just a little pic of real food snapped at the Union Square Farmer’s Market on Saturday – something to live for!
vs.
Here’s your dinner! Is this the sensibility of the advanced-human or the packaging of human diminishment? Their Facebook page says, “free your body” – from what, do they mean????
Should I flood this blog post with a selection of my most beautiful photographs of food? I shall pick just a few that I have handy:
Ok, this is human, this is beautiful, this is sensory! Imagine the world without any of these species! (scones and sfogliatelle qualify as species in our house)
and, here is just one post about how I indulge my humanity: https://kitchen-inspirational.com/2014/09/22/food-markets-florence-2/
“streamline the obligations of daily living” I picked this phrase out of an article discussing the raison d’être for Soylent – but, I ask, really? instead of streamline, how about indulge them? I get that some people don’t like to shop or cook. But, I don’t get that some people would prefer drinking an “oatmeal-water” tasting container of …. as a meal replacement, and exist on it, rather than on real food. What does this say about the age we are in and how we are claiming the potential of all of our innate human qualities as they were intended?
Void – that is the word that immediately and totally comes to mind – sub-human is another, even though that is exactly the opposite of the the intention, I think. Colorless, ordorless, textureless, and void of sensory fulfillment……….. Ugh, please get me a ticket to the next developing planet – where foraging by instinct for tasty, textural real foods is still de rigueur! Who do I call, Richard Branson?
Of course, what you choose to fill your tummy with and source your nutrients from is your prerogative . But, wait, didn’t God (or however you choose to define) give us the five senses, for a reason? And, if we stop using them, won’t we stop being, um, well, human? Is this what happens when some of the smartest people on the planet spend too much time in a cubicle trying to digitize and/or hack the world? I’m buying each and every one of them a plane ticket to Italy! They need a little sunlight and outside stimuli. They appear to be missing at least 9/10 of the sensory fulfillment that is available for this particular iteration of humanity, aren’t they?
Let me just say that while I understand some of the issues behind trying to come up with viable alternatives to “traditional” food items – the issues such as scarce resources and carbon footprints, I find it particularly sad and depressing that such a tremendous portion of the human condition would be bypassed or potentially forgotten by such a prospect. Moreover, I find it curious that a certain spectrum of the population find the entire idea and process of thinking of, sourcing, creating, combining and eating what I will call here, “real food” to be a tiresome obligation of daily living. Ugh. Jeepers and how awful.
Of course, a person like me finds this whole thing curious and yet, worthy of consideration. And, I find it incredibly sad that there is a point of view that considers all of the species which exist on this planet that are considered edible, to be humanly passé, potentially obsolete and maybe even some type of psychic irritant. Whoa!
In other words, for me this becomes a question such as “what would the planet look like if indeed all of the species and the humans which are currently devoted to any and all aspects of food production, preparation and depiction, for purposes of their own sustainability and pleasure, were to become, well, defunct?” Would the entire planet look like the package shown above, void of color, interest, form, texture, and sensory definition?
As I look around my house, I realize that this could in fact never happen to me – and thank goodness, I most likely won’t be here to see the day, should it occur. My environs are completely saturated with colorful formations of beauty and sensory-stimulating items. I can’t possibly get enough of this and my days and nights are spent evolving this part of myself and enjoying my surroundings via my senses – yes, that is sight, sound, smell, taste and touch. To constrict myself into a sensory void of colorless sterility would be the equivalent of a death sentence. Thank goodness, because of my advancing age, I don’t think this alternative will occur within my lifetime. I honestly feel sorry for those inhabitants of the planet at such a time. And yet, I do think I understand that if we don’t do something about the heating up of the planet, we are going to perhaps wind up at such a place anyway. And so, I do understand the rationale for thinking about the options for traditional food alternatives should the planet become inhospitable to growing food. But, like so many problems I read about in the newspapers daily, I think we could be looking at the problem in a different way, one that strives to transform what we have and enjoy into a sustainable system that is compatible with life on the planet (not that no one is presently doing this).
I think it is sort of ironic that it took me a long while to “naturally”come upon the product Soylent. (maybe I sort of somehow unconsciously by-passed or ignored it?) I tend to search for and focus on the regular food-stuff items – like the ones that grow in nature. But, even so, I hadn’t even heard of it until recently. I’d heard about the pill things but not this.
Years ago, and I do mean many, I recall watching a cartoon series called the Jetsons. This was a comical look into the “future” of family life, only then, the future was something like 1970. As I recall that depiction, people had their meals presented as a couple of capsules on a plate. While I didn’t seriously consider this then, and don’t now, I never forgot that image.
I suppose I find it fascinating that considering that all species do evolve over time, that we, the collective, would potentially evolve to the point where we would be comfortable and satiated, in every sense of the word, with the likes of a product like Soylent. To me, this flies in the face of such a huge part of what it means to be human and a social and creative creature. To think that at least since 1962 when the Jetsons debuted (I know that people were thinking of this much earlier than that), that people have indeed been thinking about evolving toward this sterile form of nutrition is something to be reckoned with as well – as, we know, the thought and pursuit of something in and of itself is significant. That this was depicted in the Jetsons as comedy, is perhaps profound, yet curious. That the whole thing has come this far and is being touted so prominently in the food space is obviously worthy of consideration.
Here is an old article from the New Yorker to read:http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/05/12/the-end-of-food
You can look around on the internet and read all of the perspectives and impetuses behind this effort. For me, I’ll just go outside now and pick some green herbs, look at my strawberries, tomatoes, peaches, plums and watermelon and try to burn these images onto my brain as deeply as I possibly can, before they’re potentially gone.
I sort of think of the “problem” as two runaway freight trains, speeding along a timeline, with the question being, who will get there first? – one train being the heating up of a planet to the point where life is no longer sustainable vs the other, the ingenuity of inhabitants striving to reform ways and means in order to preserve life forms here. Who will win? Honestly, I don’t know.
But, I’m going to have my breakfast now. It will involve “real food”.
And, if I have my druthers for the rest of my days, no matter how many they be, I shall find myself sitting on the terrace at Le Sirenuse, having a soft boiled egg, some glorious fresh fruits of as many colors, textures and flavors that are available, a Sfogliatelle (or two or three) with some honey drizzled over it, with some Lemon Verbena tea, thank you very much. I will go the farthest that I can possibly go to be at the polar opposite from that de-void package above. I may not have the time, understanding or where-with-all to solve any of the earth’s sustainability problems, and so I will choose to naively try to maximize my utilization and enjoyment of the amazing array of real foods that are presently available to me, and to celebrate the people who dedicate their lives to growing them in the most sustainable ways possible.
Signing off now. Wishing everyone all the pleasures of a “real food” day! (I wonder if you can order a case on Amazon – not that I want to)
Here is a related post on the topic: https://kitchen-inspirational.com/2014/08/27/hope-alive/
perhaps I shall choose to go down the food chain – to instinctive forager – satisfying ones needs the old-fashioned way