I agree wholeheartedly on the GMO bit and the killing off of the bees (learning about these pesticides anger me so much... where would we be without bees?! We don't even have American bees anymore!). The GMOs we have now in the past 10 years are even more harmful to us than what we did prior. We have all these allergies coming up..... gluten intolerances, celiac disease, autism, severe anemia, fibromyalgia, new cancers, etc and we wonder why there is an influx of this going around. Like, hello people.... what we put in our bodies dictates our health! From all these dangerous preservatives to pesticides, to silicones, to modified enzymes.... this is no longer the 1950s where you knew where your food came from and what was in it. Now we have to be chemists, engineers, and doctors in our own personal lives and get informed because even the professionals we think are helping us are just as ignorant as we are. It's so sick and crazy.... we have a right to know what is being put in our foods. There SHOULD be labels that say "non-GMO", "made in a gluten-free facility", "made in a factory that makes gluten items", "fish was caught near the Bering strait", etc and it SHOULD be forced by the FDA so it makes it easier for consumers to live healthy lives and not worry if they'll have an allergic attack if it's consumed.
I've had so many instances where I've been to restaurants that specialize in "gluten-free" items and I come home with a freaking migraine and suffer from a gluten attack. Places and companies like these should be fined....AND they need to be educated on these common allergies and how to avoid cross-contamination.
Let me stop ranting.... but man.... this makes me so pissed. I don't even eat out anymore cause I'm afraid of getting a gluten attack.
These corporations should be held accountable.
hey if you can't rant here where can you rant?
I feel the same way you do....i really do...i'm annoyed that we have to be so vigilent, seeing as we are supposed to be living in an advanced 'modern' society
Its immensly frustrating to see the things happening out there that just do not need to happen.....things don't need to be this way
On the plus side there is a growing awareness about all these issues but what i've found with all these things is that when you trace them back to their source you find it all converges with the same network of people who operate through certain corporations eg monsanto, bayer, goldman sachs etc
You're right we have to invest a lot of energy into protecting ourselves these days
I'd love to get involved in permaculture but then that means getting money together for land then the effort of setting up and maintaining it whilst making a living...its an aspiration but its going to take time! I went out and visited my local organic producers and it was interesting to see their set up; its all very clever how they rotate things so that it is all self sustaining
In the meantime i'm thinking about growing some of my own food in the space i have. Some folk in urban areas are even growing food from window boxes and hydroponics and things like that; bee keeping from roof tops seems to be a growing area (@Colt would be the guy to speak to about that)
10 years ago i would have had no interest in growing things.....now i think about it quite a lot! Funny how we change
I guess everytime we spend a dollar/pound on something that we know has been ethically produced we are casting a vote for that to be successful. Obviously it will take lots of people to do that to make a big change but i think that is actually happening
For example the sales of organic food in the US is growing rapidly; here's a news story taken at random from the internet:
http://www.businessnewsdaily.com/2404-organic-industry-healthy-growth.html
Organic fresh ingrediants obviously mean a bit of time in the kitchen spent preparing food but thats another change...10 years ago i did not have the patience to spend time in the kitchen on food preparation but now i'm enjoying getting a handle on it; i turn the music on and get into it....its quite a good way to relax and be in the moment and focussed on only one thing
getting decent (or in my case simple!) cook books made a big difference to me; bad books are really offputting
I guess its a case of where we put our focus. The 1980's saw the beginning of the whole 'lunch is for wimps' ethos and i think that is still going on in many spheres of work where people are working long hours which then takes the focus off food and makes people grab food on the go; also finding the energy to give to food at the end of a long day is tough
I've been re-shaping my life though to try to move food more central to my life. Not just because of the health side of it and the enjoyment of making and then eating it but also because its a communal thing that you can share
So yeah...i hope the next decade will see people prioritising food more and maybe even downsizing in life if necessary in order to put more money and time into food; that's certainly the direction i'm heading in