Wednesday, February 29, 2012

On food (TED)

By now you should know I was born and raised in Ol' Europe... Eastern Europe... Romania, to be very precise. In a small town where everyone knew everyone. Let me tell you - there are huge disadvantages to that... but there are a few advantages too. One: being a sub-urban community, we still had houses and gardens, with people growing their own food and raising their own meat. It was a world of old-trading: I give you that, you give me some fresh milk and so on... I didn't realize what a huge advantage that has been until recently.

Moving to Canada almost 15 years ago I was completely taken by surprise by the sheer number of people with allergies (a very good friend of mine has allergies to sesame, and many have children with allergies to pretty much every conceivable food). I just couldn't understand why - what could be the big difference between Europe (all of it) and North-America? Some said it's the pollution. I didn't buy that - if you've ever lived in Bucharest or Campina you'd understand what pollution is... the smog here won't really compare to the cement dust one breathes in every single moment of their live. The Western Europe is as industrialized as North-America, and the population density is much-much higher than anywhere in North-America. No, cannot be pollution.

Slowly, but surely - I started to learn: a bit here, a bit there, until I had the bigger picture.

This video will explain that picture much better than I can. Enough to say that since our son was born I dream of getting our farm where I could grow everything we eat, and raise a cow and our own chickens... it hasn't happened yet, but I haven't lost my hope!

Watch - and believe... then start making changes - we are talking our children's future here! We, as responsible adults and parents, must take steps to ensure we get our children back on healthy food. We have a voice and a will - we should use both wisely.

4 comments:

  1. This is really something, Alicia. Thanks for sharing. I'll tweet and FB it right now. We have started buying from the local farmers... and it is expensive and what about the food we eat from the box and cans? That scares me. True, so many of my near and dear friends are going through cancer. It is remarkable just in a couple of years! Dita.

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    1. Thanks, Dita - when I started to learn about all this I was quite horrified... I used to like grocery shopping, now I hate it: I read every single ingredient, the country of origin; what used to take me 20 minutes can now be easily a 90 minutes adventure. We buy mostly fresh veggies and fruits and make almost everything from scratch :)

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  2. Thanks for sharing. I hadn't made the connection between increased food allergies and the GMO foods.

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    1. Hi Don - GMO foods aren't all bad, but the ones we use the most (like corn and soy) have been modified with pesticides. It's OK to modify with a same-species elements (that's what our ancestors did naturally, when mixing 2 species of apples, or wheat, for examples). But to add in the DNA of the corn some pesticides - I can't imagine how that would be good for our health! The problem is not only in our food - the problem gets deeper than that: we feed our livestock the GMOs then we eat their milk and meat and eggs and cheese and...

      Thanks for stopping by.

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