Wednesday, February 26, 2014 (DF) ARE YOU ACQUAINTED WITH YOUR FOOD?

Do you know what you eat?  This may sound like a silly question, but I am totally serious.  This is not a question of whether you know the difference between beans and broccoli.  Though there is the possibility of eating bacon or sausage that tastes like pork but is really turkey, or eating prepared foods with hidden additives, most people have a general idea of what they are eating.  More accurately, this is a question of whether or not you are actually acquainted with the food you eat, and if so, just how closely acquainted.  I constantly reading labels on food packaging in the interest of a better awareness of what is really in the foods we eat.  The awareness we gain allows us to make better decisions where food additives are concerned, hopefully leading to better health.  With this in mind, consider that yesterday, I ate some really nice peanut butter with a very short ingredient list (peanuts and salt).  In a sense, I know this food.  I know what it is, what it is made of and that it tastes great.  As a bonus, I also know that it is not supposed to have any additives.  What I do not Know, since I didn't grow the peanuts, is what kind of soil the peanuts grew in, what fertilizers and/or insecticides were used, or how they were processed.  In short, I know something of this food but I am in no way acquainted with it.
By contrast, the eggs in my refrigerator came from my own chickens.  I know what these chickens eat, how healthy they are and some of them even hatched from eggs laid by my own chickens and hatched in my incubator.  I also know when the eggs were laid and which hen laid each of them.  In short, I not only know this food, I am closely acquainted with it.  This also goes for things like the fried chicken and okra I ate on New Years day.  The chicken was raised here on the farm, hatched from an egg laid by my hen, raised to adulthood and prepared for cooking.  I handled the whole process here.  The okra grew on Anna's farm where she worked up the soil, planted the seeds, watered the plants, picked the pods then cut prepared and froze them for our use.  As you can see, we were very well acquainted with that meal and enjoyed it all the more for that acquaintance.
I will continue to read labels, but more importantly, I will continue to be fully acquainted with more and more of my food until, eventually, I may not have to read labels at all.  With all the food additives and poor processing practices in the industry today, I strongly encourage you to consider getting better acquainted with your own food.