As I sit here writing this post, I slip back in time and sadly sound so much like my grandmother. Were you ever told as a child that you have to eat all the food that was put on the plate in front of you without complaining because there are millions of people in the world that are starving and would love to have any food?
There are roughly 925 million people world wide that are undernourished. 14.5% of American households are suffering from food insecurity. Those are not the people that you will find complaining about the food that they receive. The won't refuse it because it isn't organic. They won't check the label to make sure it doesn't contain a product made with GMOs. They gladly accept knowing that all food will provide them with nourishment. So why as consumers, do we find ourselves complaining about our food? Why are there people scaring others into thinking that our food is killing us, when science has proven otherwise? |
| My Grandparents, John and LaVerne. |
As a child, my brother and I lived with my grandparents and one thing that we were not allowed to say in our home was, "I am starving." I remember making the mistake of saying that only once! My grandfather slammed his fist on the table and then spent the next two hours giving us a sermon about what being starved was really like. See, my grandfather grew up poor in Germany, the son of a blacksmith, with 12 brothers and sisters right in the heart of World War II. He immigrated to the U.S. soon after the war ended in 1947. He knew what starvation really was because as a child he was starved. My gramps would eat anything and everything. If it had mold on it, he would scrape it off, leftovers would become a conglomeration of an everything soup, and he would chew chicken bones because he felt that the morrow in the middle was the best part of the chicken. I could share some of the war stories that my grandfather shared, but that would be an entire book as his stories always ended up as a several hour sermon, and most times the Bible would be opened and it would become a parable of sorts!
All farmers, organic and conventional, work very hard to provide the world with as much food as possible. Without modern day farming practices there would be a lot more than 925 million people starving in this world. As farmers, we support each other, encourage each other, and help each other to provide a vast bounty of healthy food to feed the world. Complaining and picking apart our food, demanding that farming practices change and just simply degrading the food that is grown by farmers is not going to help feed the 925 million starving people nor the well-fed 7 billion people in the world.
So as Thanksgiving approaches here in America, take some time to think about the food that we have on our plates every day and then think about those that won't be having any food today. Be thankful and grateful for the bounty of which God has blessed us with.
Would you turn down food made with GMOs if it meant that your family would go hungry this Holiday season?
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