In the 1973 movie Soylent Green, Charlton Heston asks Edward G Robinson, “Why don’t you eat something?”
Robinson replies, “I’m not hungry enough yet. Tasteless. Odorless crud. You don’t know any better. You know, when I was a kid…food was food.”
Is food still food? What do you think?
Actors Edward G. Robinson and Charlton Heston in a scene from the movie 'Soylent Green', 1973. (Photo by Stanley Bielecki Movie Collection/Getty Images)
Food has been altered forever, it seems, but it's still possible to find wonderful quality and "real" food if we're only willing to look. I just finished eating a plate of yummy tofu sauteed with salt and pepper. I've just come out of a bone graft surgery and I cannot eat or drink too many things. At Sogo Tofu right by my home we can buy fresh tofu. Now I don't do this often enough, I realized. Hey, how long will it keep in the fridge, I asked the lady who runs the place. Eat it today, she said. That's really all it is, I guess. Find a good place where you trust the source and try as much as possible to cook daily and eat as fresh as possible. When I was growing up in India in the 60s and 70s we did that. We didn't even have a refrigerator until the mid-70s. That too made all the difference in how we chose to cook and eat. Great question, Kate:-)
I agree...fresh is best and buy only what is needed. My small multi-generational family and many friends are committed to supporting our local farmers and farmers markets. I have a seasonal garden (summer and fall harvests) and my climate is as such that with a few alterations I can expand to winter gardening and have something homegrown pretty much year round. I've done it before and can once again. I continue to feel there is nothing more important than healthy soil, and bees and other beneficial pollinators. Without them I fear for us all.
Food hasn't been food for a long time now. Everything is filled with chemicals and "fillers" these days. I prefer to eat real, whole foods, but it's hard. So many things are tasteless. Take strawberries. They sit, large and bright red, in the grocery stores, looking delicious. But they have no taste, probably picked green and exposed to gas to "ripen." When I was a child, we'd pick wild strawberries that were tiny, but bursting with flavor.
And part of that is that experience of picking those berries. It greatly saddens me when a kid will say that a potato or milk come from the grocery store and may not know that a potato is grown in the ground, and milk comes from a cow...or goat...
Yes. Modern life is robbing kids of so many wonderful experiences. When I think of picking those strawberries in June, or blueberries, raspberries or gooseberries in August, I still feel the sun beaming down on me. I still hear the birds calling to each other, and the wind in the trees. My two brothers and I would each have a can on a string around our necks and would pick with two hands and put them in the can. We MIGHT bring home enough to have strawberries and cream for dessert, or a blueberry pie, but we'd more likely come home with a few berries in our cans and a lot of them in our tummies.
When I lived and worked out on a u-pick blueberry farm in the mid 90's, I used to jokingly tell parents that their kids would be weighed before and after picking in the fields!
There is a meal replacement product on the market called Soylent. It’s soy-based. I think at this point they’ve been informed about three thousand times that their name is pretty hilarious. That said, I know folks who use it when they are just not able to eat due to debilitating trauma. In another scenario, some folks can’t afford the time or the money to buy organic, healthy, local, etc. It’s a both a long and short term issue for people, and it intersects with issues of food security, poverty, race and class, as well as mental and physical wellness. I believe Sustenance is what you can sustain. We all have different levels of that, at different times in our lives. What might seem like garbage or convenience food is, for some folks, what they can get.
Well said and very true, Lesa, about what we need at different times of our life. My concern also includes factory farms, single crops that could be wiped out because of climate change, the collapse of global bee population, of course lack of flavor, etc. (Super hilarious about Soylent, too.)
Hi Kate! Off the topic but Soylent Green made SUCH an impression on me and my sisters when it came out. It still comes up occasionally as one of our favorite "horror" movies for teens, eeew!
As the computer programmers like to say, garbage in, garbage out. It all depends on what you put into your cooking. I buy the best I can for what I’m making and add love. Always comes out excellent, except for when it doesn’t and then it’s still a lesson learned.
There are so many 'products' masquerading as real food. A few years back (over on my old blog) I posted about cherry pie filling only needing to be 25% cherries by weight. Is this pie filling...or product? https://artofthepie.com/this-is-not-cherry-pie/
Food has been altered forever, it seems, but it's still possible to find wonderful quality and "real" food if we're only willing to look. I just finished eating a plate of yummy tofu sauteed with salt and pepper. I've just come out of a bone graft surgery and I cannot eat or drink too many things. At Sogo Tofu right by my home we can buy fresh tofu. Now I don't do this often enough, I realized. Hey, how long will it keep in the fridge, I asked the lady who runs the place. Eat it today, she said. That's really all it is, I guess. Find a good place where you trust the source and try as much as possible to cook daily and eat as fresh as possible. When I was growing up in India in the 60s and 70s we did that. We didn't even have a refrigerator until the mid-70s. That too made all the difference in how we chose to cook and eat. Great question, Kate:-)
I agree...fresh is best and buy only what is needed. My small multi-generational family and many friends are committed to supporting our local farmers and farmers markets. I have a seasonal garden (summer and fall harvests) and my climate is as such that with a few alterations I can expand to winter gardening and have something homegrown pretty much year round. I've done it before and can once again. I continue to feel there is nothing more important than healthy soil, and bees and other beneficial pollinators. Without them I fear for us all.
May your healing be swift and complete, Kalpana.
Thank you so much, Kate😀! Yes, I agree. Waiting for the produce in my garden!!!!
Food hasn't been food for a long time now. Everything is filled with chemicals and "fillers" these days. I prefer to eat real, whole foods, but it's hard. So many things are tasteless. Take strawberries. They sit, large and bright red, in the grocery stores, looking delicious. But they have no taste, probably picked green and exposed to gas to "ripen." When I was a child, we'd pick wild strawberries that were tiny, but bursting with flavor.
And part of that is that experience of picking those berries. It greatly saddens me when a kid will say that a potato or milk come from the grocery store and may not know that a potato is grown in the ground, and milk comes from a cow...or goat...
Yes. Modern life is robbing kids of so many wonderful experiences. When I think of picking those strawberries in June, or blueberries, raspberries or gooseberries in August, I still feel the sun beaming down on me. I still hear the birds calling to each other, and the wind in the trees. My two brothers and I would each have a can on a string around our necks and would pick with two hands and put them in the can. We MIGHT bring home enough to have strawberries and cream for dessert, or a blueberry pie, but we'd more likely come home with a few berries in our cans and a lot of them in our tummies.
When I lived and worked out on a u-pick blueberry farm in the mid 90's, I used to jokingly tell parents that their kids would be weighed before and after picking in the fields!
But surely there was enough evidence on their faces to warrant a guilty plea. :D
There is a meal replacement product on the market called Soylent. It’s soy-based. I think at this point they’ve been informed about three thousand times that their name is pretty hilarious. That said, I know folks who use it when they are just not able to eat due to debilitating trauma. In another scenario, some folks can’t afford the time or the money to buy organic, healthy, local, etc. It’s a both a long and short term issue for people, and it intersects with issues of food security, poverty, race and class, as well as mental and physical wellness. I believe Sustenance is what you can sustain. We all have different levels of that, at different times in our lives. What might seem like garbage or convenience food is, for some folks, what they can get.
Well said and very true, Lesa, about what we need at different times of our life. My concern also includes factory farms, single crops that could be wiped out because of climate change, the collapse of global bee population, of course lack of flavor, etc. (Super hilarious about Soylent, too.)
Hi Kate! Off the topic but Soylent Green made SUCH an impression on me and my sisters when it came out. It still comes up occasionally as one of our favorite "horror" movies for teens, eeew!
Hi Theresa! It's classic! Thanks for checking in.
As the computer programmers like to say, garbage in, garbage out. It all depends on what you put into your cooking. I buy the best I can for what I’m making and add love. Always comes out excellent, except for when it doesn’t and then it’s still a lesson learned.
So true, Jack. Flavor is key! Manufactured garbage is not ok with me. I try my best to buy seasonally, organically, and locally.
Yes!
There are so many 'products' masquerading as real food. A few years back (over on my old blog) I posted about cherry pie filling only needing to be 25% cherries by weight. Is this pie filling...or product? https://artofthepie.com/this-is-not-cherry-pie/