Obese Nation

Yesterday I dug up all these lettuces that had become rank and tough and bolted in the heat of late spring. Now we are harvesting those thick succulent black krim tomatoes and all those tiny yellow pear tomatoes and those small orange ones, so tasty. The cucumbers on our table every night are so sweet with the taste of the sun. And we pick the last florets of the broccoli and add some onions that still poke through the tangle of tomato vines. We are still harboring the giant collards, now four feet tall! We are beginning to pick several types of peppers. Our dinner table is a bounty of the earth.

Visiting our local superWalmart, it seems that the shoppers are even more immense than usual, bad health outcomes waiting to happen. So many of the obese shoppers are in the motorized carts they can pick up at the front doors. Very fat kids with small seeming heads walk behind. Their attached carts are full of big loaves of soft white sliced bread, chips in plastic bags, "Great Value" soft white hamburger buns, frozen fried chicken and pizza, frozen hamburger patties all from the same cookie cutter, cheetos, cartons of soda pop, and pet food. Not a fruit or vegetable in sight along the checkout conveyor belt.

This kind of food consumption is a major problem! People do not want to be so fat! People want good health. It is fine for me to wax euphoric about our family garden from which we eat daily. But, how many folks can have the space and the knowledge and the ability to plan ahead for good family nutrition?

One of my first memories was working with my dad in his 'Victory Garden' everyone had after WWII. And ever after, our family grew a large part of our diet, canned and froze a lot.

We have forgotten how to do this. Now, families who have little money for food buy most of their calories in the dollar stores. (sodas, cheetos, slim jims etc.)

Two years ago I organized a school garden in our neighborhood school, and now it is bursting with collards, tomatoes, carrots and peppers. The people who tend this garden (I installed an automatic watering system) really do harvest the vegetables, but they are still somewhat tentative.

I am thinking that in the next garden cycle I could put my best energy to making a really huge community garden! We could have meetings to explain how these vegetables can be cooked, how important it is, and so much cheaper than buying the calories at the dollar store.

Eating well, taking care of your teeth-these are the keys to health. Throw out the candy, never eat anything with more than three ingredients or that your grandmother wouldn't understand. Grow something to eat. And get out of those Walmart carts! Just walk some.

And,of course, we need to have schools be in the forefront! Couldn't we just serve natural vegetables and fruit at schools? Kids are beginning to think that nothing is good if it does not come packaged in cellophane or plastic!

Remember Memorial Day. Our troops endure unimaginable hardships, and one day soon, I hope, they will all be home, and we will need to mark their sacrifice. We'll need to welcome them back, vote for the huge amount of money it will take to rehabilitate the wounded and reintegrate them into our lives. Never forget.