Sam ‘n’ Ella’s Unwelcome Visit

Every now and then I’m struck by something that screams, “SIGN OF THE TIMES!” or “Wo, wo, wo all ye inhabitants of the earth…the second coming is nigh!” Lately it’s all this tainted food. Seriously. What’s up with all of our food being poisonous? Did you ever think it would come to the point where we can’t trust the food that we buy on our supermarket shelves? I’m thinking this is one of the reasons why the Prophets are telling us to have food storage…because sooner rather than later, the food outside of our own homes will no longer be safe to eat. If it’s not spinach, its beef, and if it’s not beef, it’s tomatoes. If it’s not mad cow disease, it’s avian flu. If it’s not salmonella, it’s e.coli. Farmers and distributors are not handling our food properly and it’s causing casualties.

Has this always been the case? Or is it just in the past few decades of adding preservatives, antibiotics, and hormones to our food? I heard recently that milk now contains so many growth hormones that 9 and 10 year old girls are hitting puberty earlier than they were a couple decades ago. What?!? Can that really happen…from giving our babies milk?!? That’s not even the worst of it. Today I read a story on MSN about somebody finding a 7 inch knife-blade baked into the bread of a foot-long sandwich at Subway. Just last week, my brother-in-law Ben found a sticker that had fallen off a package that read “Best if used by 7/12/08” in his Fettuccine Alfredo at the Olive Garden. It had just fallen into the food, and the date was actually the next business day. But still…gross.

We have no idea where our food is coming from most of the time when we buy it. Or if we go out to a restaurant, we have no idea what is happening behind the scenes, in those kitchens. All we know is it showed up on the shelf or our table, and we give it a quick glance to make sure there are no major dents or rotten spots and we move on. But where did it come from? What were the conditions of the farm it was grown at, or who was the worker who actually picked it or who was the cook who actually prepared it? Or what kind of container was it stored in, at what temperature, for how long? I haven’t ever really taken the time to think about these kinds of things until recently. First it was the tomatoes, and it was kind of a bummer to have to go without them on our burgers. However the very next week, we were being told that we would also need to go without the meat on the burger as well. I recently had to bag up 6 pounds of ground beef from my freezer to return to Kroger this past weekend due to their recent recall.

I didn’t have the original packaging, but noticed that the recall had been extended from May until July 1, 2008. That would definitely include my frozen meat. I’m not sure, but I think we may have eaten at least a pound of that meat. Nevertheless, I bagged it up and returned it. No questions were asked. My meat was weighed and I was given $2.99 a pound in return…it totaled $15. I got it in cash and walked away. I stopped by the meat case as I was shopping, thinking that I needed to pick up some ground beef to replace what I just returned. I picked up the package, and then it hit me…probably a good idea to pass on the Kroger beef for now. It kind of made me shiver a little.

What will happen if we can’t trust our food sources? What if we really have to start only eating “very little meat only in times of winter” because all of the beef and poultry is tainted? Will we actually need to depend on our gardens to supply us with all of our produce? Will we need to start cooking and baking from scratch using raw grains and basic ingredients that we have stored in our homes? But I don’t even have a grinder yet!

It all kind of strikes me as so perfectly logical. I’ve always known that food storage is important and something that we should do in case of an emergency. I can honestly say I have a testimony of food storage. I have seen it proved in my life and in the lives of others. When we were living in Boise, and I was laid off right around the time of 9/11, we lived on our (meager) food storage for at least a few months, or until it was gone and we were able to get the next job. I also remember going out and buying food storage the night after 9/11. I thought that our import/exporting would be cut off, and that we would be attacked again, so I was basically panicking and running around like a lunatic doing something that I should have been doing all along. But what about our food becoming inedible because of improper handling and contamination? Have we considered that as being a reason for storing food? What if food becomes so processed and chemically treated that it’s no longer safe for us to consume it solely, on a regular basis?

Don’t get me wrong. I am not an organic, whole-food nut. Although very fancy and cool, I do not shop at Whole Foods or Trader Joe’s. I believe in its benefits, but have never been able to afford the lifestyle. It’s expensive to be organic. But what if we have no other choice? Is it worth the extra cost for the peace of mind?

Anyway, not to get all soap-boxy or weird, but it’s just been on my mind and I wondered if any of you are thinking the same thing? Or am I the only sign-seeker? Now if I could just find those recipes for pinto bean cake and cracked wheat salad...yum! Oh and don’t get me started on our water sources.

(Oh and in case you're wondering, yes I do have some extra time on my hands these days, and that thing I mentioned earlier about incessant talking and nervous laughter in the absence of my family, chalk this post up to that.)