Saturday, August 27, 2011

Feeding a Civilization, or Poisoning a Nation?

I recently took the opportunity to watch a documentary film called Food Inc. by Robert Kenner.  Now let me explain exactly where I stood prior to watching this film, and where I now stand.  I was on the road to really trying to become as self-sufficient as I could with my eating habits.

Anyone who knows me also probably knows that there are quite a bit of things that I would love to rely on myself for to feed my family, but that there are hundreds, if not thousands of food items that I wouldn't think twice about buying from a grocery store.  Well there was a lot of truth to that.  My personal goal was to stock my freezer with about half of the meat and fish that my family would eat throughout the year with wild meat that I had hunted and killed.  I didn't care where the other half of it came from, and I've just recently started to be more concerned about eating organic fruits and vegetables.

My wife and I have gardened organically for 6 years.  We've mainly grown the usual heirloom tomatoes, zucchini, cucumbers, green beans, peppers, and some herbs as well.  We've recently moved to a different house, and along with moving meant leaving behind our 4 beautiful raised veggie garden beds and soil that we had worked to near perfection.  Now our garden area is a former lawn that we've covered with cardboard that we re-purposed from our moving boxes in order to kill the grass and weeds.  It's officially the beginning of our efforts to "Lasagna" the area into rich gardening soil so that we can start an organic winter crop.

The clock is ticking!  We're only a few days from September, but I think we're going to be fine.  Maybe a little behind, but hasn't Mother Nature been quite a bit behind with just about everything this year?  Hell, I'm still a couple weeks away from anything but green tomatoes in the little patch that I worked in the spring so I could at least watch something grow that I'd be able to eat while we prep the main designated garden area for the real deal.

Since watching Food Inc. I have truly reevaluated my standpoint on what I feel is acceptable in the feeding of myself and my family.  I'm really surprised that it took me so long to check out this documentary, since it has been out since 2009.  And I really feel silly for not putting more heart and thought into what I'm putting on my table.  I know what it means to eat healthily.  Just like the nutritionists have taught us in recent decades, shop "around the rim" at the grocery store.  All the "good stuff" is on the outer edge of the store.  Well that's just fine, but where did that crap come from, and how good is it really for me?  What's really in that sausage?  What kind of inhumane treatment did that chicken, cow, or pig go through in order to get wrapped in cellophane and put out on display for my purchasing pleasure?  What was in the feed that they were fed, and what kind of hormones and antibiotics were pumped into them to keep them "healthy" enough to join me and my spices for a hot meeting on my Weber grill?

I can honestly say that for the first time, I really want to never buy meat from anyone that doesn't free range and organically raise their livestock.  And in time I want to get to the point that I'm filling the freezer with nothing but game meat that I've killed, and blanched vegetables and fruit that I've grown myself.  On the occasion that we find ourselves craving beef or chicken or bacon, we'll be certain that we are buying it from local, honorable, humane, and organic ranchers.

I want nothing more than for all of us who care where our food comes from to snuff out incorporated mass production of what has turned our civilization into an obese, lazy, and flat out sickly nation!  The greed for the almighty dollar has turned our food supply into a giant slop house full of nasty chemicals, and flat out abuse of not only the animals, but the workers and farmers that are at the bottom of the totem pole in the industry of feeding our nation.

I'm truly sick over this whole subject.  How could we let this happen?  Is this just the price we pay to be called "civilized"?  I think we're better than this.  I think that if we all really start supporting those who aren't committing such atrocities, and buy local, in season, free range, organic meat and produce, we truly can change.

So now it's time for me to close this post with a quote by Rocky Balboa from the great movie, Rocky IV.

"During this fight, I've seen a lot of changing, in the way you feel about me, and in the way I feel about you. In here, there were two guys killing each other, but I guess that's better than twenty million. I guess what I'm trying to say, is that if I can change, and you can change, everybody can change!"


"YO ADRIAN, I DID IT!!!!"





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