I’ve been disturbed by hospitals since I was a young little bastard, who preferred walking barefoot to shoes. This barefoot tendency generally reached into areas that included grass filled with bees, and my parents favorite…the garage.
Our garage, unlike modern versions, was built in the 1930s and had years of absorbed floor oil, as well as, most importantly, pieces of broken glass in the numerous cracks. My feet were like magnets for glass. Although it was probably only once or twice, my adult memory remembers it as a monthly… seemingly weekly occurrence of being rushed to the hospital screaming and bloody where I was carried into a scary operating room. There I was restrained… because at one point I punched a nurse.
Eventually, after I wore out, they managed to sterilize and treat my cut foot. I never did forget the trauma of going to the hospital, and as an adult I cringe when I so much as smell that hospital odor. As a result, I have not been treated in a hospital in almost 10 years, choosing activities that build my immune system while avoiding activities that would put me in the hospital. What happened to me following a trip to Peru has me changed forever…
My fear of hospitals has actually been expanded to grocery stores as well.
How in the world could I compare a majorly sanitized and organized building, a building filled with sick people that is managed by professional staff dedicated to running an efficient operation while providing good products and services, to one that sells food? How is a grocery store that has sanitizing wipes at the door, clean and organized produce, perfectly temperature controlled fish and meat with attending staff dressed in protective garments anything at all like a hospital? It’s not like they use the same disinfectant. Wait, I think they do. Food sanitation and hygiene is very important to our country, and is actually a national security issue.
I was not always aware of this hospitalization of our food systems, and only made it following a trip to Peru where I observed how the locals obtained their food. It was not immediate though. I had seen open air markets in Boston, complete with fish looking at me with their vacant eyes. I believe my realization may have followed the day I happened to look in the back of a car and see a few hundred chicken eggs, or possibly with the old lady pushing the cart of hard boiled quail eggs, or even perhaps the half a cow I observed being hauled out of the taxi and into the Chinese restaurant across from our hostel. The same taxi probably picked up some unknowing tourists an hour later. I wonder how TSA will handle the blood on their luggage?
I guess I should be happy my food is safe and sanitized? That my government protects me from nasty things like E-coli. That stores are decent enough to offer anti-bacterial hand wipes. The producers are kind enough to feed their animals a good dose of antibiotics which we are lucky enough to have passed into us. I should be thankful for this protection. Not every country has these controls in place to keeps it’s population healthy. But… am I really being protected. Of course not!!!
All measures taken to protect us are slowly harming us by creating supergerms, or germs resistant or immune to traditional methods of treatment. It is Darwin in practice… the strong survive. By waging a war on bacteria we are killing off the good as well as the bad. While the survivors may be super good bacteria, we are also isolating the super bad bacteria. The concentrations are multiplying and further evolving. The problem does not stop there… this sanitation is leading to weak and sickly people, people with no immunities, allergies, and hyper sensitivities to the natural environment. Lets not even start on the discussion about GMO foods, and the effect on health and native plants.
What happens when we have a generation who’s experience with the outdoors are not sunny days in fields of clover playing ball and swimming in the lake, but rather major allergies and contact dermatitis with the fresh water lake algae? It will be a generation that would rather stay inside and eat sanitized food, choosing to watch Netflix and play video games than go outside. These same people will not care about the environment, they will not protect it, nor will they understand it. This is where we are headed.
So… me. I will now avoid grocery stores the way I do hospitals. Give me an organic apple purchased and grown by a local farmer. No need to wash it. If I get a bit ill… good my body is getting stronger. We have an immune system for a reason… it’s about time we use it.