I do feel like food should cost more, because we aren't paying

Host: The marketplace was closing. The late afternoon sun burned low and heavy, staining the cracked pavement in hues of amber and rust. The air was thick with the mingled smells of herbs, citrus, and earth — the scent of a day’s labor, still clinging to the fingertips of the people who’d worked it.

Wooden crates sat half-empty. A man swept lettuce leaves into a bucket. Somewhere nearby, a radio played an old jazz tune, faint beneath the sighs of closing stalls.

Jack stood by a makeshift stand of fresh peaches, one hand in his pocket, the other turning the fruit over thoughtfully. His eyes, cool and gray, reflected the dying light like steel dipped in honey.

Jeeny stood beside him, holding a cloth bag filled with vegetables. The color of her dress — soft green — blended almost too perfectly with the marketplace, as though she were part of it.

A hand-painted sign leaned against the table between them. It read:

“Local Farmers Deserve Living Wages.”

And beneath it, someone had scrawled a quote in chalk:

"I do feel like food should cost more, because we aren't paying farmers a living wage. It has to cost more." — Alice Waters.

Jeeny: “It’s true, you know. Everything about this — the soil, the sweat, the waiting — it deserves more respect. We can’t keep treating food like it’s disposable.”

Jack: “Respect doesn’t fill stomachs, Jeeny. You make food cost more, and people like me stop being able to afford it.”

Host: Jack’s voice was low, even, but it carried the weight of an old frustration — the kind that grows between paychecks and unpaid bills.

Jeeny: “But cheap food has its price, Jack. Someone’s paying for it — just not you. Maybe it’s the farmer who can’t pay rent, or the soil that’s stripped bare. Maybe it’s the next generation, inheriting what we’ve poisoned.”

Jack: “That sounds poetic. But tell that to the single mother in line at the discount store trying to stretch twenty bucks into a week of dinners. She doesn’t have time to think about the moral life of a tomato.”

Jeeny: “And yet she deserves food that nourishes, not just fills. Everyone does. That’s what Alice Waters meant — if we really cared about people, we’d care where their food came from, who grew it, and what they got for it.”

Host: The breeze stirred, rustling the thin paper bags hanging from the counter. A distant thunder rolled — summer storm approaching. The air felt thick, restless, alive.

Jack: “So what do you want, Jeeny? To guilt everyone into buying ten-dollar apples?”

Jeeny: “No. I want a system where the person who grew those apples doesn’t live in debt while corporations buy second yachts.”

Jack: “That’s not food. That’s economics. You’re talking about tearing down capitalism with kale.”

Jeeny: “Maybe that’s exactly where it has to start — with what we eat. Because food isn’t just a product, Jack. It’s a mirror of our ethics.”

Host: The sound of rain began — slow, sparse drops at first, then faster, tapping against the canvas awning above them. A few vendors began to pack up faster, muttering about storms.

Jack: “You know what’s ironic? You talk about fairness, but higher prices don’t just punish the rich. They crush the poor. You raise food prices to help farmers, and you hurt the people you claim to protect.”

Jeeny: “That’s because you’re thinking within the wrong structure. We subsidize the wrong things. Corn syrup, feedlots, processed food — everything that keeps people sick and farmers poor. If those subsidies went to small growers, local producers, sustainable farms — the system could balance.”

Jack: “You think bureaucrats are going to fix that? The same ones who let billionaires own half the farmland? Come on, Jeeny. You sound like you’ve never lived paycheck to paycheck.”

Host: Jeeny’s eyes flashed — not with anger, but with that quiet conviction that hurts more than fury.

Jeeny: “You think I haven’t? My father was a farmhand, Jack. We lived off bruised fruit and day-old bread because the wages didn’t match the work. He’d leave before sunrise, come home covered in dust, and still couldn’t afford the vegetables he harvested.”

Host: Her voice trembled slightly — like glass resisting the edge of a crack. Jack’s expression softened, almost imperceptibly.

Jack: “I didn’t know that.”

Jeeny: “Of course not. People like him never make the headlines. We celebrate chefs and restaurants but forget the hands that pull life out of the dirt.”

Host: The rain intensified, drumming on the stalls, streaking the wooden crates in silver. Jeeny tucked her hair behind her ear, her eyes distant now — remembering something more than words.

Jeeny: “I remember once — he brought home a single peach from work. Said it was too soft to sell. He handed it to me like it was gold. I swear, it was the sweetest thing I’d ever tasted. But you know what I learned later? That same farm paid him five dollars an hour.”

Jack: “So you think charging more for that peach would have fixed it?”

Jeeny: “No. But respecting its real cost might have. Food isn’t meant to be cheap. It’s meant to be sacred.”

Host: The storm outside had deepened now. The lights in the market flickered, painting the world in brief bursts of gold and shadow. Jack turned the peach in his hand one last time before setting it back.

Jack: “You call it sacred. I call it survival. People don’t care where their food comes from — they just want to eat.”

Jeeny: “Then maybe that’s the tragedy — that we’ve turned eating, the most human thing, into an act of desperation instead of gratitude.”

Host: Jack leaned back against the post, the rain dripping from the brim of his jacket. His face had lost its cynicism now — replaced by something quieter, something thinking.

Jack: “You know, when I was a kid, we used to visit my uncle’s farm in Kansas. I’d wake up to the sound of tractors and smell hay and diesel. I thought that smell was what America was supposed to be. But then he lost everything. The bank took the land, and a company bought it. They called it progress.”

Jeeny: “That’s what Alice Waters means, Jack. We keep saying progress, but all we’ve done is distance ourselves — from land, from labor, from honesty.”

Jack: “So what do we do? Start buying $15 milk? Pray for enlightenment in the produce aisle?”

Jeeny: “We start by asking questions. By caring enough to know who’s feeding us. And maybe — just maybe — by being willing to pay the real price of decency.”

Host: The rain slowed, leaving only the dripping rhythm of gutters. The sky opened faintly, a soft blue seam reappearing through the gray.

Jack looked at her, the faintest trace of a smile ghosting his lips.

Jack: “You know, Jeeny — sometimes I think you could turn a grocery list into a revolution.”

Jeeny: (smiling) “Only if someone’s willing to listen.”

Host: They both laughed softly — the tension dissolving like sugar in water. Around them, the market was nearly empty now. The wet earth smelled rich, alive.

Jack picked up one of the last peaches and handed it to her.

Jack: “Alright. What’s the real price of this one?”

Jeeny: “Hope.”

Jack: “Expensive.”

Jeeny: “Worth it.”

Host: The camera would linger there — on Jeeny’s hand, cupping the peach, the fading sun warming her fingers. The rain reflected in her eyes, the storm’s last light caught in the curve of a smile.

Behind them, the empty stalls stood like monuments — to work, to soil, to the quiet dignity of those who feed a world that rarely remembers their names.

And as the last train of thunder rolled away, the scene closed not in silence but in breath — that invisible rhythm of gratitude, the sound of the earth exhaling beneath the weight of being seen.

Host: Food should cost more — not because it’s fancy, but because the hands that grow it are priceless.