"we are what we eat"

At the age of three, my father decided to raise our first pigs and make his first home made sausage. He bought livestock at the nearest farmer's market auction in the early spring, built large comfortable wood platform board pens on stilts under a light birch and oak tree canopy and placed 3 or 4 piglets into each pen. The pigs were surprisingly organized and bright, it seemed, as each decided to make hay beds and choose only one corner to use as a 'toilet' area (usually opposite the feeding troughs). And they had their play area. As the piglets grew, my parents would separate them into their own pens, so they could each have plenty of room. But the slats dividing the pens were wide, and though large, the pens were within visual range of each other, so the pigs remained somewhat social--- as I would hear them squeal or snort to each other or peer their heads above or between the panels. And each had their own way of greeting each of us, recognizing us, and sometimes, even attempting to be playful as though they were a pet to us. It was very funny how when they were hungry, they'd push the troughs over as close to us as possible with their snouts, then look up with a gesture of asking -- nodding their heads towards the trough.

I learned to respect the animals then-- not just the pigs, but all animals. Slowly, however, the end of summer was near for the pigs, and my father began his first butcher process. He chose one of the pigs and got out a gun. I ran and hid and held my fingers in my ears, as I could not bear to hear the shot or watch. I heard there was no struggle and it done quickly, as humanely as possible. Then I stood and watched as he proceeded with the skinning and cleaning process. Because both my parents had known hunger and respect for nature, he was rather cautious in his method, carefully hanging and cleaning well, cutting perhaps amateurishly, but with care. Some of the cuts were wrapped to be taken to a friend's smokehouse. Some were salted. The gut regions were cleaned well and dipped in prepared salt and vinegar solutions and washed again, so they could be used to make sausage. Everything was done with the focused energy like an artisan crafter might put into an ornate grand ice sculpture.

As a child, the meat from this tasted wonderful. Everything was done with the old fashioned concerns of selecting the feed, caring, maintaining cleanliness, then selecting only enough to fill one freezer for the family. The other animals were traded or kept for breeding next season. Nothing was wasted --- as the bones were cooked in stews, then given to the dogs, or crushed and put back into soil to fertilize.

He did the same with poultry and beef much of my childhood. Even milk was from local dairies, and all types of fish from neighbors and friends who'd fish.

I stopped eating meats regularly sometime ago, and almost all of the times remain vegetarian now. When I stopped eating meats, it never seemed to taste the same, or there is something missing in the meats -- like a distasteful energy is interfering with receiving the energy from the food.

Sadly, a recent documentary film on HBO shed light on the new world of food. (www.hbo.com/docs/programs/deathfactoryfarm/index.html)

The animals appear diseased in body and spirit. Their eyes showed the emptiness of disdain for their circumstance, and a longing for what might be. In the hierarchy of nature, animals are quite aware of the food chain and expect to eat and survive or be eaten. It is not their way to not understand the possibility of their purpose, as their connection to nature and the universe is more their state of being than ours. But their destiny, to feel the energy of life and the feel of soil between their hooves, or let soft rain fall on their open mouths while running on pastures --- will not be theirs as we capture their spirits in the confining pens in which they cannot turn and then beat them when they beg to know the sun.

These are the fodder that are handled roughly and kicked before they are weighed on scales to determine their worth in goal. In this instance, the humans corralling the pigs have only malice on their faces, as they only realize the physical commodity of the livestock. The under weights and the ill ones are killed off and thrown about carelessly into open graves as useless carcasses. The handlers do not even think them worth stock for fertilizer or for animal feed. They have no respect or connection to what nature or the universe gifts them for their survival. The livestock is merely a nuisance required in their daily routine and nothing more.

When viewing the brutality of the nonhuman character that emerges with such a blind and unfocused need to exhibit a useless power over the most helplessly crippled creatures, I could only feel pity for the dead soul that betrays the movement of the body exterior. The dark spirit explodes a shallow but destructive force of negative disease so great that nature is divided by unseen barriers--- breaking the very foundations of life. I ask myself then, what reason came by our ancestors as to create a proverb that ‘we are what we eat’. Does this mean we can be diseased not only in body but in spirit as well?

I cannot but help recall the fables and stories of the rituals of the primitive cultures that would perform ceremony to celebrate and give thanks to the life of every plant and animal that would bring us nourishment. A successful hunt as natural law allowed would insure survival of all the species if within the symbiosis boundaries. We would not be able to always hunt down the most dominant creature--- usually capturing a more recessive (or most unlucky) trait animal as the meal. Yet, the fighting spirit of the animal was honored, and the carcass would insure nourishment to the family for strength to continue in new generations. As we grew strong, so did the animals around us, as we adapted to each other’s strengths and survival skills. We evolved as the universe intended us to.

In this ‘new world’ of mass production of food that is stabilized and respect forgotten, when do we reconnect to nature? Where is the sanctity of the parallel evolutions of different species? Are we so conceited that we have removed nature’s bounty and replaced it with a slow and self-destructive disease?

We are what we eat. Clarity of goals and achievements come with choice of actions. And we still have free-will. Maybe it’s time to reconnect with natural order.

Are we at the rubicon yet?

originally written 2007

I had a perfectly good day running, cross-training, yoga & meditation yesterday – then I went to a large grocery store. Perhaps it was doing the yoga just prior to – but these thoughts crept through while attempting to navigate the normal grocery chores....

Recently changes in budgeting tactics, coupons and lists were in hand. Of course, the usual – BOGO deals, ‘spend X amount and get this for free’ deals. Some were advantageous; some were just plain over the top (don’t have enough pantry space anyway!) As I went against the principles of a time-constrained convenience store society (ie: took my time!) to look up and down the aisles slowly – I painfully reminded myself of all of those little marketing tricks (‘BRAND on SALE! BUY NOW’, ‘BRAND X BETTER THAN BRAND Y BETTER THAN GENERIC’) --- but having been an industry professional, I had already learned that sometimes – these could be designed misnomers merely for the sake of that extra buck from the consumer. However, it certainly has created a lovely multi-choice mega-billion (trillion??) industry for marketing, grocery store shelf space fees, advertising, legal teams, commercial construction (hey, the stores are bigger than ever!), packaging, and of course shipping and transport. Looking at the large picture – my mind got littered with a bunch of Carlin-esque questions (no insults to anyone intended!):

1. Is food really food (beneficial to us) by the time we open the package?

2. Who really is responsible for the energy crises – and why are average consumers the ones forced to pay higher pump prices?

3. With the number of ‘mega-stores’ on every block – were they built to actually increase revenue or to do ‘tricky-dick’ accounting (think Enron) – and pump up actual ‘demand’ numbers for production over the last 20 years (hey—I don’t remember too many mega-stores before the great WalMart/ Kmart expansion wars. Then everyone else did the same thing.)

4. Supposedly, point #3 was to increase efficiency. Unfortunately, I don’t seem to find efficiency when I am stuck in traffic for hours just to get to one particular store a few miles away stuck in between the other mega-store complexes between the new traffic lights and patterns that were built after eminent domain was used to command previous land-owner homes to be turned over because the mega-stores claimed the local population demanded the road…….

5. BTW – did point #3 save transportation energy fees? I didn’t quite realize that tractor trailers used less gas when stuck in traffic.

6. Oh yeah—if the actual demand was so high, why do we have sites like “Over-stock.com”?

7. I look down the aisles and wonder how many garbage dump trucks will it take to remove the non-recyclable packaging trash afterwards --- and I can’t even begin to imagine the size of the dump site, or the amount of untraceable toxins released into the atmosphere at incinerator sites. How much does it cost me to recycle all that stuff anyway?

8. Getting back to food – How many children really know what the ‘original’ ingredients of that package food item looked like? For that matter – how many adults?

9. The new ‘organic/green’ packaged goods kick. Okay- they are trying. But again—inside the industry, there seems to be a joke about how to ‘twist’ the definition of organic, and sell the idea to consumers that authentic organic is impossible (which is true for mass quantity sales.) Also, within the industry – retailers like WalMart have created new ‘acceptable’ limits for declaring what really is organic by utilizing loop holes. Oh yeah—to make sustainable shelf-stable organic goods, most of the time, the packaging has to be altered to force those conditions. Oops – there goes the ‘green’ message again. (there are a few small studies working to remedy this, but it might be a few years away)

10. Hey—I am VERY GLAD that creative types have jobs due to this over-excessive Bacchus celebrating Roman life-style. Just think of all those silly jingles, pop songs picked up for major ads, elevator and background music in the stores, photography for ads, models and actors who are paid endorsees, books and essays about this stuff --- and comedians like Carlin! It’s made their jobs MUCH easier – there is SO MUCH material!

11. Recently voted one of the world’s worst products ever due to marketing--- Dasani water by Coca-Cola. The judges said that marketing over-priced water from ordinary tap sources with ordinary purification methods to multiple global locations was simply bad, advantageous and embarrassing business. Yeah, I think I could go with that.

12. I think I could become obese just by taste-testing every sample promotion product pushed down my throat if I went grocery shopping every day. But then again… I wouldn’t have to buy groceries at all…

13. So how long before we actually hire individual packaging experts for ourselves? We have plastic surgeons, cosmetic and apparel consultants, hair-dressers, image consultants—why not just create a new industry for ‘packaging people’—(it worked for water and silly putty). Then again – maybe that’s the secret to Posh and Paris’s material success!!!

14. How much gas did I actually end up using for the 3 mile slow, stop and start traffic?


15. This mega-consumerism thing reminds me of the old ads for Texas – “bigger is better” --- a reflection of the last few years of government?

16. If we did clear out all of these pseudo-warehouses (hey, those mega-stores have replaced the previous local warehouses, after all, and we only have selective ‘distribution centers’ now) – even with the ‘minimal’ nutrition value some of these items have – would there be enough to feed every hungry person on the planet?

17. What is going to happen to the EXPIRED items (in store or in homes)?

18. Ok- I’ve had enough rant thoughts. I am grateful and appreciative for all the creative choices available, just a bit overwhelmed. Now, did I actually buy what I came in for?