The End of Food.
Way back when my sister first became vegan, she suggested that I read Fast Food Nation. She said that if I read that book, I'd never want to eat a hamburger again. It took me a couple of years to get it--I had a lot happen, life-wise, in between--but it didn't quite affect me the way she wanted it to.
Maybe I wasn't ready for it. I don't know. But I read it, and then I read Nickel and Dimed to Death, which I thought was way overrated, and then I kind of dropped the whole issue for a while.
I grew up in a gardening family. When my family moved to the house my parents' still live in, we lived on what the garden produced for a long while. I don't remember trips to the grocery store, except to get cereal and maybe meat. I don't remember ever eating a vegetable out of a can except for pork 'n beans for years and years and years.
I wasn't a very eager garden helper. Oh, I picked tomatoes and corn and such, and helped when asked, but I had stories to write and books to read, and as a child, I would much rather have been writing or reading. I ate the produce from the garden, and I did help out when asked. But I didn't help without grumbling.
My own little garden that my parents let me plant some tomatoes and such in one year was overgrown and weedy, because I didn't want to make the effort to weed it. But I loved plants in general, and had houseplants out the wazoo, even going so far as to propagate African Violets from seed--an experiment that took the better part of a year to accomplish. This year, my orange tree, grown from a seed planted on June 23, 1987, will be 20 years old.
My parents grew weird things some years, like peanuts and what we called Basellamalabar, which is really Basella Alba, or Malabar spinach (It tasted like dirt.) But we always had a garden, and later on, we had apples, pears, grapes, huckleberries, chokecherries, and just about anything else you can grow in Ohio, including bamboo. I definitely had an interesting childhood. :)
The End of Food begins with a tomato. I would hope that everyone knows what tomatoes taste like. They are sweet and juicy and delicious fresh off the vine. There is nothing quite like a warm tomato fresh off the vine. There is nothing quite like a tomato and Miracle Whip sandwich on squishy white bread--(that's pretty much the closest to 'junk food' I get anymore)--or huge slices of cooked tomato on a homemade pizza. There is just nothing like it.
My mom prides herself on growing many varieties of tomatoes. I think one year she had 80 plants, with about 30 or more varieties, like peach, green grape, the normal Roma, Early Girl, Big Boy, and many, many more. She has branched out with peppers now, and grows many varieties of peppers every year; the hotter the better. There are so many varieties of tomatoes and peppers that it's hard to choose just a couple to have in my garden.
However, the author of The End of Food, Thomas Pawlick, didn't have the luxury of a homegrown tomato. He bought one from a store, found it very lacking, and ended up writing a very scary book.
The sentence that affected me more than (almost) anything else in the entire book is on page 26. I had to read it twice, just to make sure I hadn't misread. The subject was apples, a fruit near and dear to my heart. The author mentioned that the most common apples in the supermarkets were Red Delicious, Golden Delicious, and Granny Smith.
There is much, much more, and quite a bit of it has to do with meat, not vegetables, and how chickens and pork and beef are raised in unnatural conditions for the most profit.
His solution? Well, for one, plant a garden. Gardens are subversive, and against the mindset of corporate farming. Shop CSAs instead of grocery stores. Buy local. Seek out suppliers of meat that grass feed their livestock and don't pump them full of antibiotics and nasty things that we shouldn't be putting in our bodies in the first place.
(I like the idea of subversive gardening. Ha!)
On my drive home from work today, I realized that gardening is subversive to the mindset of 'normal' Americans. 90% of my coworkers reminisce about grandma's garden, but they are so caught up in accumulating debt and driving their kids places that it's a surprise they ever cook. To be someone under 40 and have a garden these days is an anomaly and not a normal thing at all. People go to the grocery stores and stock up on food that isn't nutritious, is tasteless and bland, and has enough sodium to cause everyone to have health problems. They guzzle drinks made with chemicals and laden with sugar and artificial sweeteners. They eat 'homestyle' meals that taste like cardboard. They wouldn't know a real loaf of bread if it bit them in the face. Their lunches come in cardboard boxes to be warmed up in the microwave, pretending to be 'healthy'.
I've said this for years, but if civilization as we know it suddenly came to an end, 80% of the people in this world of ours would die of starvation because they wouldn't know the first thing about anything. And that is both scary and sad. When I wrote Second Coming, I got a bit frightened imagining everything that would be gone. It was a sobering thought, and a horrible one. But unfortunately, not one that would be so unbelievable as to be science fiction; not anymore, at least.
Modern America has no time for gardening. They feed the corporate 'farming' business because everything must be in season all the time and constantly available. This ties in to why modern America is drowning in debt as well. (I'm reading Maxed Out now.) We are coaxed to want everything now, with no time to wait.
I wonder if that is why convection ovens are so popular nowadays? Hmm.
Something has to change, or else I'm afraid that by the time I'm old and gray, I'm going to remember fondly my own garden when I was young, because home gardening will have been outlawed by then, or worse.
"Kids," I'll say to the youngun's, "You should have seen it. I had a 14-inch sweet potato one year--oh, that was something. Those sweet potatoes kept all winter and I didn't lose a single one. Not a single one!"
"I thought sweet potatoes come in cans," one child will say, because everything will be uber-processed by then, and fresh produce will be a thing of the past.
"Green beans!" I'll sigh. "Fresh green beans! And I used to complain about picking them because they hurt my back! Ha! Black tomatoes! Fresh off the vine!"
"Black tomatoes? But aren't tomatoes all red?"
"What did you grow the tomatoes in, Granny Jen?"
"Dirt," I'll say, because by then there will be so many people in the world that dirt will be something only the very few will have. "I had a yard when I was young. A yard."
"Ooooohhh," the kids will say. "A yard."
"Were you rich, Granny Jen?"
"Oh, no," I'll say. "Only the people who lived deep inside the cities didn't have yards. Yards were plentiful, and so was dirt. But no one had time for gardens back then. Everyone was too busy."
I think everyone in America needs to read this book, or one like it. Unfortunately, I don't see that happening anytime soon. But maybe, just maybe there's still time to change the course of things, and make the time to make a difference. I can only hope.
(crossposted to LJ)
Way back when my sister first became vegan, she suggested that I read Fast Food Nation. She said that if I read that book, I'd never want to eat a hamburger again. It took me a couple of years to get it--I had a lot happen, life-wise, in between--but it didn't quite affect me the way she wanted it to.
Maybe I wasn't ready for it. I don't know. But I read it, and then I read Nickel and Dimed to Death, which I thought was way overrated, and then I kind of dropped the whole issue for a while.
I grew up in a gardening family. When my family moved to the house my parents' still live in, we lived on what the garden produced for a long while. I don't remember trips to the grocery store, except to get cereal and maybe meat. I don't remember ever eating a vegetable out of a can except for pork 'n beans for years and years and years.
I wasn't a very eager garden helper. Oh, I picked tomatoes and corn and such, and helped when asked, but I had stories to write and books to read, and as a child, I would much rather have been writing or reading. I ate the produce from the garden, and I did help out when asked. But I didn't help without grumbling.
My own little garden that my parents let me plant some tomatoes and such in one year was overgrown and weedy, because I didn't want to make the effort to weed it. But I loved plants in general, and had houseplants out the wazoo, even going so far as to propagate African Violets from seed--an experiment that took the better part of a year to accomplish. This year, my orange tree, grown from a seed planted on June 23, 1987, will be 20 years old.
My parents grew weird things some years, like peanuts and what we called Basellamalabar, which is really Basella Alba, or Malabar spinach (It tasted like dirt.) But we always had a garden, and later on, we had apples, pears, grapes, huckleberries, chokecherries, and just about anything else you can grow in Ohio, including bamboo. I definitely had an interesting childhood. :)
The End of Food begins with a tomato. I would hope that everyone knows what tomatoes taste like. They are sweet and juicy and delicious fresh off the vine. There is nothing quite like a warm tomato fresh off the vine. There is nothing quite like a tomato and Miracle Whip sandwich on squishy white bread--(that's pretty much the closest to 'junk food' I get anymore)--or huge slices of cooked tomato on a homemade pizza. There is just nothing like it.
My mom prides herself on growing many varieties of tomatoes. I think one year she had 80 plants, with about 30 or more varieties, like peach, green grape, the normal Roma, Early Girl, Big Boy, and many, many more. She has branched out with peppers now, and grows many varieties of peppers every year; the hotter the better. There are so many varieties of tomatoes and peppers that it's hard to choose just a couple to have in my garden.
However, the author of The End of Food, Thomas Pawlick, didn't have the luxury of a homegrown tomato. He bought one from a store, found it very lacking, and ended up writing a very scary book.
The sentence that affected me more than (almost) anything else in the entire book is on page 26. I had to read it twice, just to make sure I hadn't misread. The subject was apples, a fruit near and dear to my heart. The author mentioned that the most common apples in the supermarkets were Red Delicious, Golden Delicious, and Granny Smith.
"Looking at such a display, it is useful to keep in mind that at the turn of the last century, "there were more than 7,000 apple varieties grown in the United States. By the dawn of the twenty-first century, over 85 percent, more than 6,000, had become extinct."There is a lot of useful stuff in this book about monoculture, and how we are becoming more and more disconnected from the food we eat. What disturbed me the most was how food--tomatoes in particular and other foods as well--has lost its nutrition over the years, meaning that despite our attempt to 'eat healthy', we're really in trouble on that front as well. It's really unsettling to find out that in the past 50 years, the foods that are touted as healthy have lost nutrients, minerals, and gained salt and fat because of how we produce them.
There is much, much more, and quite a bit of it has to do with meat, not vegetables, and how chickens and pork and beef are raised in unnatural conditions for the most profit.
His solution? Well, for one, plant a garden. Gardens are subversive, and against the mindset of corporate farming. Shop CSAs instead of grocery stores. Buy local. Seek out suppliers of meat that grass feed their livestock and don't pump them full of antibiotics and nasty things that we shouldn't be putting in our bodies in the first place.
(I like the idea of subversive gardening. Ha!)
On my drive home from work today, I realized that gardening is subversive to the mindset of 'normal' Americans. 90% of my coworkers reminisce about grandma's garden, but they are so caught up in accumulating debt and driving their kids places that it's a surprise they ever cook. To be someone under 40 and have a garden these days is an anomaly and not a normal thing at all. People go to the grocery stores and stock up on food that isn't nutritious, is tasteless and bland, and has enough sodium to cause everyone to have health problems. They guzzle drinks made with chemicals and laden with sugar and artificial sweeteners. They eat 'homestyle' meals that taste like cardboard. They wouldn't know a real loaf of bread if it bit them in the face. Their lunches come in cardboard boxes to be warmed up in the microwave, pretending to be 'healthy'.
I've said this for years, but if civilization as we know it suddenly came to an end, 80% of the people in this world of ours would die of starvation because they wouldn't know the first thing about anything. And that is both scary and sad. When I wrote Second Coming, I got a bit frightened imagining everything that would be gone. It was a sobering thought, and a horrible one. But unfortunately, not one that would be so unbelievable as to be science fiction; not anymore, at least.
Modern America has no time for gardening. They feed the corporate 'farming' business because everything must be in season all the time and constantly available. This ties in to why modern America is drowning in debt as well. (I'm reading Maxed Out now.) We are coaxed to want everything now, with no time to wait.
I wonder if that is why convection ovens are so popular nowadays? Hmm.
Something has to change, or else I'm afraid that by the time I'm old and gray, I'm going to remember fondly my own garden when I was young, because home gardening will have been outlawed by then, or worse.
"Kids," I'll say to the youngun's, "You should have seen it. I had a 14-inch sweet potato one year--oh, that was something. Those sweet potatoes kept all winter and I didn't lose a single one. Not a single one!"
"I thought sweet potatoes come in cans," one child will say, because everything will be uber-processed by then, and fresh produce will be a thing of the past.
"Green beans!" I'll sigh. "Fresh green beans! And I used to complain about picking them because they hurt my back! Ha! Black tomatoes! Fresh off the vine!"
"Black tomatoes? But aren't tomatoes all red?"
"What did you grow the tomatoes in, Granny Jen?"
"Dirt," I'll say, because by then there will be so many people in the world that dirt will be something only the very few will have. "I had a yard when I was young. A yard."
"Ooooohhh," the kids will say. "A yard."
"Were you rich, Granny Jen?"
"Oh, no," I'll say. "Only the people who lived deep inside the cities didn't have yards. Yards were plentiful, and so was dirt. But no one had time for gardens back then. Everyone was too busy."
I think everyone in America needs to read this book, or one like it. Unfortunately, I don't see that happening anytime soon. But maybe, just maybe there's still time to change the course of things, and make the time to make a difference. I can only hope.
(crossposted to LJ)
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