Allergic to living

Has anyone noticed how allergies are now quite fashionable? It's the new, hip thing to be allergic to almost everything so that people can ask you "well what on earth do you eat?", and you can go on and on about this special flour that you have to order from some hut in Africa. Seems we're ordering more and more foods from other countries, because we're suddenly allergic to everything we make here in America.

Back in the day, decades, even centries ago, the only food you could get was local food. There was no ordering something from some third world country, from the bowels of the rainforest. You either ate what you or someone in your community grew, or you didn't eat at all. That was it. Period. There was none of this Gluten, grain, lactose, peanut, tree nut, soy-free craziness. Let's look at soy, for example. About 10 to 15 years or so ago, soy products became fashionable. Soy milk was the new "it" thing. Everyone felt so special ordering soy lattes and bragging in the dairy aisle about how they ONLY get soy. They would say this so smuggly even if they'd only started buying soy milk two weeks ago. Now, in the past year or so, everyone has become allergic to soy. The new "it" thing is now coconut or almond milk. Hemp milk is moving up in the ranks as well. Now the various milk cartons boast labels such as "soy free" "Lactose free" "gluten free", and "all natural". The almond has now replaced the soy bean, and coconut is now king. You can easily get almond and coconut flour in addition to the milks. Almond butter is taking a serious swing at peanut butter. Coconut butter/spread is giving traditional cows-milk based butter a run for it's money.

The yogurt aisle is getting ridiculous as well. Companies are now trying to cater to every audience possible. While there are some tasty products that have come from this, it is getting to be a bit much. We have Greek, Turkish, Scandinavian, Hungarian, French and several other styles of yogurt. Honestly, most of them taste the same. We've also got the various "milk" mediums to go with all of these styles. I'd imagine serious shoppers can get Hungarian Hemp-milk yogurt flavored with rose water if they really wanted it.

All of these alternatives came from the idea that people are suddenly allergic to everything around them. That magically nearly everything is bad for you. Seems the only food everyone agrees on is kale. I think our society is finally coming to a point where we've realized, our constant demand for quick-cooking, attractive, perfectly sized foods has led scientists to frantically create foods that make us ill. Gone, are the days of testing foods to make sure they are safe. Instead, consumer demand now drives corporations to get things onto the shelves and into our greedy gullets ASAP. It started with some light genetic modification, and has spread to total reconstruction. Our food today, looks absolutely nothing like it did years ago. We are no longer eating food, we're eating science experiments. Our planet has become one, big science fair.

I am so thankful for the movement to go back to a naural diet. To stop the purchase of hormone riddled, genetically modified foolishness. Let's take the time to choose our foods wisely. What we put into our bodies is what we get out. It's not "cool" to have a yard-long list of allergies, and have special dietary needs. Our greetings to each other should not include new foods we're cutting out of our diet. Let's do away with this endless allergy search. Doctors get on TV, and list off very generic symptoms such as tiredness, drowsiness, muscle ache, bloating, gas, and the list goes on and on; then they toss out a random food or food group like...grains, and say that your consumption of grains is making you feel this way. We are to immediately purge this horrid toxin from our diet, and after the "withdrawal" we will feel a million times better. I believe for many people, the reason why they feel better is a.) they believe they're supposed to or b.) cutting out one food group forced them to consumer another...usually veggies, so they're getting more fiber, and thus, they poop more...so they feel better. So much of this witch hunt is just smoke and mirrors. Let's undergo a paradigm shift and go back to the basics. Let's get real food, and stop anticipating being sick afterwards (or suddenly feeling so much "better"). America, let's eat!