Has Mediocre Become the New Normal?

This doesn’t hap­pen in my lost. Even if every­body has bad results, the teacher still grades fairly.

It is not nor­mal to accept lower qual­ity if there is a choice. Most Americans are pow­er­less to access a bet­ter qual­ity prod­uct because they have become dis­con­nected from the sources of their food. They have not been taught how to grow any­thing them­selves (or believe they can­not grow food), they do not know any­one who grows- not even a good back­yard gardener- who could share with them- and they have become per­suaded that the gro­cery store is the only option. The mar­gins on food are so slim, and pro­duce is not a very prof­itable depart­ment in many gro­ceries. Driven by profit and the require­ment that food be inex­pen­sive, it is no won­der that gro­cery chains offer such won­der­ful selec­tions of well pre­served, clev­erly pack­aged junk food and very lim­ited selec­tions of very stan­dard pro­duce. To com­pound the prob­lem, most Americans are so over sched­uled, espe­cially those with chil­dren and jobs, that there is no time to shop or to cook (and that assumes you know how to cook). How many children’s sports activ­i­ties do you know about that each take place at din­ner time! The peo­ple I know who are actu­ally eat­ing good food have made spe­cial arrange­ments and have shown a real com­mit­ment to shop­ping for, buy­ing and cook­ing real foods- not to attend­ing children’s sport­ing events or cham­ber of com­merce mix­ers. In addi­tion they have rearranged their per­sonal bud­gets to spend more money on food- not clothes, cars or hair cuts. I am try­ing not to be judg­men­tal, but as Americans our soci­etal pri­or­i­ties are out of line with the things that are actu­ally impor­tant. Everyone eats- no pos­ses­sion is more valu­able than per­sonal health. Instead of teach­ing young girls how to play soc­cer couldn’t young girls (and boys) be learn­ing how to cut up onions and make rice and mac­a­roni that does not come with weird orange pow­der? I could go on, but I will add one more note and you may reply if this is of inter­est. My hus­band and I are organic farm­ers, on a small farm in East Tennessee. Our pri­mary prod­uct is organic pas­tured eggs, and we also grow pro­duce, raise goats and pigs and have a child. We have invested untold hours of our per­sonal time, most of our retire­ment and numer­ous other per­sonal resources into this enter­prise. Of course we have yet to make a dime. Our com­mit­ment to this path is stronger as we have researched more into our food sys­tem. Our per­sonal com­mit­ment to feed our child some­thing other than chicken fin­gers is stronger than ever, but the path seems less than clear in the face of the numer­ous reg­u­la­tory and finan­cial obsta­cles. We know there are other like minded folks out there and make con­nec­tions from time to time. We sup­port your effort and any oth­ers that help strengthen the con­nec­tions to make a change. What can we do to help? Elizabeth, John and Emma Rogersville, TN”No Nation is health­ier than its chil­dren, or more pros­per­ous than its farm­ers” Harry Truman

Missouri, my home state, was added to the ‘fat­test 12 states in the U.S.’ cat­e­gory. Sad and true, you need only look around at the obese gen­eral pub­lic for ver­i­fi­ca­tion. At my house 3 out of 4 have adopted healthy eat­ing prac­tices, cou­pled with daily exer­cise. People argue that liv­ing this lifestyle costs more, and is too incon­ve­nient to prac­tice. As we know, you reap what you sew when you feed your body junk. The jury is in, but the vast major­ity of peo­ple are liv­ing a lie. Mainstream com­mer­cial food is pre­sented as legit­i­mate nutri­tion, and sadly, no one takes the time to under­stand that it isn’t. Part of the prob­lem is the ever con­flict­ing reports of what is good and bad to eat. This has caused many to just stop lis­ten­ing, and sim­ply eat what­ever tastes good. People treat their elec­tronic hand held devices with more care than their own bod­ies… go fig­ure. There will never be a large scale flight to under­stand­ing this epi­demic because the food indus­try and med­i­cine are too inter­wo­ven in media and pol­i­tics to allow peo­ple to know the truth. Commercially grown and processed food is prof­itable, so your health be damned. People will just mud­dle along, feel­ing sub-par and tak­ing pre­scrip­tion med­i­cine to feel bet­ter until they expire, most never really know­ing a healthy qual­ity life. Evan