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Thursday, August 22, 2013

You are what you eat

One of the things I'm most passionate about is food.  Eating it, sourcing it, preparing it, learning about it, anything that has to do with food is of interest to me.  This has been a gradually formed love and not something that happened overnight.  I used to be the world's pickiest eater, eating only macaroni and cheese and grilled cheese sandwiches.  It's a wonder I ever went to the bathroom with all that cheese!  It wasn't until I lived in the sorority house in college that I began to expand my palate.  We had an awesome cook, who we called Gar-Bear, that just had a way of making us want to try new things.  I'm so thankful he opened my eyes to a world other than cheese!  Don't get me wrong, I still love cheese, but now I love a lot more.  

Once I began cooking for myself and searching for new recipes, I began to explore the world of healthy eating.  What I quickly learned is that the healthy food is not where the money's at for large corporations.  More often than not, the healthy alternatives in the grocery are double, if not triple the price of their lesser counterpart.  It's sickening to read the laundry list of fake ingredients in those "lesser" counterparts, many of which I can't even pronounce.  

I'm not here to preach about what our government should or should not do but I do want to make you aware of the the food world in which we live.  Here are 2 links that both exemplify what is going on behind the scenes in our government.  The first is a story of corn.  Sounds boring, but I found myself immersed in this article about why you rarely find organic corn at the local farmer's markets.  Reading what our government has allowed to happen over time is mind-blowing to me.   

The second link is a personal, real life story from a local blogger, The Lexington Streetsweeper.  He tells of a recent maddening experience at one of the big box grocery stores, whereby he witnessed our government's Food Stamp policy at work.  I'm thankful he was persistent and handled the situation the way that he did.  It's truly a crime the way sugary, processed, big company food is glorified for those who can't afford anything better, don't know any better, or aren't allowed to choose differently.

I really do hope that my one voice will team with others to make a difference.  Until then, I'll continue to protest the junk and go for the real food.  Real food that was grown by local farmers who are just trying to make an honest living like my grandparents did many decades ago.  These are the same grandparents who lived well into their 80's and 90's, numbers our youth are likely to never see at the rate we're going.  That is all.
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2 comments:

  1. Oh, the government and food. It's all sickening. I know I don't always eat as healthy as I should, but we make a real effort to stay away from "fake" foods. I also try not to judge people when I see their carts in the grocery store, but it's hard. And sometimes I wonder if they even truly know what it is that they're feeding their families. And I hate when people complain about how it's too expensive to eat healthy. Eat cheap food now, you'll be paying for it later. Or when they say they don't have time to prepare "real" foods. We all have time for the things that are important to us.

    Okay, off my soapbox. Good links and good post!

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  2. Danille,
    Thanks for the plug. It is so nice to see many more people looking for not just good food, but good local food. One correction, it was my wife who witnessed the store incident and it is from her that I gain encouragement that we can all begin to change the local world. As to the continuing situation with government and the SNAP program, the government is not the problem because it is the corporations which are calling the shots. Until we can get the government to represent the 98% rather than the 2%, it will always be that way.

    Eat well and be well.

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