Food 101

Here's the deal. You have to quit being red or blue. You have to. Because really, it's what is bringing you down. It is bringing us all down. It's a trick. Your best interests are not in the party of the Red Elephant or the Blue Donkey. They actually don't give a hoo hoo about you. They do care about their polls, their votes, their pockets. Does any of that benefit you?

Here is what you do care about, right, in reality: Your family. Your health and your family's health. Your right to own property and create a home. Your right to drink clean water. Your right to eat wholesome food. Your right to pursue knowledge, care, desires. Your right to feel safe in your home, in your state, in your nation, in your world, in your universe.

Happiness. These things bring happiness.

Who is taking those things away or making you fight for them? Why should you have to demand such and why would "they" want to deny you of these basic, understandable essentials in life?

This is a concern.

I have just excused myself from the sofa. My husband sits on it still watching the movie I was watching with him until I decided to leave and come upstairs, where I am engaged in listening, but not visually witnessing the horrors on that screen. Food, Inc. Have you seen it? You would be interested in it. I say that safely, knowing you would, if you care about the above concerns. I can not say that you will get through the movie without an extreme emotional reaction and wanting to vomit.

I got not far into this movie, which is done in excellent fashion, and is of the upmost importance, before I started twitching nervously in my seat. Nick paused the movie. I said "I may not be able to watch this." He said, "Didn't you just read a friend's comment to me about her father stating "If you can't watch it, you need to do something about it? How can you not watch and be informed?" And he is right. I know that. I do want to be informed. I do want to know and spread words that others may not have heard yet. I tried again.

The scene was of a chicken house and in it is a swarming mess. Chickens rolled over on their backs basically gurgling to death under the weight of their enormous bodies that have been engineered to be what the consumers want. We buy white meat. They have huge chests now. They take two steps and plop under the weight. This is a machine. A nasty, cruel machine that tortures animals, slaughters them, feeds them to Americans, which in turn become diseased from the extreme dangers corporate "bigger, better, faster" demands on FOOD. It is disgusting. The lady picked up at least 20 dead chickens, threw them on a tractor, and took off her mask, obviously shaken, and said "This is normal." She defied corporate orders, corporations who in essence own these farmers that are trapped under the weight of debt to these companies. She lost the contract. I assume she feels good about herself now. She stood up to these fat heads. When they showed how they collect them to slaughter, I silently got up, holding my warm cup of coffee that was my only single comfort at the moment, walked to the powder room, shut the door, sat on the floor and cried. The ugly face cry. No control of facial features kind of cry. This was the most disrespectful piece of real footage I've seen in a long time. Disrespectful to you, me, the poor animal used disgracefully, the farmer... everyone BUT the stingy, dirty companies and the politicians that let these companies' interests overshadow our own. Their filthy spirits will haunt us all if we do not say "No! Hell, no, you don't!" Enough.

I do not eat meat so much at all. I stopped eating red meat and pork long ago. (I have never felt better or as energetic. Most people have at least 6 pounds of stuck, black meat in their intestines. The grocery clerk who asked me why everybody had a problem with red meat when she saw my grocery line-up looked like she wished she could take her question back after I told her what her small intestine probably looked like. And btw, where has she been? Has she ever heard of a little organ called the human heart? It made the rule. It is the one who says red meat is a no, no.) I have stopped eating chicken and turkey now too. (I will eat fish and I may eat an egg.) It does not even taste that good when you really stop and think about your taste buds and their message to your brain. It is nothing compared to a grape, a blueberry, or tomatoes simmering in garlic and olive oil. Don't think your tomatoes aren't close to fake now too. It has trickled to everything. Americans are completely disassociated from the reality of their food and its sources. This movie shows it. Watch it, please. Try and get through it and if you cannot watch the crime, listen to it. You owe it to your body, your future and you children's bodies and futures. This is something we can insist on and change. We have to, people. Or we will become a version of human that is distorted and repulsive just like what they are feeding us. They show it clearly. The farm you see on your package... not reality. It's a factory that is shameful. Man-made diseases like diabetes and certain cancers and such, they can disappear if we eat God's food, not Washington's food and Corporation Nation's food. It is not authentic. It is not genuine food.

Go to Italy. Go see food. You will come back and never be pleased again by what an American restaurant puts on your plate.

I went to Italy and my body tingled when I ate. I never gained weight, but shed pounds, because it is not preserved to sit on your shelf and never spoil.

I recently went to the only grocery store in Edenton that carries organic food. The small refrigerated section that supplied my organic eggs and non-GMO creamer and other organics- it is full of energy drinks now. "Gone!" the lady said. Actually, she waved her arms in a nada fashion. I mimicked her and said "What's this? What does this mean?" as I flung my arms around too in disbelief that my section, the reason I don't drive an hour out of town, may be gone. She gave me the reason. "Well, people started bringing their organic milk back. They said it was going bad."

Do you see anything wrong with the psyche in that reasoning?

"America, Hello. I want to tell you a secret. It has been hidden now for many, many years, but it is an ancient wisdom, one that those who lived long ago knew and through the decades, we have buried in the plot of well-being, in the graveyard of truth. Shhh. Listen. Are you ready for these words that will shed light on your way of life?"

"Milk. It's supposed to go bad."

Can you believe this shit? " Mr. Manager, My milk went bad. Here, gimme the kind that don't ever go bad. I don't wanna have to come here for milk again in at least two weeks. Ya hear?"

Stupid. Food rots. Your food is a plant. It will die. Your meat, it WAS an animal. It has died. It will rot. You. You eat shit. You will not only rot. You will suffer along the way because you do not eat the glorious source of life this miraculous planet produces. You eat shit. Quite literally, because those cows, with their big brown sad eyes, and the chickens that struggle to walk, and the pigs that stand crammed so closely they can't move; they stand in shit. It is all over the place. In the factories. Everywhere. On your spinach. Everywhere. This is not farming. This is not food. This will not produce health.

These problems are owned. They are all due to money. They are being transfered. To you. And to me. And to baby Americans. And we are paying the price.

Farming Bills, really Food Bills, are being orchestrated to cut out the local or backyard farmer or the organic small healthy farmer. The integrity is being shut out. This is government corruption. Shame on you, Washington D.C.; shame on you, Tyson; shame on you, Purdue; and the like. Food is a right. It is not yours to own. It is not yours to have power over. And I hope all involved toss and turn at night and their conscious weighs on them as heavily as the chicken they have pumped so full of hormones that it collapses. Let your self collapse under the weight of guilt. You should not have the privilege to manipulate our food. To genetically modify our food. To process everything we put in our mouths. And especially to hide all these things from us because you buy legislators. You sue others, even Oprah, for speaking out against your nastiness? It is a felony to criticize meat in Colorado? That is so beyond corrupt! Surely, we all agree on that!

We have a right to eat pure food. We have a right to speak about that right and demand it. Food and Farmers should never be owned by four or five enormous and grotesque companies. But, that is what is the case right now. And it is showing in Americans, no? Look at the American belly. Enough said.

My husband just asked me, "Are you writing a novel up there?" No. I don't think so. But, I feel like I could right now. My fingers are pounding hard and I have an intense glare and growl going on. Do you know there is more?

There is a major crime going on against you. Your food is being sabotaged.

Water, it's worse.

This is knowledge we deserve and the fact that we have to rely on digging for information shows the motivations behind the action. Kids are deserving. There are people suffering, even dying, over this filth. Demand the supply you want. If that means supporting organic milk, support it. Do something, anything, big or small, whatever.

If the fact that the average American eats 200 pounds of meat a year grosses you out, good! If the fact that these farmers have cows on machines that enable them to stick their hand into the cows stomach and back out, with no concern for that living, breathing creature makes you sad and makes your heart hurt, good! You are officially a decent human being willing to make a difference. The end of the movie plays "This Land was Made for You and Me..." as it scrolls the words, "You can vote for this change 3 times a day. You can change the world with each bite you take. Plant a garden, buy locally, know what 's in your food, cook a meal, eat with your family." Good words. These shouldn't be suggested. These shouldn't be foreign concepts.

I'm doing it. I'm on board.

Here's two tips I have.

1. Quorn Patties. Meatless Chicken. We have eaten them for ten years and serve them to guests too, who ask, "How did you make that chicken? It was good." I love them. Better tasting than a poor chicken. They have them here in Edenton and if they discontinue, I'll panic. I think they are here to stay though because we have many friends hooked on them now too and they are flying off the shelf! That makes me so happy! Look for them- orange boxes, frozen section.

2. Food, Inc.

Here's the summary. Order it on Netflix. You can watch and/or listen to it instantly over the internet. It's an hour and a half. Worth it.

Documentary filmmaker Robert Kenner uses reports by Fast Food Nation author Eric Schlosser and The Omnivore's Dilemma author Michael Pollan as a springboard to exploring where the food we purchase at the grocery store really comes from, and what it means for the health of future generations. By exposing the comfortable relationships between business and government, Kenner gradually shines light on the dark underbelly of the American food industry. The USDA and FDA are supposed to protect the public, so why is it that both government regulatory agencies have been complicit in allowing corporations to put profit ahead of consumer health, the American farmer, worker safety, and even the environment? As chicken breasts get bigger and tomatoes are genetically engineered not to go bad, 73,000 Americans fall ill from powerful new strains of E. coli every year, obesity levels are skyrocketing, and adult diabetes has reached epidemic proportions. Perhaps if the general public knew how corporations use exploited laws and subsidies to create powerful monopolies, the outrage would be enough to make us think more carefully about the food we put into our bodies. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

Bonus feature! Funny story.

I was in Moultrie; my home town; many, many years ago; when I went into the grocery store. I was looking for fish, went to the meat section, and to my delight I saw an ORGANIC MEATS sign. "What? Organic Anything in Moultrie?" I followed the sign with a bit of curiosity because it was above a door. I looked to the left, then to the right, no organic anything. "Hmm. Might it be behind the door?" I walked through the door, looking for something organic to verify this progress. Guess what I found. A dazed butcher. He looked at me; I looked at him. I said, "Where is the organic meat? There is a sign for it and I do not see it!" He said "Oh, uh huh!" Like Goofy from Disney. "That's a joke!"

Deep sigh.

Joke's on you butcher boy. Get a clue.