The Food My Mama Fed Me

When I was a little girl, I expressed to my mother that I wanted a puppy. I believed that I demonstrated my maturity and responsibility through completing my chores and obtaining a part-time job at the local hair salon. I was 11 years-old. My mother thought that our yard was too small to accommodate an animal and although I certainly had proved a level of dependability, I would most likely become bored with the task of caring for a pet and she would be left doing all of the work. She opted, instead, for a garden. I took for granted that we could easily access fresh vegetables and herbs (without the use of dangerous pesticides)--just as I took for granted that the Jewish deli down the street provided fresh kosher meat. My brother and I even contributed to the vegetation by using a technique I learned in science class on a potato. We grew a watermelon patch on the side of our garage that was not approved by my mother and eventually destroyed by neighborhood kids. Years later, I learned that farming was in our blood as our great grandfather, along with some of his cousins, owned several acres of land in Arkansas. That was before large corporations produced 98 percent of all poultry in the United States and a mere two percent of farms produced 50 percent of all agricultural products in the country.

According to “The Nontoxic Baby,” a book written as a guide for parents in the 90’s, “over one half of all the food on grocery store shelves has only appeared within the last decade.” At the time the book was written, Nancy Sokol Green estimated that “in another 10 years, that number is predicted to be as high as 80%.” Much of the food research now is conducted by the corporations who produce the food through their “committees.” The regulations that existed to protect us from toxic chemicals have been cancelled or severely weakened and in the early 80’s, according to Green, “budgets of several federal environmental and consumer protection regulatory agencies were cut by millions ...” It should then be no surprise that we received toxic toys from China since, according to our own government’s documents, the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) has “suffered the deepest cuts to its budget and staff of any health and safety agency.”

This is the world my son will grow up in. And I am forced to make choices everyday based on the choices that our government has refused to make. It occurred to me recently, this is another way in which the poor and the wealthy will be separated. It will not just be more acreage and a better car that separates the classes but the consumption of non-organic food, containing some of the thousands of new chemicals introduced each year that are connected to the significant increase in male infertility, asthma, hyperactivity, recurrent ear infections, moodiness, depression, leukemia and several forms of cancer or the more expensive organic food that we can only hope is much safer. These children who suffer the diseases resulting from toxin exposure will probably have less access to healthcare (I’m assuming that if you can’t pay for organic food you probably don’t have comprehensive healthcare coverage). We live under a government that is directed by corporate interests rather than the interest of the people it is formed to protect. And when representatives do stand up to protect us, they are deemed radical or leftist.

So, for the mom who reads too much, watches too much C-Span, listens to too much talk radio and surfs the internet too much, the only choice is browsing the aisles of Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s for the best deals she can find and waiting for the Whole Foods knock-off to open in the neighborhood (a discount organic store chain is coming soon!). What I am really trying to do is give my son the food my mama fed me—it came from a family farm, it wasn’t cross bred with anything, there were no hormones in it, there were not nearly as many chemicals on it, it wasn’t genetically produced. It was rare that it came from a box, a can or a plastic thing (according to John Hopkins Research, “the combination of fat, high heat and plastics releases dioxins into the food and ultimately into the cells of the body. Dioxins are carcinogens and highly toxic to the cells of our bodies ...”) and it was hardly ever microwaved. I hope and pray these small changes I make will be enough to overcome the pollutants my child faces everyday due to poor air quality and the continued use of toxic substances in toys and even in some school structures. In fact, more than anything, it is prayer that will protect my child because it is clear our government has no interest in doing that at all.