A Starting Over At 60 Blog
Twice this summer, I have bought corn from the grocery store. The summer sweetness of corn— it’s a sunshine moment in the hot months. This corn? Both times, it tasted like… nothing. Perhaps wood pulp? I’ve never eaten wood pulp.
Our food quality is crap. Like every other industry in this country, we have allowed corporations to take over. We live in America, Inc., a place in which the profit motive subjugates humanity, nature and life.
I see the business from which this tasteless corn came. Thousands of acres, of genetically modified corn, the insect-resistant seeds patented by the corporation owning the crop. The corporation has modified the soil, the seeds, the cob sprouting from the stem. Huge machines have harvested the corn sprayed with insecticides and anti-fungal chemicals and sent to our grocery stores. The grocery store piles them in a beautiful pyramid with the sign, “Fresh Corn, 5 for $1!” People like me buy it, imagining the sugary snap as we bite into the cob, the juices and butter dripping down our chins. We remember the flavor from childhood— sitting outside on a hot summer evening with hamburgers, Cole slaw and potato salad loading our plates. The corn always came first. The sweet, plump kernels connecting us to the land we cherished. Corn and patriotism plumping our hearts: aren’t we lucky to live in this free, generous country producing nourishing food to sustain us?
No more. The corn is like everything else this country offers: a picture-perfect exterior and absolutely no substance. I no longer shop at the usual supermarket. I seek local farms with vegetables tasting of the soil from which they grew. With the cyclospora outbreak, I refuse to buy vegetables or fruits from anywhere else than local farms.
The tasteless vegetables are more than a farming issue. Flavorful vegetables come from nourished soil, which comes from chemical-free rotating fields, free of poisonous insecticides which prevent nature from being nature.
America’s food quality is far below the food quality of other countries. I’ve seen this through my 20 years of traveling internationally. In the U.S., egg yolks are a muted, sickly yellow. In Europe and Asia? The egg yolks are intensely orange. The first time I saw the difference, I actually wondered if the yolks were fertilized and inappropriate for eating— exhibiting the shameless arrogance of Americans thinking other countries lack the quality and care of our own country.
Instead, we Americans, brainwashed to think our food and life quality supersedes other countries, smugly exult over our country’s incompetence. We have allowed our country to become corporatized to the point where mega companies know more than generation after generation of farmers. The result? Tasteless, nutrition-less food, bereft of flavor, vitamins and minerals. This is what happens when cost-cutting for corporate and billionaire wealth exceed human value.
The vivid orange yolks— this is the real color or eggs. The corporate profit motive has tried to teach us otherwise. We are fools eating modified food that ruins our hormones, makes us fat and breeds illness in our bodes.
Over the last ten years, I have taken steps to purchase food closer to its source. I bought meat and eggs from small farms treating animals humanely— at least as much as they can do so. I sought fresh vegetables from local sources, which my grocery stores used to have. Now, tasteless fruits and vegetables load the bins. I haven’t tasted a peach, plum or cherry reminding me of childhood for years.
I now seek out farmers’ markets, the kind where the farmers actually sell their produce to me. The difference blows my tastebuds and mind. These small farms are rebellion, committed to bringing food back to the land and to its source. They will save our food, and our country, if we let them. Buy local, or don’t buy at all. This is my plan after spitting tasteless corn into the trash.
Small steps like these create change. If you buy one item every week from a farm stand rather than the supermarket, you will shift the balance to wholesomeness and quality. Don’t accept wood-tasting corn. Seek out small farms, corner stands, co-ops, and special farm-to-table sources that make food taste real again. Do this and you will save our country as well as yourself.
I weep for our country. We have accepted crap as food. We have forfeited our food and health to enable billionaires to pay no taxes. We have allowed the government to turn the livelihoods of farmers into corporate grift and wealth. We have made ourselves sick, un-nourished and fat. Wake up and do more than weep with me. Take steps to save us from ourselves.
I would love to hear from you, even if, especially if, you disagree. Perhaps we can bring back the American tradition of debate. Please like and share this blog with others. Subscribe to receive it by email and go directly to the Walk the Moon website (www.walk-the-moon.com) to peruse the full collection of articles and updates. You can email me from the Walk the Moon website as well.