Wednesday, November 21, 2012

Twinkie Apocolypse, and "I have a dream"

In case you missed it, this week a Twinkie apocolypse has been occurring all around us. Hostess Cupcakes has announced that they are shutting their doors and their oh so nutritive snacks like Twinkies, Ding-dongs, and Wonderbread that have been American staples since world war two are going the way of the Dodo. I can't say that I'm actually sad about this development.

Image from the public domain


Just look at the nutrition label and it quickly becomes a poster child for the worst in processed food.
This single product contained corn (see this corn allergen list) in up to fifteen different forms: (corn syrup, high fructose corn syrup, dextrose, modified corn starch, cellulose gum, cornstarch, corn flour, corn syrup solids, mono and diglycerides,  natural and artificial flavors, caramel color. [Of these, possibly only corn flour could be considered a natural ingredient].

It also contains most of the other most common allergens wheat, eggs, dairy, and soy [we could have been assured that it was peanut free!] in the forms of wheat flour,  partially hydrogenated soybean oil, whole eggs, whey, calcium caseinate, and wheat gluten. And just for good measure a dousing of yellow no. 5 and red 40 to aid in digestion, allerginity [I made that word up, but if they get to fabricate food, I feel I am entitled to make up words], and hyperactivity).

 Today when I checked on ebay, one hopeful soul has an ebay "buy it now offer" for $3,000 for a 10-pack set to close in a month.
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So what next for those 18,000 sugar shuffling workers, our intoxicated children, and those impoverished in food deserts and nutritional sink holes? Seems like MLK's message is malleable to this situation as well: "social justice is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination...[many still live] on a lonely island of poverty [a.k.a. a food desert] in the midst of a vast ocean of material and [corporate agrobuisness] prosperity. 

 [When it comes to real and nutritious food America has given most people] people a bad check, a check which has come back marked "insufficient funds." But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. So we have come to cash this check — a check that will give us upon demand the riches of [real food] and the [nutrition] of justice... Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of [processed food] to the sunlit path of [real and sustainable food].  

It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. [Two thousand and twelve is not an end, but a beginning]. Those who hope that the [Hostess worker or others recently unemployed] needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to [eating and food production] as usual. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of [food] justice emerges. 

...There are those who are asking ..."When will you be satisfied?" We can never be satisfied as long as the [children are] the victim[s] of the unspeakable horrors of [cancer]. We can never be satisfied, as long as our bodies, [obese, but malnourished, ache chronically and die prematurely].

We cannot be satisfied as long as the [child's] basic mobility is from a smaller size to a [super-sized]. We can never be satisfied as long as our [soils] are stripped of their [nutrition and robbed of their microbes by corporations stating "For pesticides, commercial fertilizer's and GMOs only". We cannot be satisfied as long as CAFOs are the norm and small scale farmers and local food producers are pushed to the far margins by agro-conglomerates].

I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you [must stoop to collect unemployment. Some of you are battered by hunger and staggered by costs of or access to real food.]

Go back [to your yards, go back to abandoned lots, go back to old warehouses; go back to your cities, knowing that [urban farming could allow you to raise 6,000 lbs of food on 1/10 of an acre and to live off the grid and creative food production, like aquaponics is revolutionizing this situation. Let us find new ways to enable those in despair and to use the funds from unemployment and other subsidies to retrain employees to be urban farmers or to pursue other jobs in sustainability.


These are a glimpse into my dreams...].

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