The mere existence of this haven of joyful inebriation has resulted in a still voluminous Crackerman.

Running still feels like a hippo typewriting,  but my education is ongoing . All the additives that were consumed within the last four weeks now hang on my fridge door, bathroom door, all the dressers and garage doors, the neighborhood ones....... 

Since I forced myself to write down food ingredients on paper, I quickly realized that the 17 ingredients in a mindlessly used non dairy coffee creamer would take longer to pencil down than to forget about it.

The same thing happened with a tiny cup of ice cream: It took longer to write down the Frankenstein cabinet of additives than to devour the little bugger.

Other chow like hotdogs cried out to me asking to find  a version closer to nature. Oh, yes, the meat issue: Bummer I couldn’t  abstain for a whole month.

I am glad though, because with eating less meat and better quality ones, I felt better. Obviously all that didn’t help reduce the 30 pounds dangling around my waist by much. 

After paying attention to food additives for a month, I feel deprived though. I feel deprived of real food. 

I believe we need a change in food quality, variety and in promoting real food. 

There is a certain line drawn in the sand  which allows companies to produce food of an inferior quality. This line enables food operations to maximize profits and lower prices.

There is a line not far away, which makes people sick, and the producers of said foods rich at the same time. Those food companies earn profits at the expense of the population. Do we need fillers for hotdogs, chemicals to extend shelf life indefinitely?

Do we need concentration camp meats, have animals eat their own poo and then we eat the animals?

Do we need foods that make us sick ?

Do we need over salted, overly sugary and fatty foods for ourselves and our children at restaurants and in schools? 

Should we and our children have food loaded  with unhealthy ingredients? Should we, as a consequence, be in pain  and take our money to hospitals to spend it on surgery and life sustaining measures, or should we strive to get better quality in our daily food? 

Don’t we have the right not to be taken for fools when we buy foods?

Is it acceptable to have a fraction of the variety in vegetables and fruits we had 50 years ago? 

Shouldn’t there be an effort to reintroduce heirloom plants in the Northern half of the planet?

Shouldn’t there be money to explore the impact of plastic on food and as a consequence, on us?

Shouldn’t it be prohibited to eat bleach and potassium bromate in our daily bread? Shouldn’t it be a NO NO to have cancer causing ingredients in food? 

Shouldn’t lobbyists lobby for the health of people rather than for the sickness of them?

In an age where daily life seems so sophisticated and science is progressing quicker than ever before, we have a wasteland in the variety and quality of foods. Many chefs complain about the lack of taste in vegetables and fruits. Many of my pals did not enjoy a strawberry that bore any resemblance to a flavorful strawberry this year. Same thing happens with apples, pears etc. Great flavor is possible as a newly discovered love for heirloom tomatoes and arugula grows.

Real food should be a human right, but obviously it is not. Just check for yourself and stroll the aisles of your local grocery store, read the labels and ask yourself, is this real food? I do not mean to say we don’t have the right to eat freaky ingredients, but we should at least have a choice not to eat stuff from this FDA website: 

I just think it is about time to speak up and promote real food, because for the longest time now, food advertising screams at us in a language foreign to real food, more related to maximize profit and fast, trashy food.

Oh, and do I eat Oreos sometimes ? Absolutely !