Relative Something

There are plenty of reasons to long for the good old days, but what I want more than anything lately is food of the caliber I was able to eat when I was young. It is not impossible to cultivate this outcome, but it would require an effort that those in my household have yet to rally toward. It would mean a change in the way we shop, the places we shop, and the planning for and preparation of our meals. Most of all, it would require that I take a much more prominent role in the process. Unfortunately, I find it easier to wish for things than to actually take action to bring about real change.

I want to go back to a time before corn-fed cows, before the development of high-fructose corn syrup, before mass production, before chemically ripened fruit. I actually want to only be able to find fruit that is in-season in my region of the planet. I want things that taste better than they look, not the other way around. I am tired of strawberries that look picture-perfect but taste like nothing at all. I don’t know why I bother having tomatoes on a sandwich any more, since it has been so long since one added any flavor to the ensemble, I have forgotten the last time I experienced that pleasure.

In the corporatization and globalization of food production, the fat and fiber have been stripped out, sugars replaced, and packaging maximized. Corporations have devised ways to extend shelf-life to an insane duration and hyper-sell image over substance. They repeatedly design ways to appear more health conscious and convenient in an evolution that seems to be building regrettable changes on top of earlier regrettable changes. Some of the modifications made to processed foods end up developing an addictive craving in the body. I find it hard to trust that these results are entirely unintentional.

Take sodium. Try eating a snack that is totally sodium-free and discover how easy it is to stop snacking, even before you approach the recommended serving size. That salt on your usual snacks makes you want more. Cover the saltiness that makes you crave more, with sweetness, and the process can be stretched out to an even greater extent. Makes a person want to just stop sodium and high-fructose corn syrup, altogether. Go ahead and try. Look at the labels of everything you currently purchase and note how pervasive these ingredients are in our diet today.

One possibility of wanting to return to the food options of the past might be that I end up getting what I wish for. The mono-culture of genetically altered foods, like corn or soybeans, could collapse when nature produces a plague or pest that wipes out entire crops. Nations going bankrupt, or transportation costs becoming prohibitive, may end global exportation of foodstuffs. I could end up hoarding what little crumbs I can muster like some of my ancestors were forced to do back in the past, back in those periods of time between the ones we like to think of as “the good ol’ days.”