Parades of Information and Misinformation!

I just finished reading yet another article about foods to stay away from. The parade of information or misinformation is practically a daily event. At this point in time it’s clear to me that I should be dead, and those that came before me, i.e., my mother, grandmother, grandfather, and great grandmother should have died long before their time. They ate cheese daily, drank lots of wine, had sausage at least once a week and or meatballs, and heavy doses of spaghetti. Their diet also included lots of veggies and fruits, which might have helped cancel out the aforementioned foods, many of which are considered to be unfit for human consumption. They all lived into their nineties or beyond despite their dietary choices. We could use the excuse that the food they ate was less contaminated, but I recall going with my grandmother to buy a chicken from a woman who raised them and I was scared out of my mind. I felt as if I had entered “hell for hens”! I did not see one sanitary measure in place. In fact I doubt that the owner bathed but once a year, if that. She resembled one of the witches in Macbeth with her long scraggly hair and missing teeth. I doubt if any government official had ever seen the inside of her establishment. If they had they would have put her and her chickens on a list for the ten most wanted food terrorists. In fact I would have to say that almost every store we went into lacked any regulatory process. In spite of it all most individuals I grew up with thrived. I don’t remember any discussions during dinner about how we shouldn’t be eating certain foods, nor did I hear whether they were going to extend life, repair cells, improve hearing or give us laser vision. I do remember having a lot of fun talking about crazy relatives or neighbors, who stopped by often, and feeling incredibly blessed to be eating my grandmothers cooking. You see in “those days” families lived together whether you liked it or not. I think it’s great to have progressed to a place where we are able to have more information about what we eat and how it effects us. However, what we all need more of is taking the time to eat and to enjoy what we’re eating. It’s also much more fun and a lot healthier to share our food with those we care about.  It might just be that sausage, meatballs and cheese are not what’s killing us, but the fact that we text and e-mail while we’re eating them.