Wednesday, June 20, 2007

Foodie

This post is all about focusing my foodie hippie thoughts, practices, and interests. ** My SIL called me a Hippie a couple months ago, and it made me gasp with horror and a bit of delight** I have been reading a yummy book called Animal Vegetable Miracle, and each chapter brings me some small bit of disgust at the food industry in America. As well as a bit of jealousy at this families decision to move to a farm and live off their land and the products that their neighbors and community can provide for them. Awesome!

As I read about the small but amazing types of heirloom vegetables there are in the states, but only hanging around due to small food movements like Slow Food International, I glanced at the mom sitting in front of me. We were both waiting for our sons to finish up swim lessons and where I had a bottle of water and an apple to munch on, she pulled out an LA weight loss chocolate power bar and a bottle of their Urban Grape Energy drink. Uuummmm, if you want to lose weight dontcha think you should maybe eat healthier instead of eating dependant?

Anyways... so I come to a part of the book where it is discussing the super seeds that corn and soybean producers are engineering today, seeds that are specifically designed to withstand mega dousing of RoundUp (yeah that weed killer), and what you do you know, the manufacture of these seeds, that 70% of bulk energy crop growers buy from, are the same manufacturers of a chemical that the farmers can buy to spray on their supposed seeds to KEEP them from being RoundUp Immune. So, they get you with the super seeds and the chemicals to kill the weeds that love the same soil that the super seeds do AND they also get the growers with the chemical that turns on the super immunity gene in the plant. And this made me snort and try to explain my scoff to the man four seats over with a small series of gestures at my book.

The book is eye opening and thought provoking, and so damn frustrating. Seriously, what the hell are we all eating?? I suffered a small bout of guilt and self angst when she talked about those lovely green watermelons that I have been eyeballing lately. You know those watermelons that really only grow in the states at the end of summer because they are the fruit part of the plant and those only produce in a small time frame naturally *ie July August*. Those watermelons that had to be grown in some location closer to the equator and had to be shipped into Texas thousands of miles and where probably picked under ripe to extend their ship time. And I was actually delighted to see them, these watermelons that are posers and lack any true resemblance to that lovely sweet drippy cool you off on a hot end of summer day taste.

Damn, where are all the local growers and farmers markets, where the hell is real food? I am seriously rethinking the idea of a garden in our yard. I want to actually know where my food comes from for once. And what has been on it. And who picked it. And which dog of ours tried to steal it from the vine.

I stood in front of my fridge and pantry tonight and wanted to snort again, because damn, our food stocks look just like everyone else's and that chapped my ass. I need to do more then just making bread at home, and cooking meals from whole foods, I need to know where that food comes from. Time to step a couple more feet down the hippie path. Where are my Birkenstocks and my hemp DMB bag??

2 comments:

Anonymous 2:20 AM  

This is such an awesome post. You lost me with that corn thing but I am glad you are on to them. Sounds like you are on the right track with preparing food and now you can be a purer part in how it is grown. I dont have a garden or space, so all i can do is try to buy local produce or organic dairy products or meat.

Anonymous 8:24 PM  

Welcome to Hippie-ville! Isn't it gross the food they try to sell to us (the masses)? I haven't bought grocery store food in years now & though we pay more, I sleep better at night knowing my kids aren't ingesting god-knows-what with their cucumbers & green beans. On that note, have you tried free-roaming grass-fed beef or milk? It is SO much better than grain fed! We don't eat much red meat here, but when we do, it's the all-natural kind. :)

~karelle

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