EPICUREAN PLEASURES GET FEWER AND FEWER

Eating should be a pleasure, I was always taught.  It no longer seems that way.  We now know that meat is rarely in its original form.  Once I was talked into eating Tilapia.  I ate it but didn't particularly care for the taste.  At home, I Googled it and decided I definitely didn't want to eat it again. Whatever I had seen at that time suggested it was a bottom feeder which just didn't sound appetizing to me (though I like lobsters). The trouble is that food is not grown in the same organic conditions as when our forefathers were around nor as it was on the farm on which I grew up.  Today I read an article by Jill Richardson.  It was sharing a picture determined to to alter our cravings.  To see what we are served without our awareness, click here.  When eating today, I keep remembering the saying, "You are what you eat."  The thought of fecal matter being fed to food I am later expected to eat somehow is a picture I find offensive and were I called that, I would be highly insulted.

Scuba divers are describing what they are seeing in oceans; the accumulation of decades of trash being dumped, it shames  me to think of our human footprint  Our footprint (or would that be our 'fin print') is pretty disgusting.  Plastic accounts for approximately 61% of the ocean litter. Click here.  Over 80% of marine pollution comes from land-based activities.  Click here.

Whatever looks good may be off your diet for one reason or another.  Naive doctors say that we do not need additives, we should just eat well.  To eat well, one should eat organically but since most of the organic foods are found only in chain grocery stores with warehouses before the produce gets to the local superstore and reaches you, the consumer, it is not quite what it was.  At least some of the things like spraying with sulfites to preserve the food longer have bee outlawed.

Lastly, if you are not with allergies which forbid many foods, you can eat meat.  That is, if you can tolerate the 'slime that is added to it. The makers of this additive make healthy claims for it.  It makes hamburgers in fast food restaurants cheaper is that makes you want them more.  Read here to get a description of the process.

WHEN INNER DRIVES CONFLICT

Having already written that my life is a blivet (in traditional US Army slang, slang dating back to WWII, a blivet was defined as "ten pounds of manure in a five pound bag"). I struggle to cram my life into some order and containment. I discover my desk is a mare's nest. (The original sense of the term was: a false discovery since clearlya mare doesn't have a nest. Nowadays the term implies a confused situation.) Some people have accused me of mild OCD because I actually like things put away properly (mainly so that I can find them again) and don't mind hours of data entry to make some of this possible. Others who watch my constant motion know I have ADD and, in order to find anything again in my life, I have to put things in proper places. Life doesn't seem normal anymore if I am not looking for something that has been lost in the house. My conviction that there are poltergeists here does not convince others.

One of my dreams is that someday I will be able to have a clean desk before me every time I sit down. I delude myself, thinking that I can emulate a few people whom I have admired in life who have won gold medals at clean desk contests. I really know the only way I will see a clean desk is to find someone who has one and look at it until I can imagine mine looking the same. When I learned what a clean desk takes, I'm not so sure I will ever achieve it. It takes making immediate decisions about what to throw away instead of piling heaps of "I'll look at that later" as the ringing phone interrupts. The stuff then reappears much later, having been moved yet again for a party or to make room for some other pile, until it gets found when it is no longer relevant. I believe I have just finished with the year 2003 pile. It takes stopping what you are doing in time (meaning before your nose hits the keyboard from exhaustion) to file things where they belong every day...frightening thought, even though some of them try to commit suicide by leaping into the circular file. It takes having a place to write things, instead of on little slips of paper, when someone is spitting out a telephone number or address at bullet speed. I usually neglect to write to whom it belongs, thus rendering it more useless information lying about.

If I could sit outside myself and watch the two warring urges, my compulsiveness fighting with my ADD, I might enjoy it more. As my years advance, I force myself to think of what I faced as other elders in my life left messes behind. I spent months going through the detritus they left, obviously compulsively giving in to the fear that I might toss something important to them or they wouldn't have saved it. I assure myself that my children will have no such problem. They will back up a dumpster, throw all my stuff in, and I will never know the difference!

SULFITES AND NITRITES/ NITRATES(continued)

There is research that suggests that nitrite/nitrates help strengthen the heart, especially after a heart attack. While this may be true, the form ingested may offer the significant clues. I've noticed that I am unable to eat much grilled meat over charcoal. It forms nitrates while cooking. Adding nitrites/nitrates to processed meat is another culprit though I have never experienced hives after eating vegetables which may contain them. I was shocked to find that even those foods with no additives may not be healthier. There are many associated with additives. The sources on the Internet are limitless in their cautions about limiting additives in your food.

Why, then, does it cost more to eat healthier food. It shouldn't, but it costs less to use additives, to lengthen shelf life, keep bugs out, deter mold and lots of other reasons. Foods that don't spoil quickly can be shipped further and stay in warehouses longer.

I am making a non-scientific guess that my reactive hives are my body's alert system, telling me to stay away from these compounds. Whether that is accurate or not, I get punished by my body, giving me hives or a headache, when I use these forbidden substances. It has been a many year hunt to find out what else I might be sensitive to in foods. Those chemical names tell me little when I am in the store. There used to be open cooler bins of shrimp years ago. I couldn't imagine that there could be something bad in raw shrimp. Nevertheless, I got hives every time I ate them and learned only later that sulfites were sprayed on them to keep bacteria down. It turned out, after being accused by husband of being a snob, that I couldn't eat potatoes or lettuce in McDonald's, years ago. The FDA stopped that a while back though I still avoid fast food restaurants.

I urge all of you to take the time to look at the links and, at least, read the list of additives that cause you harm. It pains me to see the really bad things people do to their bodies through ingestion, not only of smoke, drugs but food, currently sold as legal and presumably healthy!