engineer Pablo Päster responded, calculating the (approximate) production and materials costs of a 1L bottle, travel/shipping expenses for shipping both full and empty bottles and, of course, the water itself. In the end, it comes down to a cost of approximately $.22 per bottle, leaving a $1.28 (or more) profit for the manufacturer and retailer.

The Guardian recently featured a piece about the increasing amounts of soy in European and American diets. While many associate soy with centuries-old Eastern traditions, The Guardian article points out that soy products like tofu and soy sauce differ from the soy milk and soy burgers of today in that the older foods have been tempered by fermentation. Several sources in the piece voice concerns about phyto-estrogen levels in unfermented soy products and their possible links to cancer and unusual hormonal development. Some experts warn that the newness of such products is a cause for caution as their longterm effects have yet to be studied in depth.

With California producing nearly as much cheese as Wisconsin last year (2 billion pounds and 2.4 billion pounds, respectively) the Badger state is turning to artisan and specialty cheeses to help them stay in the game. A recent story in the Wisconsin State Journal spotlights a few of the growing number of specialty cheesemakers in Wisconsin, like Uplands Cheese Company, makers of Pleasant Ridge Reserve (right). Experts predict that in the next 10 years, high-end cheeses like these will make up about half of Wisconsin's cheese production. Uplands went from making 6,000 pounds in 2000 to 60,000 last year, the Wisconsin State Journal reported.

While reading the New York Times magazine yesterday, I noticed a piece about pies. Rhubarb pies, to be specific. The recipe is not what caught my eye, though, but this statement: "Pies cannot be successfully mass-produced."

I disagree. And I think that a lot of other people would, too.

The Times' argument goes along the lines that there is no way that a non-handmade crust could come close to equaling a homemade crust. And the Times must know some good cooks, because I know plenty of people who couldn't make even a graham cracker crust, let alone a "real" crust. Store bought crusts may not be showstoppers, but they serve their purpose in ease and reliability. They don't taste half bad, either, especially when you buy the unbaked, frozen crusts.

And in terms of store-bought pies, which can certainly qualify as "mass produced" compared to homemade based purely on quantity, places like Bakers Square and Marie Callender's have won scores of awards from the American Pie Council on taste and appearance. And I know that I have enjoyed a slice of pie from Marie Callender's more than a few times, even though I bake my own pies, too.

Is a middle-of-the-road store pie going to rival the best homemade crust? No, but not everyone is in a position to make, buy or eat the best pie in the world and that doesn't mean that they can never have a good pie, which is what a blanket statement like "pies cannot be successfully mass-produced" seems to imply.