So, today is one of those days where I just rant. However, my rants mean something. I am not complaining to just complain. Well, maybe, but there is a deeper desire. It is one of ill-content. What comes with ill-content, is a need for change. And change is good. The desire for change is a most desirable thing. Which is why this rant has become a resounding gong in my head.
I am at Walmart. Right off the bat, I know that is where my problem lies. I am in this store that I abhorrently loathe. Why am I here? Because I am poor. Because I haven't enough money to do all my shopping locally and organically. However, today is different. I am walking down these aisles looking for food that is good for us. I am in the cereal aisle. I normally buy the same thing every week, a bag Honey nut Scooters, or a bag of Crisp Rice cereal. The equivalent of Honey nut cheerios and Rice Crispies of course. I buy them because I can get 39 ounces of cereal for about $4.70. That's pretty cheap. Today, I can't buy anything. Everything I look at seems toxic to me. I know that over half the crap in here is genetically modified in some way or another, and that just freaks me out. So I end up buying the Quaker old fashioned oats. It's what I normally buy along with the bagged cereal, but today, it is the only breakfast item I purchase. Even that makes me feel cautious. It is the healthiest product in the entire aisle. With only one ingredient, you know you are getting a quality whole food. Or do you? Is this a GMO (genetically modified organism)? Have these oats been altered?! I don't want altered oats. I want oats that my grandmother ate. I want oats that have heirloom quality. But how do I know what I am getting? There are no signs that say, "Hey, these here oats are missing part of their genetic makeup. But we added something else to it. It might make your daughters grow breasts at 8 years old, but we make one hell of a profit. " No, there are no signs. No labels. Nothing.
Does anyone else know this? Does everyone feel alright about putting all this crap into our bodies? I don't know where half this food comes from. I don't feel OK about it. I definitely feel weird about it. Weird, like science fiction weird, and I have never liked science fiction. Except Star Trek. Star Wars as well. And of course, Hitchhikers Guide...well, it's still weird. It is disconcerting. What to do... that is where I am. What do I do. What do I eat. The only thing I've eaten today has been two organic pears, and some fair trade coffee. Which isn't even organic. I can't find a bag of fair trade, organic coffee to save my life. It's either one or the other. I am about to eat two cage free eggs, but I realize that I don't even know what their standards are. I think of cage free, and I think of pasture. Even then, on the carton it says they are being fed a diet of high quality corn and soy products. The most genetically modified food out there. So, as a consumer I can't win.
If you want to know more about Genetically Modified food, please visit the following site. Read it thoroughly and act. With all the issues we are having with our food supply and the rising cost of food, it is time we rethink how we eat and what we buy. Communities must come together to form cooperative food networks so that people can eat healthy, sustainable food, and support local farmers at the same time. If my great great grandmother Ada was still here, she would wonder why we eat like we do. It would be nonsensical for her, that we were not growing and preserving our own foods. She would see all the problems we are having with ecoli and mad cow disease, and look at us as if we were idiots. Mass production of foods, factory farms where animals are fed their own by products and waste, genetically modified corn. We are idiots if we accept this as the norm. This is not normal. This is definitely weird.
www.responsibletechnology.org
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