busyI'm frustrated that it's almost impossible to avoid the vile stuff. There are whole category products that have no HFCS-free options anymore. I would LOVE to take a grocery store and turn loose a photo crew on it. First go through and remove all the HFCS products from the shelves. I estimate that would empty over 90% of the shelves. Film it. Put everything back. Repeat the process with MSG, any other artificial ingredients you want to avoid, and leading allergens such as nuts and gluten. Shoot each version. Now pull all the products that contain ANY ONE of those, leaving only the healthy edibles.
I bet damn near every shelf except the produce aisle and the little "health food" second would be almost barren.
Thoughts
March 25 2010, 05:38:50 UTC 11 years ago
>> But it is more than annoying when you have to make your own because the store-bought stuff can kill you...<<
And if you can't make your own, for whatever reason, you sicken or die. That is wrong. Food sold in stores should be affordable, safe, and wholesome -- allowing for some indulgences like cookies and soft drinks. Say, 80-90% of the stuff should be reasonably good for you. I doubt if there's 10% left. I wouldn't be surprised if it was less than 1%.
Re: Thoughts
March 25 2010, 16:08:04 UTC 11 years ago
Wrong.
You have got safe, wholesome, inexpensive.
Unless you grow your own food, you can only choose two. The whole reason we're here is because the entire planet chose #1 and #3. Pigs and chickens are fed menhaden meal, which was introduced back in 1949, and made it possible to feed on a massive scale. Inland swamps in the midwest were drained to make room for grain. Deserts were watered as the railroad expanded and refrigeration cars made it feasible to grow things there and get them to market.
Our entire civilization is based upon #1 and #2.
All three are possible, but it's going to take a MAJOR reconstruction of our entire society. A good start would be to eliminate lawns and encourage gardens instead. But where would people get the time? As you point out, you don't have time to cook, let alone garden. This will mean adjusting our lives to accommodate a "gardening hour" or something similar. But most of us live alone or with just our spouse. Two people is not enough to do all the work. This means we either need bigger families, or need to start living together more. You can do that in a few ways, such killing the suburbs and increasing population densities in the cities.
Basically, it all comes down to the need for fundamental change on a nationwide scale.
No more housing associations, no more pretty lawns, no more 2-for-1 specials at Little Caesars, no more 30-min drives to work in your Hummer, no more triple-venti mochacarmellatto from Caribou or Starbucks. Things we take for granted, like an entire chicken for $3.99 at HarrisTeeter will have to come to an end.
Change like that WILL come. Make no mistake, it's on it's way. Either willingly and painfully, or unwillingly and fatally.
Re: Thoughts
March 25 2010, 16:25:31 UTC 11 years ago
Yup, that's the problem. That coupled with the fact that the people with an inbalance of power in our system have a vested interest in ensuring that it never changes.
Re: Thoughts
March 25 2010, 17:00:33 UTC 11 years ago
Wrong.
You have got safe, wholesome, inexpensive.<<
That's not what I said. I said "affordable," not "inexpensive." I mean that safe, wholesome food needs to be readily available to everyone. It's not use having it on the shelves if a lot of folks can't buy it; that's seriously contributing to America's health problems right now. It doesn't have to be all in the bargain range, but it shouldn't be in the expensive range either. It should be average, affordable food.
If the stuff in the affordable range is bad for people, then almost everybody will eat stuff that's bad for them almost all the time. Then their health dwindles, and everyone pays the price. More than one historic culture has run into this problem, for different reasons, but the end result is consistent: poor or insufficient food is an empire-killer. Sometimes plague, sometimes internal collapse, sometimes invasion, sometimes famine, sometimes emmigration -- but something, eventually, will take out a population whose food supply is inferior.