I write about fertility, infertility and its effect on sexuality in one form or another, five days a week. Some days it is easier to get started than other days. I often wonder if what is on my mind is something that you would want to read about, or am I simply standing on my soap box and ranting into the cyber ether. Well perhaps sometimes.....But here is goes again!
This morning I want to talk about the state of food in this country and how we are able to make good food choices in an environment that pretends to support organic and healthy eating but really makes it financially difficult for us to eat closer to the earth on a daily basis.
I am a dedicated "Foodie." I love to eat and I have a wide palate.
Like the rest of us - I have become increasingly concerned about the food that I eat and that I feed my family. And how that food affects my own health and the health of my kids. I have read the Omnivore's Dilemma and In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan.
If you have not yet, I highly recommend that you do, but I warn you in advance that it will forever change how you look at your dinner plate. And just last night I mastered Net Flicks Instant Down Load and watched a documentary called "King Corn" where these two young men set out to understand why when they had their hair analyzed for what was making up their bodies, corn came up as the number one element as a building block of them! Corn was making up their hair!
So we watched these guys grow an acre of corn and learn about how corn is processed and turned into every possible kind of "food product" to keep it abundant and, most important, cheap. By the way, the corn that they grew could not be eaten as corn. It had to be processed into food products!
The imperative for American food production has been all about creating a lot of food and keeping it cheap. And you can understand it, right? We need plenty of food and we want it produced and brought to us as afford ably as possible. But what if that cheaply-produced food is made out of inedible corn that actually sickens the cows we eat (cows in America use the most antibiotics of anyone to help them handle eating the mass produced corn that is not their natural diet. The drugs are mixed in with their corn...yummy huh?), and most of us have only eaten corn fed cows). Corn syrup is used in everything from beer, to bread and canned spaghetti products that so many people eat because it is tasty, cheap and easy. You can find it in cookies and snack products - the list is endless. I was in shock. No wonder these boys were mostly made up from corn! We are consuming industrialized corn in so many forms that we don't even have clue when it is in our food.
And if the cows will eventually die from this diet, what is it doing to us?
I am sure that I could research a ton of articles right now that would tie all of this back to our general wellbeing and our fertility rates specifically. But so can you. It is all there. So what is left for us to do?
Now here comes the financial rub in an economic down turn world - we need to eat closer to the ground - closer to the source of our food in order to keep the processed corn out of our hair. And this is truly possible to do - but it is not cheap or abundant!
As I have become more watchful of the food that goes into my shopping cart (grass fed beef, free from antibiotics; organic milk with no antibiotics), down my shopping list to eggs, butter and cheese. Organic vegetables - and slow food vendors at the green market - I have found that my family of four has a food bill that runs from $300 to $400 dollars a week!
Have you looked at the cost of a farm raised, organic and happy chicken? How about $15 to $20 bucks for the hen that doesn't look like it will make it past one feeding at my house!
Now we know the problem....we need healthy, abundant, and life sustaining food that people can afford to buy! Of course we have a terrible problem with obesity in America. Fast food, which is industrialized and cheap, is what most people can afford. Once again it will only be the rich who will have better health, higher fertility rates, and longer lives because they can afford the grass fed beef and organic spinach that is locally grown.
I don't have the solution. But I want you to know about the problem. Read these books - watch the movie - and become active in the Slow Food Movement.
What you don't know - might very well hurt you.
Pamela Madsen is one of the nation's most outspoken and recognized fertility educators and patient advocates. The Fertility Advocate, Ms. Madsen's Blog has become the must read for all members of the fertility community with hundreds jacking into Ms. Madsen's funny, insightful and provocative posts every day. Ms. Madsen is the Founder of The American Fertility Association, and works with East Coast Fertility as the Director of Public Education. Ms. Madsen is reaching out to women-- and men—to integrate all aspects of the reproductive continuum from sexuality, infertility prevention, protection and treatment into the general health care of all women.