Food more than ever has become a tool of idealism and philosophy, people no longer eat for survival or sustenance. Instead we live in an era when people look to define themselves by what culinary tastes they have.
It is not merely a case of 'healthy' eating or living off 'fast foods' it goes into a some what simply complex issue.
For starters, definitions are marred by perceptions garnered by mis information and agenda driven propaganda. The idea of healthy food is often one that leads to many an assumption. What many consider healthy is often label based and 'diet' defined.
Health foods are often called as such because they are deemed to be better for us than other types of foods. Now what makes them better is usually the fact that 'health' foods are less fattening, lower in sugars and are more 'natural' whereas the 'bad' foods are often high energy low nutrient value types.
What is healthy however should truly be defined by the individuals situation, if one is trapped in the alp's surely a chocolate bar is healthier for that scenario than a low kilo joule salad ?
Or perhaps look at the diet of an elite level athlete, that needs a tremendous amount of energy to sustain their life style. The foods that are good for them are not necessarily ideal for some one who seldom leaves the lounge room.
The trouble with any diet related eating plan is they all over look the most basic element in loss and gain. The simple reality that what energy is consumed, needs to be matched by energy expended. Through the many cryptic mazes of wonder diets and eating plans, one should always remember what energy you eat now, you will need to burn later, or your body will simply store it for that rainy day.
And never forget what got us here as a species. Our adaptability and willingness to consume anything that does not kill us, and even then we will still take a bite of that apple!.
What we put into our mouths has spawned a tremendously profitable industry, not so much of exotic sit down restaurants and food based social experiences. But more a case of these so called 'life style' foods. Vegan, organic, toxin free, high protein, low carb, and so on these choices made by the individual for reasons of 'health' or ideal. To decide that one will not eat meat has often been touted as a health choice, and now an enviornmental one too, when in fact it often is more of a case of idealism and a desire that one is making the right choice by their body. Denying oneself the natural foods which helped us to evolve as a species is something that a luxuriously opulent society allows for. Selling this choice as anything other than a life style philosophy is just really another way to capitalise on ignorance.
Next time you profess your vegan holier than thou attitude look up Stearic acid, and check to see how many 'vegan' elements you really have around you. Because animal based products are not just things you put into your mouth. But that is for another rant, some other time.
The organic food craze is one that seems to be taken up with great vigour by many an urban yuppie who thinks that they will change the world and themselves by only eating all natural, organic foods. The tricky thing about the term 'organic' is that it is simply a term. And to define what exactly organic is, really differs from within the food industries. The real question of 'organic' should be directed at the consumer that buys into the ideals of the notion that everything they eat is picked from hand by the farmer, and placed straight into their wooden shopping basket.
The reality is, that technology surrounds us in so many forms that it is often over looked, and to be truly organic one can not utilise some of these evil advances in food hygiene, preservation and safety...and pest control. These so called im-purities which are often a necessity to a great many a communities, have done well for many a generation. That they do not have the local alternative organic shop, for those with the 'informed' choice is perhaps their loss, so long as hemp shopping bags and organic onion salad is available then the world will be a better place. The world can not live on an organic diet, it will always remain a niche' self important market that will demand a hight cost for those that can and will afford it.
Making money from selling 'organic' foods is something easy on many levels, from the retail outlet, to the suppliers and those doing the 'auditing' to make sure that the food meets the standards so as to be defined as organic. But so long as we have those in society that crave
such a thing, then so be it. And so long as we have fear mongering that our foods are polluted with toxins and poisons, then the wonder alternative of 'organic' will forever save a many a life.
The attempts to ban GM or Genetically Modified foods has taken on a great strength stirring from those who resent anything scientific to those with a legitimate concern of the loss of bio diversity. The trouble with the debate over GM foods is that many base their opinions on malicious dis information often created by interest groups that seem more interested in battling a global conspiracy than defending your health.
Should GM foods be banned ? No...that's stupid. Traditionally alot of the foods we take for granted from apples, carrots, breeds of live stock and so on were cross bread and cross pollinated, which in a sense is a primitive form of genetic modification. The GM foods we think of are extremely scrutinised, well researched and are done for more reasons than to make those evil corporations money. So an absolute blanket prevention of ALL things GM is reactionary and based on populism and ignorance. And never forget that we had a strictly organic diet during the Dark Ages.
Should GM food be separated to non GM. Yes off course, it should be defined at a produce and retail level. Weaker strands are more likely to die of as the lose to superior GM crops in many cases and because of this we risk losing the uniqueness of many a natural species of plant.
The trouble with Genetically Modified foods is that like 'organic' it is ill defined in a great many peoples minds and sees all edibles that come under this banner thrown into the shopping basket. Everything GM is considered some Frankenfood mutation that will modify and kill us all. Whereas 'organic' is the pure foods which are as close to the fruits of Eden that man should ever come. Their are most certainly negative consequences to GM foods as will be shown I fear in the none to distant future no doubt as their are also short comings when it comes to Organic foods. The trouble is that what should be a consumers choice based on a great many a things has now become an ideological battle ground where the fall out not only lands on your plate but the World's over. To simply be against and pro one or the other with absolute conviction is self defeating, especially when this is all to often done from a philosophical or ideological perspective. Exercise your freedom of choice most certainly, but dishing up ignorance or stirring the pot of an uncertain stew of knowledge and then serving it up to others is in most cases giving out a belly full of fear mongering.
Now pretend you live in a draught starved, developing nation where the staple for a week is perhaps less in a week than one the average "westerner' consumes in a day ( or an hour for some), and then imagine you not only have your family to feed but a community. Then imagine that their are people out there, not in your country, that are trying to develop high yield, salt resistant, draught resistant etc strains of wheat, rice, banana's and so on. So that your nations economy can develop and sustain itself even during the harshest of seasons.
Then imagine that a group of 'informed' people think that these crops and foods are evil and are part of a global agenda to control and take over the ever important commodity that is food. I suppose when downing an organic non tofu bean sandwich you know what is best for the rest of the world, as millions starve desperate to just taste a flake of the crumbs of your 'special' cookies.
Was a man like Dr. Norman Borlaug who saved no doubt millions of lives with his genetic modifications to agriculture part of some evil globalist agenda? Was the work that he did evil and wicked, because it did not serve the noble 'organic' movements perceptions of absolutes?
Perhaps that is a silly question when you have some who are so ideologically inclined (or perhaps better educated) so as to believe that human beings, especially those in the 'poorer' nations are really an environmental cancer on this Earth and should be left to Mother Natures mercy and this is why such a man as Borlaug is a traitor to the 'common good'. But again that shall be saved for another rant.
Within affluent societies we have the privilege of choosing what we want to eat, we literally have an endless smorgasbord of dishes and snacks to fill our ever expanding bellies. This choice often taken for granted is sadly not available to a great many. We can sit back and decide what type of person we want to be, how we look, what music we listen to, what ideologies are in vogue for us at the time and what foods that we can consume to define us. Eating is no longer a necessity but a luxury. Food is no longer something we have to hunt and scavenge for but something we can waste and bolster or damage our self image with.
So next time you look for that organic meat alternative burger and read about the next fad diet, just think to yourself how lucky you are that you live in a society that allows you such choices, while many millions have no idea where their daily feed will come from. And remember those thoughts you have in that magical bio-chemical wonder we call a brain came about through centuries of evolution, greatly influenced on a diverse diet of plant and animal.
Serve up what you wish on your own plate but please leave mine alone. Individual opinions however real or imagined that they may be are fine and should be celebrated but it is in the policy enforcement of such things that all of us suffer however that may be. Remember sometimes a banana is just a banana.
Enjoy what goes in, and remember it is just food and not an edible politico-ideological banner to fly high.
Kym Robinson
Jan 2009
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