Warning: this post may be harmful or fatal to naïve & overly patriotic American flag wavers…
This is sort of a follow-up to a post just over a month ago: It’s The Crap; Just Eat Real Food. In large part that post was about the abysmal state of “school lunches” in the USA — especially in comparison to the far higher quality exhibited in pretty much every other country on the face of the Earth. That’s right: America sucks. When it comes to food, most Americans are treating their kids like shit.
When I see how kids are eating in general in America now, I’m satisfied to declare that I’m becoming increasingly embarrassed to even refer to myself as one. I’d be perfectly happy to see the 200 & somthing-yr-old project go right down the shitter for good, given that such loathsome atrocities have been perpetuated for so long. But you can’t do that because these are kids we’re talking about and so, I’m all for beating adults into submission on this topic — with truncheons, if necessary. And if you think that’s extreme then realize that what we’re talking about here is a pernicious form of abuse — malnourishment — carried out over roughly two decades — and increasingly less — until the kids become adults and then go perpetuate the same sort of abuse on their own children because the food culture in this country, particularly for kids, has been driven down to the lowest depths of mediocrity and depravity of anyplace on the face of the planet. Even dirty little third-world shitholes have a better food culture than America, now. I know, because I’ve had fabulous street vendor meals in many of them, from Djibouti to remote Islands in the Philippines without even the benefit of electricity. Poor people care about their food because getting it requires so great a proportion of their time and income. They care, and it is precisely this high time & effort value in food that forms the basis of healthful and wholesome food cultures around the world in the first place. How much time & effort goes into a trip to McDonald’s? Hell, we can’t even be bothered with taking the time to go in and sit down, anymore.
When I now hear tripe about how America is “the greatest country on Earth,” I wanna puke. It’s real simple: the Greatest Country on Earth would be absolutely the last place on Earth you would find its most precious members of society — its children — eating garbage, getting obese to the rate of 20%, now; and developing diabetes and fatty liver disease at ages unprecedented in all of human history. A quote from that post linked above.
What impressed me most of all about the French school lunch was not just the deliciousness of the food, but that everything about it — the brightly decorated lunchrooms, the gorgeous kitchens, the lunch moms, the chefs — sent such a deep message of caring. To my ears it fairly screamed, “We care about and love our children. They are us, after all, and we want them to eat well and be nourished.”
Unfortunately, that is about the last message American school lunch sends to our children. Instead, we’re saying, “We have to feed you something; it’s gotta be cheap, and we don’t really care about it or you.”
So stop with that “greatest country” BULLSHIT! until the house is in order, by which I mean a general public default on the most basic and fundamental responsibility an animal ever has in its entire life: proper care, nourishment and training of offspring until they are competently self-sufficient.
What is more fundamental than that? What does it say about a country that’s the richest in the world, yet has the world’s most obese and unhealthy children? Greatest country? You’re deluded, then. It’s not even close. How can it be, with such a deeply damaged culture of basic food, nutrition, health?
Americans: Here’s what Real Food looks like, you despicable, uncaring, ignorant fools; you child molesters. Get off your fat, lazy, miserable asses; go shopping, and for a change, instead of filling your cart with pop-tarts, hot pockets, fruit loops, frozen pizzas, ice cream, candy, and sugar drinks, fill it with Real Food. Then dust off that cookbook you never even cracked open and get busy.
You’re too tired you say? Well try Real Food. It’s amazing what it’ll do for energy. Processed garbage is a vicious circle. Get off, and get your kids off it too.
Thankfully there seems to be a Food Revolution underway. And I’m going to stay entirely off the political aspects of this because, you know what? I don’t give a damn. It’s the food culture that’s totally fucked. It’s not about whose pockets are being picked to pay for it, really. If we had a food culture that existed as it did when my grandparents, parents, and I were growing up, this wouldn’t even be an issue. People would simply eat well whether they bought it at school, it was a “free lunch,” or whether they brought it from home. If food and its quality and wholsemeness were essential, inviolable concerns the money would take care of itself, rest assured.
Part of the previous post I linked to above was about the mysterious Mrs. Q, the school teacher documenting her year of torture eating school lunches. Well, she has now grabbed the attention of Good Morning America, as well as Jamie Oliver and others.
But not so fast… Evil lurks in the shadows. Yes, I’m talking about the dual menace to society: Margot Wootan and the Center for “Science” in the Public “Interest” (CSPI).
…but what’s perhaps most striking is what the meals look and taste like – and the rogues’ gallery of components (fries, canned green beans, cling peaches in heavy syrup) that are missing.
Revolution shuns high-fructose corn syrup, artificial colors and flavors, trans fats and deep-frying. Its meats and milk are hormone- and antibiotic-free, and many of its ingredients are organic and locally sourced. […]
Margo Wootan, nutrition policy director for the Center for Science in the Public Interest, says she’s slightly concerned with Revolution’s insistence on natural, local ingredients.
“You can have full-fat cheese from a local farmer, and it’s still going to clog your arteries and give you heart disease,” she says. “Having the food be natural is nice, but a bigger threat to children’s health is making sure that there’s not too much salt and not too much saturated fat.”
…[tapping fingers on desk]…
So I know this post is largely preaching to the choir because all you great readers are part of the revolution to restore a rational, caring Food Culture in America we can once again be proud of. So get out there and talk and celebrate and promote Real Food.
