What the hell happened to food?
Where did straight up wholesome goodness go? Can we go back to the time when No Additives and No Preservatives meant it was probably safe to eat–for your health and for the general sustainability of natural food?
As a society, are we stupid enough to believe that consuming the cheapest edible substances will have no negative consequences? Apparently so. And I’m not talking about the dangers of high fructose content or empty carbs or cholesterol. I’m more concerned about the fact that we can barely even recognize food these days, and we’ve all but let the cheap stuff run our quality meals out of town.
Now don’t get me wrong, I’m no stranger to the concept of thrifty spending. And I admit that I wasn’t always so concerned about the quality of food that I purchased. In fact, when I was in college and faced with the dreaded decision of chain supermarket (give it to me cheap; give it to me in a big-ass box) or posh food boutique (relatively pricey but clearly health-conscious), I stuck to the cheap stuff that I knew and loved from childhood. Besides, it was an utterly uncomplicated starving student decision: cheap food = extra cash = more beer and sushi. But this was 10 years ago, and food still kinda looked like food then.
I simply can’t believe the freakshow that cheap grocery stores have become! It’s a veritable cornucopia of dressed-up science projects. I mean, how natural is it when all 600 of each variety of fruit can be stacked neatly on the 1/2 mile shelf because they’re all the same g-damned size? Try this: go to a fruit farm–a real one, not one of those mono-culture, lab experiments they call farms these days; one with natural seeds and farmers and baskets and stuff–and pick some fruit for a couple hours. Try to find 10 pieces of fruit that are both ripe and about the same size and shape. Then try to find 20. Then try to figure out how they can line every shelf of every store in a given franchise with fruit that’s the same exact color and rotund shape!
(And speaking of color, when did it become ok to eat neon shades in your frosting or cereal? Agh. Another time.)
I tended to steer clear of granola-eatin tree-huggers–and basically everyone fighting for a cause–during college, so this battle is a little new to me.
Nonetheless, the US food industry has just gotten way out of hand, and not enough people seem to care.
Technorati Tags: health, perspective, food, rants, nature, sustainability
10 responses so far ↓
markruinsdinner // February 2, 2007 at 8:31 pm |
I agree. My first (not really) clue was while cleaning up some Kraft EasyMac that I made for my kids. That stuff does not even resemble food.
richart // February 5, 2007 at 12:33 am |
Well said. I like the imagery evoked by the term “granola-eatin-tree-huggers”. Yes, a lot of so called food naturalists are also eating non-food, even if they might avoid neon shades.
Trouble is, it’s not just the US-food industry although I suspect the Europeans eat more real food.
Marco Polo // February 12, 2007 at 3:03 am |
Some people care: Slow Food Movement and the Soil Association
But are you seriously suggesting that there is any practical alternative to GM foods and the global monopoly by Monsanto? ARE YOU?!?!? You are? Oh. Good.
lifebeyondsixty // February 12, 2007 at 3:26 am |
There was an article some time ago about how Japanese cucumber farmers grow their produce in rigid sheaths, so that they’ll all be uniformly straight and long.
I don’t know whether it’s true or not — it was just something that I read somewhere. Oh, I remember, it was from a Japanese study book. Maybe. I don’t remember for sure. Oh, well. It sounds a bit like the “one size fits all” fallacy though, doesn’t it?
Marco Polo // February 12, 2007 at 4:37 am |
Speak of the devil…
Marco Polo // February 12, 2007 at 5:19 am |
lifebeyondsixty wrote There was an article some time ago about how Japanese cucumber farmers grow their produce in rigid sheaths, so that they’ll all be uniformly straight and long
They wouldn’t do that, shorely! I’m shocked. SHOCKED! Japan’s pioneering organic farmer, Masanobu Fukuoka, warned about this over 20 years ago: waxing the mikan to attract the customer sounds like a great marketing idea… until everyone’s doing it; then all the mikan farmers have to wax all their mikan just to stay competitive, and they now all have to swallow the added cost of waxing. (See also the Wikipedia entry on Fukuoka).
Mick // February 12, 2007 at 7:13 am |
Sorry,
I love KD. True it looks gross if ya leave it in the pot overnight. Fortunately, that doesn’t happen much in my house. Truth be told, when I was a starving student I ate one meal a day of half a box of KD on top of a half bowl of rice. Talk about carbs. To keep from going mad I’d spice up the KD, borrowing some curry from Calvin from St Kitts one day and some chili powder from Winston from Hong Kong the next, and so on.
Here’s the killer – I lost weight, I was already thin but I got down to 160 lbs (72 Kilos). I was already full grown (6′3″, 190.5cm). The moral of the story is: it’s not what you eat but how much you eat and how active you are. Actually I was more active when I was starving than I am now well fed.
realityonastick // February 13, 2007 at 7:28 pm |
Thanks to all for your comments.
mark: Love your blog concept. Focused, entertaining, from the heart. Nice work. I have to admit that Mac&Cheese has always been one of my guilty pleasures, probably because it was one of those ‘me and dad with the whole place to ourselves’ meals. Your children just might develop the same nostalgia for the gooey, orange, sloppy stuff. I had my first box in years (I live in Japan now), and I couldn’t get over how disgusting the concept of powdered cheese was, well not until I mixed in all that milky, buttery goodness anyway, mmm hmmm. All of my Japanese relatives live to be like 97. I don’t like my chances.
richart: Thanks for stoppin’ by. Yes, I’m sure there are frightening agricultural and food processing practices going on worldwide, but I only have first-hand knowledge of what I see in Japan and the states. And while Japan tends to favor safer policies than you find in the US, there are still quite a few horror stories from time to time, even with rice
lifebeyondsixty: yeah, the cucumbers in big chain grocery stores freak me out, though not as much as those square watermelons!
Marco Polo: Thanks for all the links and for giving everyone some background info on the situation here in Japan. It’s easy to forget that market forces push agriculture in the same direction wherever you are.
Mick: Agreed about the need to keep portions down and stay active (both of which are on my list of necessary adjustments for the remainder of 2007!). I think it’s important to make sure your food is giving your body the nourishment it needs, though. I just hope you were drinking vitamin-fortified beer during those years of malnutrition;-)
Tony // February 14, 2007 at 4:03 am |
Hey there Steve, I got a solution for ya: become a vegetarian in Japan – the lack of virtually anything without dead animals in it means that by necessity you strip down your diet to the raw materials.
You still have the pesticides to worry about, but at least you don’t have to buy everything in criminally-overpackaged plastic waste.
realityonastick // February 15, 2007 at 7:16 pm |
Hey Tony: Thanks for chimin in with the produce lover’s perspective;-) I’ve more thought to the prospect of becoming vegetarian recently, but I’m not quite there yet. Used to give up meat for lent every year (was more of a ‘make grandma happy’ issue than anything), but forever? That would be tough to swallow.
Definitely with you on the need for pesticide and overpackaging regulations.