JLoeats.com

food is so funny sometimes,
i like to think of my food as a direct relationship to my body.
and lately i’ve been cutting up fresh ‘organic’ strawberries and putting them with my ‘organic’ vanilla yogurt
and thinking it’s a delicious way treat to my body
giving myself a lil extra love,
a bonus snack…

and on the outside,
it seems like any early relationship,
so attractive,
so pretty,
so yummy…

until,
my throat started to itch afterwards.

hmm funny,
i’ve never had a reaction to strawberries before,
what the crap am i reacting to if they’re “organic”?
i’ve heard of ppl itching cuz of the pesticides and such,
but what is up?
what is going on?!

i take a look at them –

they look like regular strawberries:

in fact they look like a what someone would think of as a “perfect” strawberry if you asked someone to describe it:

bright red, shiny, plump, round shape that goes to a perfect conical point, seedy, and with the perfect green leafy top like this one

so i cut into it:

and it seemed like there was more “white” than red inside:

so what’s the deal here? i felt ripped off.
so i put it in my mouth.
like any curious kid does.
and it TASTED LIKE NOTHING
like water
as bland and crunchy
as the white part inside
like asking yourself why it didn’t work out with a certain someone,
and you see that there really wasn’t anything there to begin with
but hoped there would be…
and it looked like it was perfect on the outside
but you know the difference
instinctually.

so i compared it to another “organic” brand
(the first one is a MAJOR brand from Cali – Driscol’s)
because i don’t buy any of that “organic food tastes better” bs –
because i’ve yet to find mass produced organic food that actually tastes better or worth the high premium price that i pay as compared to when i think about the first time i actually bit into a strawberry on – get this, a strawberry field as a kid when we used to go pick our fruit on farms because it was good ole wholesome family fun growing up in canada 20 years ago…

so i showed my mom the imposter of a strawberry like i had uncovered a hidden truth that i had so read about in the past few months. and all excited she pulled out another box that she had bought for 3.99 at another local supermarket that to her tasted “sweeter” –
so again, i washed, hauled, cut into, and took a bite out of it –

check out how “ripe” this fruit actually is when you cut into it –
the tip of my knife shows the amount of “red” and fermentation on the fruit.

hmm, sure it tasted and smelled slighty more like what i think a strawberry should taste and smell like, but it was still pretty weak.

i even noticed it at work when we would get flats of strawberries in from the same companies – and they all appeared GORGEOUS when i first started my work as a pastry chef there.
because nice berries are hard to come by, especially in canada when winter lasts about 6 -8 months out of the year (i’m not even exaggerating here) and most fruit and veg are shipped into the country from hotter climates – and would laugh when i hear someone are a supermarket complain that the fruit and veg wasn’t ‘fresh’ or looks like crap that week in the dead of winter.
so i often tasted most of the pints that we would get in day in and day out and the restaurant, because it was such a high volume place, that people wouldn’t understand really how much cost balancing it takes to remove something like a ten dollar plate of berries with fresh whipped creme and powdered sugar if i told them the berries looked beautiful but tasted like nothing.
i would even be so excited as to show my chefs and fellow cooks the ones almost as big as the palm of my hand that were perfectly bright red in colour, on the outside — we would even save those ones for ourselves and i would dip them into my leftover warm chocolate ganache when we were having extra hard friday and saturday night services. what a treat!
(well, it’s the thought that counts right? hahahaha)
because when i hauled them, most if not all of them were all white all the way through too.
and the same picture would shock me,
and i even wondered if most of them were sprayed with colour, because it looked like it.
the tops were white as an energy saver lightbulb
and the bright red colour of the outside was so deceiving.

isn’t this a company that’s certified organic? –
right, it is, so what does that REALLY mean?!
is there such thing as ‘organic’ colour that they spray these fakey strawberries with?
i get it –
high demand,
fruit is picked unripped to meet these demands and rippend on trucks and blast frozen to be kept
and etc. etc. — but even organic ones?

this reminds me of a conversation i had with a friend over facebook — he walled me a deceivingly simple question –
“why buy organic”?

oh boy.
to which i answered: first, there’s a difference between “buying organic” and “eating organic”
and organic farms:
– that the conditions of the farm are checked at random and strictly kept to fit USDA Standards

to which i found that the more i tried to answer his questions, the more i had to look up,
and finally i said:
give me some time – i will get back to you,
i’ve already maxed out all the allowable character counts on wall post limits (who would of thought that is actually possible on facebook?! haha anyway…)

and to which i can honestly say –
this is why i’m going back to grad school.
because of a strawberry.
and a lobster, according to my personal statement. ;) (more on that later for those who don’t know this story from the first week of my culinary school experience)

most people ask me what my program is about –
it’s a master of arts in food systems and cultures,
so what does that mean?
“well –
take a strawberry
and follow it from it’s seed, to the system in which is enters to feed someone –
from agriculture, to growth, farming, to ripening, to being picked, to distribution, conditions in which it is kept, sold, and resold, to consumerism, to consumption, to post consumption, health benefits, nutirents, and waste management.
and then take that same strawberry, and wonder, poke, and pry about what that means to the food chains of the people in new york? greece? austrailia? africa? china? etc.

so basically, i am constantly intrigued about the food industry – and the cultivation of respect for the people who live, work, and breathe food, and essentially unveiling all the politics of it. (even if they’re social politics, and learning about a high volume run kitchen in a resourceful ‘rich’ area such as north york toronto)

because what i eat nowadays is not what i think it is.
le sigh…
a strawberry isn’t what it used to be – i know i sound like an old man saying like “back in myyy day…”
but it’s true.
potatoes, corn, soy — these three products in the north american diet are significantly altered nowadays
and these thoughts that i have are not new — they were new 30 years ago.
preventative healthy lifestyle and food as medicine are not new concepts, but it’s refreshing as hell that now there are more people pushing these concepts forwards, that being a foodie is “trendy” and “popular” and endorsing these kinds of real heathy lifestyles is “cool”.
think of how much the agricultural landscape has changed in north america to fit the idea of feeding the masses in the last 30 years. since when was being a farmer cool? haha, but now more and more people are returning to the concpet of connecting to their own food chains, of growing their own fruits and veg, of having herb gardens, and shopping at local farmer’s markets.
because the landscape of a local supermarket is getting more and more scary –
it actually scares me to see the kinds of food products offered nowadays in the middle asiles of supermarkets, whether large chains or small organic specialty ones.
we eat so many more “empty” calories to feed ourselves, so much processed food because mom always says that eating is better than not eating anything at all — in hopes to gain twice as many nutrients that we actually need in order to sustain a healthy lifestyle full of vitality, energy, and vigor!

well all i’m saying is –
think about what you eat,
where you buy from
what your food chain actually consists of,
and ask yourself:
was your “healthy lunch” today actually FEEDING you? body mind and soul? –

this is what i had today:
an ‘organic’ (from canada) vanilla yogurt with ‘organic” california strawberries (that tasted like nothing, my yogurt was sweeter than the berries in it)
a porkchop (from a restaurant – who knows who their purveyor for meats is and where they get it from)
steamed white rice with corn (stripped of it’s fiber and nutrients unlike brown rice, most likely frozen corn)
blanched green beans & broccoli (again canadian ‘organic’ that my mom bought from loblaws organic section)
and a dinner roll with butter (again from the restaurant, and the butter is from gaylee — which was whipped with air & neon yellow in colour)

wasn’t as “healthy” as i expect it to be either.

and on that note, i cannot wait to go to europe this summer and EAT all over england, belgium, netherlands, france, italy, austria, and the czech, (i’m sure you’ll hear all about it on this blog)
where they eat less but get more out of their food
where moderation is key
and where they laugh at you if you asked for “organic” foods, because they generally know where their foods come from

sure grass is greener on the other side,
so let’s learn to take care of our own lawns, and our own farms.

so i leave you with this — on a lighter note:
“americans threaten to move to canada,
canadians threaten to move to europe,
and europeans don’t threaten to go anywhere.”
hahahahaha — an excerpt from “Stuff White People Like” in all it’s hilarity. LOL.

“do what makes you happy” right?
happy eating* ;)
xoxox J xoxox

Tags: USDA Organic