Did you know this about your food?

Lately, I've been feeling on overload a bit.  I've been reading so much about local eating, and the problems with our food system in this country.  Well, I have actually been studying this for about 5 years now and the more I learn, the more hopeless it becomes. 

We have so little control over the food that goes into our bodies.  When you want to live beyond the processed grocery store food, which the government in all its wisdom deems "safe" it is a very frustrating and daunting task to many.  The government has decided that the irratiated, chemical laiden cheeseburger from McDonald's or that nutritionally bankruptTwinkie are safe for you, but that raw milk from a cow with all it's beneficial enzymes intact is "dangerous"....well, that scares me.  A lot.

Let's think about this.  There have been many studies done of McDonald's hamburgers that will be put on a shelf for literally years, never touched, and they look exactly the way they did when they were bought.  Or a Twinkie, many, many years after manufacture, looks exactly the same as the day it was pressed into a mold and baked.  This food is dead food or it would break down.  What nourishes our bodies?  Why, here's something that some of you may not have thought about.  Living food does.  Our bodies need living food that will actually break down in order to remove the nutrients from it to nourish your physical form.  Dead food will not break down, and therefore does not feed the all important cells in our bodies.  If you don't feed your body living food (which most processed food is no longer living), then you are not providing your body with what it needs to not only survive, but thrive.  Your immune system depends on these living organisms to create resistance to food germs and fight many illnesses.  If you're only eating "sterilized food" then your body is unable to build up resistance to the germs and illnesses that are searching to seek and destroy. 

I could go on and on about this topic, I really could.  I read so many well researched books and found out how dysfunctional our government is that it's terrifying to me that they can control such a personal choice as what I put into my mouth to nourish my body.  The entire food system of our country is owned by big business, but mostly the one I fear the most is Monsanto.  They are in the forefront of genetically modified food and patenting seeds.  Seeds are life, how can you patent food and life?

 And for the love of God, please don't believe the commercials that show the white bread middle Americans walking through their placid little corn field  and tell you that "corn sugar (what the corn industry is calling high fructose corn syrup these days) is just as safe as sugar, why, your body can't tell the difference!"  I know your liver begs to differ with them! 

I think for me, I feel so aggravated some days by the misinformation and agendas from the big business and corporate greed that drive what happens to our food.  Did you know that the USDA is not allowed to force a recall on tainted food?  They can only recommend it, they aren't allowed to order it.  So if hamburger goes out to 10,000 retailers from some large factory farmed plant and it's tainted with ecoli, some of which very possibly could kill people (or hey, spinach that has used that "fertilizer" from that factory farm and spread that ecoli to spinach), the USDA is only allowed to say to the company, we recommend a recall.  Then, the company is allowed to do whatever it wants from there.  How many times have they ignored the recommendation because recalling thousands of pounds of tainted meat would be too costly?  Anyone seeing the problem here but me?  The stories I have seen and the research I have read would scare the hell out of the average American.  Or maybe it wouldn't, I don't know, but it sure scares the hell out of me.

I'm eternally thankful that I have fresh, local food available to me to feed my family.  I'm very grateful for the farms that raise that food and fight the fights they need to to keep that option alive for me.  However if the government and big business have their way, I will no longer be able to purchase that food.  In fact, believe it or not, I would not even be able to consume the food I've grown myself for my own consumption.  Oh, this is no joke, folks.  Legislation like this tries to sneak through at every turn.  And you can say what you will about NH, but this is one time I'm truly thankful for our motto, "Live Free or Die"...I just hope it doesn't actually come to that. 

Trying to find my way through the food industry minefield, ~Peacemom