What legacy are we handing to the next generation?
The decisions we make today have a direct impact not only on our lives but also on our planet and the lives of our children tomorrow.
Napoleon Bonaparte said “Nothing is more difficult and therefore more precious that being able to decide..”
We think we are choosing wisely and doing our best and making good decisions, but it is so hard. We are conditioned to think, eat and act in a certain way, we think we are deciding, but is it all just an illusion?
For example, what do we really know about the food we eat? A product packaged as healthy may in fact be highly processed and not be any good for us. A list of ingredients mean very little. Food companies tell us what we want to hear, they make it appear that they are providing real choice but they are not.
Denny, just this week got pulled up for packaging Brazilian chicken and misleading people to think it was Irish, not by the regulatory agencies but by customers. It is ridiculous and misleading that Irish labeling laws allow “made in Wicklow” to be put on a packet of “chicken meat” containing Brazilian chicken.
Just because Denny is promoted as a local Irish brand does not mean that it is. It is owned by “Kerry group” one of the biggest global players in the food ingredients industry.
Most food brands are owned by just a handful of global corporations. They produce a seemingly diverse array of foods but in they all draw from the same pool of commodity ingredients produced by highly intensive conventional and damaging agricultural practices.
We eat every single day, usually much more than three times a day. Isn’t it worthwhile then, to stand back take a breath, and throw a few guidelines down about what we eat. What is ok to put into our bodies and what are we subsidising with our purchases?
In addition to the Denny fiasco above here are two more stories relating to our food that have made the headlines this week. Our collective food choice make can make a massive difference.
Insect populations are in free fall around the world. At current rates there will be none left by the end of the century. No insects mean no life, they are the start of nearly all mammalian food chains, and they are responsible for pollinating our food. Destruction of habitat caused by intensification of agriculture, the use of pesticides and herbicides and global warming are the main causes. (Click to read full article)
The stuff that is put on our food increases our chance of getting cancer. A new study has shown that Roundup the world’s most widely applied agri-chemical ever, increases the risk of non Hodgkin-lymphona, a type of cancer. (click to read full article)
We live in a world of immediate gratification, and the retail industry and the food industry exploit our desire for these instant pleasure fixes. But if we step out of the circle of exposure, we can break the chain and make better decisions. Free from the pummelling of the constant marketing, from the attractive textures and tastes and glitzy packaging we can choose real food.
There are clearly more and more people deciding that the way things currently are, is not the way things need to be or can be for much longer. People are choosing to eat less or no meat, people are choosing products that are not packaged in needless plastic. People are choosing local fresh food. People are choosing organic, sustainable and Fairtrade food. All of these practices allow us to eat well, allow the people and the land that produce the food to be treated fairly, and at least give the earth we inhabit a small but significant fighting chance.
Thank you for being one of those people.
Kenneth
PS: in case you were wondering, we are harvesting our own spinach, kales, salad, cabbage, swede, leeks and purple sprouting broccoli. We have Irish potatoes, beetroot, red cabbage, parsnips and mushrooms, cheese, jams and chutneys. You can check out our IRISH section here
PPS Our boxes are PLASTIC FREE, order over €50 and delivery is FREE.
We have a plastic free grocery aisle
We have an IRISH only section
