What Are We Eating?

Our family has made a very conscious effort to improve our eating habits once we moved to Carpe Diem Acreage. We are trying to eat locally produced foods, grow our own, purchase organic and free trade, and make things from scratch.

I thought we did fairly well before, as we were never huge consumers of prepackaged foods. I remember one shopping trip with Husband and the cashier (a high school friend) exclaimed "I can't believe how healthy you guys eat!" as she rung our items through. After she mentioned this, I began looking at what other consumers had in their carts.... and I was, and still am, truly shocked!!!! Even Husband began noticing and whispering to me "Oh my God, the only fresh foods those people have in their cart is prepackaged salad", "Look at the crap she's buying", etc, etc, etc.


This past week we have decided that since we haven't stepped inside a McDonald's since we saw Supersize Me in 2004 (the kids refuse to go), we will now cut out all other fast food as well.

So what does it mean to eat prepackaged, ready made and fast food meals all the time? Well, I happened to see the article below at the Organic Consumers Association and I find the outcome rather frightening.

"Before the Appleton Wisconsin high school replaced their cafeteria's processed foods with wholesome, nutritious food, the school was described as out-of-control. There were weapons violations, student disruptions, and a cop on duty full-time. After the change in school meals, the students were calm, focused, and orderly. There were no more weapons violations, and no suicides, expulsions, dropouts, or drug violations. The new diet and improved behavior has lasted for seven years, and now other schools are changing their meal programs with similar results.

Years ago, a science class at Appleton found support for their new diet by conducting a cruel and unusual experiment with three mice. They fed them the junk food that kids in other high schools eat everyday. The mice freaked out. Their behavior was totally different than the three mice in the neighboring cage. The neighboring mice had good karma; they were fed nutritious whole foods and behaved like mice. They slept during the day inside their cardboard tube, played with each other, and acted very mouse-like.

The junk food mice, on the other hand, destroyed their cardboard tube, were no longer nocturnal, stopped playing with each other, fought often, and two mice eventually killed the third and ate it. After the three month experiment, the students rehabilitated the two surviving junk food mice with a diet of whole foods. After about three weeks, the mice came around.

Sister Luigi Frigo repeats this experiment every year in her second grade class in Cudahy, Wisconsin, but mercifully, for only four days. Even on the first day of junk food, the mice's behavior "changes drastically." They become lazy, antisocial, and nervous. And it still takes the mice about two to three weeks on unprocessed foods to return to normal. One year, the second graders tried to do the experiment again a few months later with the same mice, but this time the animals refused to eat the junk food.

Across the ocean in Holland, a student fed one group of mice genetically modified (GM) corn and soy, and another group the non-GM variety. The GM mice stopped playing with each other and withdrew into their own parts of the cage. When the student tried to pick them up, unlike their well-behaved neighbors, the GM mice scampered around in apparent fear and tried to climb the walls. One mouse in the GM group was found dead at the end of the experiment.

It's interesting to note that the junk food fed to the mice in the Wisconsin experiments also contained genetically modified ingredients. And although the Appleton school lunch program did not specifically attempt to remove GM foods, it happened anyway. That's because GM foods such as soy and corn and their derivatives are largely found in processed foods. So when the school switched to unprocessed alternatives, almost all ingredients derived from GM crops were taken out automatically.

Does this mean that GM foods negatively affect the behavior of humans or animals? It would certainly be irresponsible to say so on the basis of a single student mice experiment and the results at Appleton. On the other hand, it is equally irresponsible to say that it doesn't. "

You can read the rest of the interview here. By Jeffrey M. Smith
Comanche County Chronicle, Elgin, OK, September, 2008