Gluttony

The leading trend of the modern society coincides with one of what people came to know over the centuries as the seven deadly sins. Creeping at the end of the chart in that matter, gluttony is far worse than it seems,and it contains at least two of the other “sins”: greed and lust. Eating is a part of our daily lives. Following the basic law of physics that energy is never wasted, it is only transformed, we transform the caloric energy in our food into energy our body can use for it's daily routines. But along the way we stopped looking at food as a tool, a means to achieve a purpose, and we transformed it into purpose itself. As a saying goes,we no longer eat to live,but live to eat. Of course, you can have a craving, a rare indulgence when it comes to food, spending a bit more, and travelling far to a place that can be considered a food heaven...a restaurant or place that serves something you always wanted to try. And in the aspects of the fact we only live once and who knows how long, I'd say go ahead. But this is where my tolerance for the pursuit of food ends.

If we go to a shop today, you'll find maybe amazed that if you want fresh, healthy, straight from nature food you'll have to pay the big bucks. A kg of apples might be very well over the price of a full 3 course ready-meal. The reason behind this is that we pride ourselves with the ability to modify food. We have plently of plants that can be processed for sugar directly, same as we have sugars in milk, fruits and the delicious honey. Yet the most common sweeteners we find shoved in our mouths are engineered. High fructose corn syrup and others like aspartame are leading the market by far. Helped by fake claims and governments around the world backing this practice through subsidies for corn crops, these junk products became too big to fail. Meanwhile governments complain and pull alarms that the food we produce as a planet is not sufficient to sustain the population. That cannot be farther away from the truth. The truth is we only plants corn, day in day out,we drain the soil since there is no crop rotation and most important, we over-eat.

I am not a fan of the “well,in other places of the world people are starving so eat your vegetables” speech, mainly because me eating my vegetables won't mean that people that were starving before stopped doing so. But as a world that is supposed to have at least some bright people around, I expect us to be more aware. I find it unacceptable that in 2014 people still die of hunger. And this while in other parts of the world, obesity, especially infant obesity is on a rise at a steady pace. And that is not the only issue. To make you see how bad our food has become, look at the ever-shrinking expiration dates on packages. Look at all the food allergies and intolerances the humanity is plagued with. Do you think centuries ago people had peanut allergies or gluten intolerance? The reality is that we bomb our bodies with crappy food everyday, some because we don't care or want to know what we eat, and some because it's more affordable to buy a fast-food deathburger than a tie of asparagus. And it is because we keep our eyes closed, while food companies look for an ever growing profit. Have you ever heard someone saying that a company that stopped growing is a good one? I didn't. And so they push and push, shovelling crap in our direction, always complaining that they need more government help. I am not saying go on a vegan/vegetarian/someothercrapdiet routine. I think adopting one of those routes is as damaging as eating only junk food, and will certainly not take care of the hidden food engineering (seedless grapes anyone?).

I cannot wait for the day when the food industry will get the same treatment as tobacco did. I am a smoker but I'd still want to see big bold letters on food packages warning you of all the crap that “food” contains. Sounds like a fair measure, one that the food industry lobbyists managed to choke by lining the politicians' pockets with cash.

As a departure note, if by some chance you haven't seen the documentary “Food Inc.”, have a look at it. And remember, don't be a pawn of gluttony. Eat smart and with measure; you'll see you'll feel better and won't develop who knows what kind of old or new food related disease.

Photo: gdefon.com