By One Pan Annie
I’ve decided that people eat whatever is around them.
I started out thinking that people used to see food as fuel rather than entitlement. You know, “I like it therefore I’m going to eat it no matter what anybody says about it.”
But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that people have always eaten what is around them. Take the Neanderthal Man for instance. Can’t say I know much about him but it’s a pretty good guess to say he ate what was around him. American Indians were famous for eating what was around them even though they had to move from food source to food source to do it.
My grandparents ate what was around them as well. They lived in the country and though they had to go to town to buy sugar, flour and coffee, they ate what was around them – pork, beef, chicken and fish and vegetables from the garden.
So, what’s around us today? Absolutely everything. And added to that everything, are ingredients and packaging that inspires over consumption. There is good money to be made from it and not just from the food processors but from diet books, diet programs, pharmaceuticals and the entire health profession to treat the health problems that result.
For whatever reason (it’s probably called an eating disorder), I cannot be around food I love with out eating it. It calls to me from its hiding places and the voice doesn’t still until I’ve consumed the last bit.
My stage three kidney disease was what prompted me to get off the health-decaying food habit. I still have more options than the Neanderthal Man, I don’t have to move around like the Native Americans used to and I don’t have so far to drive to town like my grandparents because I already live there. I just don’t buy the stuff, so it isn’t around me.
