A Crisis of Epic Proportion

Has the staggering extent of the tragedy occurring under our noses ever occurred to anyone else?

I’m not talking about African genocides, or the current food crisis, the burgeoning sex trade, or the banking scandal, although each of those is indeed troubling.

I’m talking about the generation of children (and adults too) who would rather starve than eat actual, unadulterated FOOD.

If the oatmeal isn’t the instant, sugary stuff; if the eggs aren’t drowned in cheese; if the bread isn’t the consistency of space-age memory foam; if the hot dogs and hamburgers aren’t served on the same, drowning in ketchup; if the fish didn’t come from a can—it might as well be dirt.

I mean, I’m not asking anyone to eat plain meat right off the carcass. However, our diet more closely resembles what people have been eating for centuries—even millennia—than it resembles the diet of the average American. That is, we usually eat food as close as possible to the way God made it. What does that mean? Rarely do I ponder what the real differences are, or how great is the gulf separating the two.

The reality of the divide was brought home to me recently, as I was grieved to find that I could not offer a breakfast food even remotely palatable to my two nephews, with the exception, perhaps, of a bowl full of raisins.

How could I forget such a thing? No doubt, from their perspective, I appeared wholly self-centered and uncaring not to offer them sugary sawdust flakes and juice. To some extent, that may be accurate…I should have thought of it before breakfast came. But I quite honestly forgot! I forgot that the overwhelming majority of my fellow Americans either cannot or will not consider eating anything that has not been overseasoned, overcooked, processed, smothered, and otherwise made to taste as little as possible like the original ingredients. I’m not being ironic; I really forgot.

And though I felt abashed at my lack of hospitality, I was shedding tears for these children. I choked down my own plain, dry, unexciting breakfast over the lump in my throat.

All I could think of (besides how tragic is the effect of these non-foods on these children’s lives, both today and years from now) was this: When our current food crisis—and economic crisis—worsens—and it WILL…

…What will these people eat???

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