It all started with Adam and Eve you know.
Here we were, thinking Eve was just lacking discipline by taking that apple and ruining it for all women.
But the ‘poison’ immortalised in the Holy book had to be pesticide of course!
Why didn’t we see it earlier?
There was no such thing as ‘organic’ in those days. God hadn’t yet created the consumer-base to gobble it up at extortionate prices.
That was just the beginning of food’s evils.
Compared to today,those biblical beginnings were stress free times. Good times…. Good times..
When Jesus was generously handing out bread and fish, one didn’t have to ask:
Is this High Fibre low GI? Does it have a multitude of grains high in omega 3?
Or,
Do you mind if I ask whether your holy pole caught this fish whilst the wind was blowing in the most fortuitous direction? Hopefully away from the latest toxic chemical spill or heavy metal deposit.
When the disciples were given water did they question whether it had come pure and bottled from a natural spring?
– not in plastic, certainly without BPA’s and preferably not having been left, sitting on the back of a donkey somewhere, being infused with sun-ripened carcinogens if you wouldn’t mind?
No.
My point here is not religious, nor meant to offend anyone who is.
The point is, I’m becoming increasingly wearied by the scare-mongering that surrounds food in our society. Not only in terms of illnesses like Cancer, but also heart disease, obesity and the rest on the list of disasters than can befall us if we make the wrong choices.
I absolutely agree with the need for us to maintain good health and fitness. My question is, when will the Grim Reaper stop moving the goal posts?
Once upon a time, a good portion of lean meat and veg was what the doctor ordered. (Along with ‘an apple a day’ but clearly that was a ploy to destroy humanity)
Now, it’s not so simple.
Did you know, cancer is knocking at your door should you consider barbecuing anything at all?
Goodbye to a burnt chop on a summer’s day and that burnt toast you eat every morning as you rush out the door. BAM. A death sentence right there.
Definitely a nail in your coffin should you have put ‘real’ butter on it (too high in fat) Vegemite (too high in sodium) fruit preserve (utter stupidity. Too high in sugar).
And that meat you can’t barbecue, could harbour any number of potential disasters including Mad Cow Disease and Oh, For Gods sake, you’re not considering eating chicken are you?
You will have a beard caused by hormone overload and probably bird flu as well before you say is it free-range/organic and corn-fed?
Eggs– a super food or way to high in cholesterol?
Dairy – apparently over-rated. Cheese – too fatty, milk – permeate this, low-fat that and whoops, ‘soy’ wasn’t what we thought it was.
Oils – well, there should be a bible on that all of its own. Vegetable oil – we’ll be seeing you in heaven. Coconut oil (todays hero) will undoubtedly prove to have killed an entire species of endangered monkeys or something within a decade.
Fruit– Come on that one’s been praised for years. Good fibre and all that? Nup. Not today. Too high in sugar and covered in Agent Orange apparently.
Processed sugar, anything package, tinned or microwaveable – you’re 10 feet under and lit up like a glow worm.
Pasta and rice? carb demons.
Alcohol? The only thing that will numb the pain but a rapidly ascending escalator to the pearly gates.
Its exhausting and that’s before you even step into the supermarket.
I’m wondering whether, in the same way that big corporations have made a fortune packaging death and illness up to look pretty, the health market has done equally nicely, scaring us into changing our ways and opening our wallets.
At the end of the day, I have to think the old adage – ‘everything in moderation’ is still the way to go?
Even if it means literally….
Each Peach Pear Plum 