Lazy food

I read a hilarious article yesterday about lazy food. About the shock and horror of the supermarket filling up with prepackage prepared ingredients that are meant to reduce the time it takes to make a salad.

did making salad ever really take that long? I guess it did. The article talked about the dramatic growth in the lazy foods market value. About how as society follows its terminal course we find outselves more and more cash rich and more and more time poor, leaving us feeling we have no time to make a salad.

Several commented on how kids these days dont know carrots come from the earth, not Tescos; mangoes are oblong and multicoloured, not square; asparagus is...well asparagus since there isn't much you can do to make asparagus lazier so it gets left out of their diets...

I think it is pretty unfair to call the foods lazy. I contend there are no lazy foods, just as there are no stupid questions. Living in Japan, the land of lazy foods, I always find the only thing i get for buying the prepared ingredients is...more packaging and a sense of emptiness because I could have made it all myself for just as much time, less money, and way less garbage.

Some contend these foods are for people who live alone, because when you buy food you can't buy small amounts, and then you have all this food rotting in the fridge. Which is why we need to do away with bulk buying. Chicken cost what ever 59yen/100g whether you buy 50g or 500g. And that's how it should be. In Japan you are encouraged to only buy what you need and not feel like you are missing out on a deal by only buying a little bit for tonite and tomorrows dinner. The same for veggies. Veggies come in different sizes, thats just how the grow. Feel free to buy what you need, not what is the best deal. A huge daikon and a regular daikon cost the same, so you just buy the one that will provide YOU with what you need. Don't feel you are paying more for your daikon, maybe the cost per 100g is more, but you are getting what you need to feed yourself, for 79yen, and if you needed to feed 4 people you would get enough to feed 4 people for 79yen too.

Reassessing our relationship to money is going to be an important revolution in our lifetimes. If we continue to overvalue money and undervalue commodities, we will soon find ourself bought out, sold up creek to China. And while I like lots of things about China, the thing i like most is that it is China and not the whole world. I love the diversity of our planet; but if we value money more than diversity then soon we will have just that.

Ready to be a mum?

I have been reading about endometriosis these days. I'm not sure why, its a pretty depressing subject for a young healthy woman to read about. But it is interesting to me. But I came upon an article about a 23 year old trying to raise $20,000 for IVF treatment, because she is ready to be a mum but doesn't have a partner. She is facing hysterectomy in the coming years, because of severe endometriosis. She is afraid that she will have to have a hysterectomy and miss out on the opportunity to bear a child. I don't like being told I can't do something. And I know if someone told me I can't have children, I would be pretty hysterical about it. But this story has me once again wondering about mothers and mothering in our society. I wonder if it isn't time to stop the hysteria about conceiving and baring "your own child", and start teaching everyone, you don't all have to have children. There are millions of orphans the globe over in need of parents. And not just poor kids kidnapped from africa or chili. There are orphans right in your own community who need love and to be part of a family. There are also surrogate mothers. You can be intimately involved with the pregnancy, you can still have a child of your own DNA, but accept the limitation of your body. There are extended family's to be involved with. Be a big sister, an awesome aunt, a cousin. I know the desire for experience. Aristotle said it, "all men desire to know." And in that he means, to know, to experience, to have the precise knowledge in their own possession. But at 23, with no real prospect (ie professional training), no real support (Ie a loving devoted partner) what is the point of spending 20,000 to conceive a child. Obviously her mother and father must be there as support, but well... I don't want to tell her not to go for it. Because it is in the pursuit of our dreams that we find happiness. I wish her the best luck, and i hope she is able to find the community of support to help her face the trails of the coming years.