What does it say about the quality of farming in the US (for export), and about the produce that is imported for our consumption, when Michelle Obama, on a Disney commercial, tells children that if they want healthy produce, they should grow it themselves?
Honestly, I respect her sincerity on this prevailing problem that, although it is widely known, has yet to be taken seriously by the people and especially by the establishment that was created for our protection in matters of health, the FDA, an organization which now resembles Swiss cheese stuffed with dollar bills.
But, am I the only one who, with that statement, sees the confirmation and justification of my fear about the food I prepare for my children everyday?
Like many, I try to buy organic, when I can afford it, and I am willing to buy less for more if the quality could somehow be guaranteed, if the priority was quality rather than quantity for the sake of money. And I hate that, because money is such a priority, I must feel suspicious even about some food’s “organic-ness”, and fear regular produce. This makes me wonder about my lingering suspicion that the “organic” foods industry has gained its existence from this very fear. Or did they cause it?
Furthermore, the fact that we have such excess of crap and junk, the fact that anything cheap is pumped with chemicals, as if the lower income populations are guinea pigs that, due to the lack of funds, have no choice but to eat the most ridiculously unhealthy foods, is wrong. That, due to lack of information, awareness, education, and the excess of commercials pounded into our minds from so many direction that it is utterly unavoidable, many people, rich and poor, keep businesses, like McDonalds and producers of things like Twinkies and such, fat with money, while we are fat with shit.
But we have learned to love all these products because, despite what we do know, we just cannot seem to wean ourselves of them. And…we love them because we have grown up with them, just like women have grown up with the idea that they are less than men, just like many have grown up with the idea that people of other colors and cultures are to be thought of as less, with the idea that an accent means your ignorant, that the problem of immigration is the problem of the immigrants’ own country and not the fact that our exploitation of that country (with produce production for exportation and the dirt cheap and oppressive labor that is used for the mass production of these crops …as just one example) has severely halted their ability to develop, that it is religion that provides morality, despite the fact that is has caused the death and corruption of so many for so long, also for the sake of money and power…etc. We cherish these idiotic ideas and eat our fake meat because that is what we know….right?
But I digress.
My point is that, when you pick up a piece of fruit, whether organic or not, to feed your little babies so they can grow up strong and healthy, maybe you should think of all the connections between that single piece of fruit and the spider web of political, economic, and health issues that surround it, and which effect the balance of the world.
