Very few of us, in the past fifty years, have had the privilege of growing up with the advantage of eating freshly grown produce from the family garden. Our food comes from the local grocery store in cans, boxes, plastic bottles, and Styrofoam packaging. More and more produce now comes pre-bagged so that the consumer cannot see or feel the ripeness or quality of what’s inside. If we are so inclined, we can read the labels on the packaging to find out ingredients, expiration dates, percent of protein and vitamins, as well as information about the manufacturer. Rarely do we inquire as to the means by which the product was grown, harvested, and prepared for sale. Most of us have far too many other things to think about.
Prior to industrialization, the getting of food was a major concern for most people. We are no different than other species in that respect. We all need food to survive. What has passed as food; however, has become a serious question for those concerned about their health. The food industry combined with the medical establishments and the pharmaceutical companies have managed to create a self-serving condition, which for them, has become extremely lucrative. They produce non-foods laced with a multitude of mysterious and dangerous chemicals. Those people who eat these foods become ill with still more mysterious illnesses. Allergies are a big one. My ex-husband had eaten a cantaloupe one day while he was at work and proceeded to enter into anaphylactic shock. It was determined by the medical staff and later related to me by him, that he had an allergy to cantaloupe – that allergies often appeared later in life out of the blue.
I cannot help wondering if people suffered from allergies one hundred or two hundred years ago. Certainly, some were sensitive to springtime pollen and had bouts of hay fever; but the increase in allergies and those so called late-onset allergies have nothing to do with the food that a person is eating. Unless we purchase or grow certified organic, our produce is consistently doused with chemicals before it ever reaches our table. These herbicides, pesticides, fungicides, and high nitrogen chemically based fertilizers are found in the foods we consume. There are probably several in one food, interacting with other chemicals and diminishing the available nutrition, which in most instances, is mostly destroyed by the time it enters our digestive system. My husband did not question what he was told. He believed from that point forward that he was allergic to cantaloupe. It is far more likely; however, that what his body had actually reacted to, was whatever the cantaloupe had been sprayed with prior to his consuming it. I did not eat bananas for several years because I would get a strange soreness in my mouth whenever I ate them. Then someone told me about the stuff that is sprayed on bananas, so I began buying only organic ones. Not surprisingly, I no longer get sores in my mouth. Many people are convinced that they have allergies. They take drugs continually to alleviate symptoms. They are told that they should not have pets because they are allergic to the pet dander. Foods and allergies are not the enemy. It is the chemicals in our foods and all around us – the hidden enemy – that we must fear.
Our world was created in a harmonious way that allowed for the survival of all species (not necessarily individuals). I do not believe that allergies to the things in our environment existed before man began to tamper with that harmony. Human beings decided that they were smarter than their own creator and so far, they have made an abominable mess of things. How long will the general public continue to pull the wool over their eyes, believing only what the large corporate interests would have them believe?
