FOOD GLORIOUS FOOD

One of the extraordinary things about my current life is the ABUNDANCE of food that comes right from my yard on a daily basis. Besides my garden which of course I have to plant and tend, there are dozens of fruit trees that have been here for decades just giving and giving! The picture above is a yard harvest from one day. Beautiful! Since getting so deeply into enviro things, the old adage "you are what you eat" has become so clear and simple to me: what we put in our mouths becomes our blood and flesh and bones. If it goes in our mouths, it becomes part of us, unless we can somehow expel it. What has also become really clear is the circle that we are a part of. What we put into ourselves then travels into the Earth when we eliminate, and what we put into the Earth travels into us when we eat. So simple really, but it seems that most people don't make the connection between their own health and the health of this planet. The following are thoughts about food from a bunch of different articles I have recently read and there is much to ponder here about this circle.

This first one I have to quote directly because it is just so...well you'll see:

"The majority of people in America begin their morning with a cup of tea or coffee and a dose of DDT, malathion, paraquat, diazinon, and a bit of Round Up (sprayed on the plant). Milk or cream comes with acceptable amounts of bovine growth hormone, a shot of antibiotics, and a few steroid molecules for good measure. One or two teaspoons of sugar filtered through slaughtered bone ash prevents it from caking, and a bowl of genetically modified cornflakes carries up to 50 different pesticides just to bring it to the table on this lovely morning." YOWZAH. We are choosing to make this part of our bodies? Hardly seems possible, and yet there is the majority, every day.

We have SO many additives in food now and for quite some time it has become perfectly acceptable by the "masses" to consume all these things every time they eat. But now there are more and more studies appearing linking these additives to all kinds of diseases that are showing up in ever-increasing numbers. By the time the government "proves" the link and acts to remove the additive, great damage has already been done. The following is a list of food and drinks that have been "proven" to be carcinogenic, meaning they can and do create cancer in your body:

Red Meat

Processed sugar

Heavily salted and smoked foods

Farmed fish (wild caught fish has LESS toxins but still has plenty: 100% of fish tested in rivers had chemical poisoning above "acceptable" levels from agricultural chemical run-off. Again, the circle. We spray it on our plants, it goes into the stream or ocean, into the fish, and into us.)

Fries, chips and snacks with trans fats

All charred food

Artificial sweeteners like Aspartame

Excess alcohol

How many of you reading this consume some or all of these things? And how many of you actually WANT to get cancer. I'm sure the answer is no-one wants to. And cancer is not the only disease now linked to food choices. There are so MANY linked to food, from diabetes to heart disease, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, Alzheimer's, and on and on. So when does the majority start to connect what they want in health to what they buy in food? I know SO many people that think they can't afford organic food, but they pay HUGE health care bills because of what the non-organic food is depositing in their bodies! So would you rather pay the farmer or pay the hospital? (I must give credit for that last line to a VERY savvy teenager who did an incredible talk about our current food system. I need to post his video for you to see.) The latest research has now discovered that the chemicals sprayed on plants are not just on the surface. They are actually absorbed from the soil through the roots so there are toxic chemicals in the cells of the plants. Yikes.

There is another aspect to this circle of food and that is wasted food. Everyone knows that restaurants throw a lot away, but are you aware of how much food is thrown from U.S. households? The figure is 28%! Astounding. Just 5% could feed ALL the hungry in this country. And listen to this: more energy is wasted from food thrown away each year than is extracted from ALL the oil and gas reserves on U.S. coastlines in the same year. So we are extracting oil to manufacture, package and transport food that is going to be tossed. WOW! I have witnessed this kind of waste with my own eyes. Things get left in the fridge so long they can no longer be used and go in the trash. At the end of a meal all that is left over gets tossed. My niece used to call me "hoover" (affectionately of course) because I would clean up everyone's plate at the end of dinner so it wouldn't get thrown out. Why is it o.k. to throw so much out? Because we can. Because we aren't starving. Because we have money to go buy more. What if everyone suddenly didn't do that any more? What if you eat everything in your fridge before it goes bad and if you can't finish what's on your plate you put it away for another time? Think of the oil that wouldn't have to be pumped out of the Earth to keep this circle of waste going. PLEASE consider this the next time you are upset about an oil spill. How your own food choices are part of this circle.

We really CAN wake up people. And this beautiful Earth NEEDS us to wake up and look at ALL our choices because EVERYTHING we do is part of the circle. Even the cup of coffee or tea to start the day makes a difference. So go make a difference in every meal.
Thanks for listening.