The season of rain, wind, and gray clouds has come; it is time to get the warm clothes, to dust the teapot, and to brew some fragrant tea. What’s better during the seasons’ transition than to go on a trip, as I did, and do it all underway?
Last week I was in London. The day before I left, I visited the Growing Communities Farmers' Market. To the comfort of the Bulgarian patriots, this could easily have happened to me on given farmer's market around the world.
It came to me out of the clear blue sky. Something Aleko Konstantinov must have witnessed by going to the World's Columbian Exposition, Chicago in 1893, which inspired him to write To Chicago and Back novel.
So, amid the rich palette of colors that the Hackney Farmer’s Market had to offer, I talked to a blind man. While we were commenting on colors, flavors, and recipes, his hands were continuously all over the produce on the stalls... But at no instant he would ask me, "What is that?" With his available senses, he was aware of what he had there before him. Pumpkins, beets, turnips, tomatoes, and many more.
Scents, shapes, texture
are the ones the industrial farming (supplying supermarket chains the packaged produce with a certain shelf life, at the expense of their natural qualities) can’t imitate, so my blind Hackney friend would recognize and "read" flawlessly with his rough hands. Or he could just talk to the friendly farmers (with just as rough hands) as they knew him well.
I saw the way only a blind man could appreciate a real Farmer's Market. Because only he could see through things we’d been blinded to for a long time. Oblivious to the relentless commercials, he just had a leek, pumpkin, tomato, pepper, chili peppers, potatoes, spices, and a few others on his grocery list.
He affirmed my suspicion that the shelf-life labels - that were simply superfluous here - would never bother him. We laughed at the idea that honey had an expiry date since a 4500-year-old honey found in the pyramids was good for consumption. He simply said:
"This is the only way to make more money."
even at the expense of disposing of ¼ of the food produced being with a state of growing food demand worldwide. And the trend of redirecting the interests of the conscious ones and of the people with money to whole and organic food doesn’t bother the dinosaurs in the food industry at all. They would just buy the niche established supermarket chains for likewise products or simply create theirs.
A leopard can't shake off its spots.
There are well-known players in the healthy food market. Amazon (amazon.com) has owned the Whole Foods Market since the end of the summer; McDonald's used to own 33% of Pret-a-Manger shares. I realize my examples might be meaningless to you, but allow me to describe what I saw on the last working day in the City.
I crossed City, London downtown district, during lunchtime break. I witnessed how hundreds of thousands of people would undertake a healthy food hunt. I haven't seen anywhere else in the world so many whole, healthy, and organic signs like here. Only because that’s what everyone in City looks for:
Ego food
It is 11:30 a.m., and during the next two hours, a huge crowd of hungry people is exiting the City's skyscrapers. They don't mind their lunch price or who makes it. The only important thing is to be quick and to be healthy. It’s only fashionable. Regardless, their £ 8 - £ 10 for it. They spend 30 to 60 minutes for this launch, and then they pour a cup of coffee or tea with a cigarette. The stress is a key factor and money doesn’t matter as compensation. The very same people, closing the working day at 5-5:30 p.m., enter the bars or gyms to let go for an hour or two before they make it home by 8-9 p.m. for dinner with a few beers and a poor sleep waiting for them.
The irony of all this is that those who make money out of it are the ones people think they’ve parted from. It's a money making system that can only spew doubtful nutrition and vitamin L deprived food
Love - the key ingredient
is the only antidote and is found in the real and homemade food. Just as the house wives used to do for their husbands years ago. To the best of my knowledge those who have the practice to do so are friends, relatives and people that I work to worked with. Finally, I will paraphrase a favorite quote about life and people
Feeding is not complicated. Interests complicate it.
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