Michael David Talks Food #1 | Do You Ever Think About Food?
I think i'll do a series talking about food. Titled "Michael David Talks Food". This being the first one. I'm not promising to produce them daily or every friday or anything, just that i'll talk about food and include it in this series of posts when I do. Food is on the mind, so food is one thing I'll write about.
Man, I think about food all the time these days.
I mean, I've been eating it multiple times a day for 45 years now so I suppose I should think about it... but I've been really thinking a lot about it recently.
Now, I'm not going to get into all the health stuff and what you should/shouldn't be eating so much in this post.
This is more about our dependence when it comes to food.
There is no way to get away from your dependence on food. Despite the stories some of us have heard about "breatharians" and the like, you simply die without it. You literally need it each and every day of your life.
Yes, you can skip a couple days and be fine, you can have scheduled fasting and all that but as a general statement you need it daily.
However, how are you getting that food?
The grocery store is where most people are getting their food.
For the vast majority of people in developed countries you are going to the grocery store. In developing countries there is often a local market. Frankly, to me the local market structure is better for a plethora of reasons we're not discussing here.
However, in both scenarios there is a separation between us and our food.
I've got to say that this is wild to me.
I grew up on a farm. Not a big mono crop farm but what dad would call a "truck farm". I guess cause he used his truck for most of the farm duties but it really just meant we were small back then and not using combines cause he did have a tractor for a lot of it.
Growing up on a farm I was desensitized to some things. I didn't have a ton of store bought food growing up. I literally never had store bought jelly until after I was 18 and moved out. I would have it on occasion at a friends house or at some kids group thing but I'm really talking so little that I was super surprised by store bought jelly when I bought some at age 18. It was fucking terrible, just sayin. 😉
There were only a handful of years that we ever sold any of what we grew, it was mostly just for us.
I just spoke with my parents and they confirmed that we ate well over 50% from the farm itself.
For my parents, they went to the store for what they weren't producing, or couldn't produce, at home. Examples would have been dairy, grains and sugar, that sort of thing. 50% coming from the farm would've been a very low producing year.
They didn't do that because of some trend either. They were just poor and grew up doing it so it made sense. They weren't trying to be more "self sufficient", or any other keyword search term... It was just fuckin smart.
We had the largest garden, by far, of fany other personal garden anywhere in our local area. Mom was working by the time I could really remember so they both had full time jobs also. Their garden was over 1/4 acre, considered only personal food. By the time I was in high school they had that garden and another property with only potatoes and sweet potatoes making up around the same amount. The years dad would to to sell produce they would plant up to 11 more acres. All by hand with a tractor mostly to turn dirt.
I can remember moving to the city and paying for one of these "community garden" spaces and wondering how I could fit anything but tomatoes on it. It was just so small. Then at the end of the season when all these city slickers left around 80% of their crop just hanging on the plant I nearly lost it. All of the spaces around me were just filled with unpicked produce that these people had worked hard to get all year.
This is the case in many community gardens because of the ease of the grocery store dependence. It's also sometimes from not knowing how to process your extra.
The point is that well over 50% of our total food bill was covered from home with a little extra work each day or so.
We have a huge disconnect from our food around the world today.
Even in countries where there are local markets many people don't know much about food these days.
When I was young I can remember making fun of people for not knowing what a ripe fruit was or how to spot the real bad spots from blemishes, or not knowing that you can cut out bad spots and eat the rest. Rude, I know, teenagers are the worst lol.
I've just always seen that stuff as so elementary.
This is getting so bad though that grocery stores are now putting up signs that show people how to tell if food is ripe, or good. While this is hugely helpful for those that don't know, and it helps the store make more by inspiring people to buy more fresh ingredients...
It shows perfectly our disconnect from food.
I've met people that think potatoes grow on trees. To me this knowledge is more simple than tying your shoes. When I see this my first question was "Why didn't your parents teach you better?"
I had to learn that this is just how it is for so many people around the world. It was such a shock for me.
There are still tons of people that think we eat food to "fill a belly" or for the taste it has or whatever. Having no idea at all about nutrition or balance. I've met people that really don't see a difference between ice cream and a salad.
People, how the fuck did we get here?
How the ever living hell did our society get to a fucking point that people are alive and don't know simple shit about the thing they literally need most their life?!
Why are we propagating this shitpile?!
Well, a lot of it was advertising and marketing. We were shown how convenient it is to just let someone else do food and we'll just get it from them when we need it.
Some of it is enabling. If you're around people with lax food standards a lot you will start to lax yours.
There's also the fact that in mass production of food the company could care less if you're stupid. They want you to be ignorant to food so that they can fool you and get you to think that whatever they put in that fucking box was somehow food.
Look, we've already covered how inefficient it is to turn your money into the resources you need in this post.
Seriously, you're going to eat every single fucking day of your life.
Why are you trading your hard earned money to get food?
Is it convenience?
Is it laziness?
Is it lack of knowledge?
Is it simply that you are blind to the fact that you will eat every day and that will not change until you're dead?
When it comes to something as crucial as food, money should not even be part of it.
How many places and people in our world are starving simply because they don't have the fucking money to trade for food and that has become the only way to get it?
To me, starvation from not being able to afford food should be a fucking crime. Not for the one starving but for the one with abundance that's willing to watch them starve because they have to have their money.
Food is meant to be free!!!!!
Have you ever seen a fucking raccoon walk up to a fucking bear and be like, "Yo, I got this honey if you give me that fish."?
No, you have never fucking seen that and you never fucking will.
Because in nature, there is food everywhere. It is not part of transactions, you just go get it.
People should never starve because of money. That is the most ludicrous thing in this world to me.
Honestly now, if I hear an entire village starved because of drought or flood or even poor planning... It's super fuckin sad but makes fuckin sense.
When a person starves because of financial insecurity its literally sickening and makes me want to barf on the closest politician. Because this means there is some rich fuck with a ton, and some poor dude with none and we all just look at it and go "oh well".
As a citizen of a developed country you may not even know that there are indeed regions of this world where getting money is not a matter of hard work...
It can be a cartel running shit
It can be a government rule/law limiting them.
It can be that this area was literally fucking out-casted by the one with all the jobs.
There are so many reasons why a person or entire area cannot get money.
However, if their people landed there ages ago then they must have had a way to find food...
Yet, now they have to have a completely useless piece of paper to get it instead.
The sheer fact that money is how we get food is actually one of the biggest killers of people in this world.
Between 5.39 and 13.69 people die every minute in this world because of starvation.
I couldn't find more statistics but the vast majority of those dying from hunger are really dying from not having money to buy food. There is likely food right in front of most of them and they simply cannot pay for it.
I want to scream, cry and break things each time I re realize this fact.
Seriously people... what the fuck are we doing?!
There are 2 things that I really feel, even in capitalistic society, whos access should not be determined by money.
- Food (Healthy enough for high cognitive and physical function.)
- Medicine (The fucking real kind that heals you, not the bullshit kind that reduces your symptoms while creating others.)
This shit is really pissing me off world! Like I'm at scream and break things point!!
When I get pissed it magnifies out to all those I've touched. Normally that is really a burden and I have to watch it when I get angry. Because I don't want it spilling out to others and ruining their days.
Not this fucking time!
This time I want you fuckin angry!
I want you fuckin raging pissed!
I want you ready to cry and break shit with me!
I want you so fucking raging ass mad that you'll stand the fuck up and do something about it!
Don't fucking wait!
Get off your ass and change something about this!
Even if it's as simple as giving your leftovers from that killer Mexican restaurant to a homeless person.
Just fucking feed someone!!
Let's get something clear.
If you are reading this right now and your belly isn't now, or hasn't recently been rumbling in hunger...
If you have not already found out that this feeling will go away and you can go another day before it comes back...
If you have never had to decide between a warm coat and a meal...
Shoes or a meal...
Pants or a meal...
Underwear...
Socks...
A dry place to sleep or a fucking meal...
If you have the problem of not knowing what to cook tonight, staring into the fridge...
If literally any amount of your meals are eating out...
If you have never told your kids to wait for dinner over and over until they fell asleep...
If you have never kicked cockroaches off of your food at night without a light, having no idea if you got them all before you bite in...
Then you do not fucking know hunger!
If what I described above is not you then you have abundance. Even if you don't think you do. You are not going hungry. You don't know the phases of it, how hard it is, how easy it gets, to just not eat.
You don't know the struggle, so stop acting like you "understand", when you fucking don't, and just help someone before that someone is you.
You think organizations like UNICEF have it covered?
They do fucking not!!!
They have turned poor people around the world into fucking cattle. Lining up for meals and food each day or month just like we do cattle. Cattle that is now dependent on them for those meals. Cattle that is suffering more now than before these so called helpers came because of a little thing called "dependence".
Remember, we started this rant about our dependence on grocery stores and markets.
We started by mentioning a disconnect between us and our food.
The only reason you are eating and they are starving is money. You, for whatever reason, are in a place where money is easier and they are not.
It is literally that simple.
I've personally experienced everything I listed above. I know what it is like to slowly starve because of something as useless as money.
I know what it's like to tell your children dinner is coming over and over until they fall asleep.
I know what it's like to kick cockroaches off of likely spoiled food at night without a light.
I know what it's like to have to decide between some other super crucial thing for survival or food.
I know how fucking hard it is to ask for help.
I know how threatening it feels to tell another person you might be starving.
I know the fears of:
Will someone take my kids if they know the truth?
Will someone use this knowledge to do something terrible to me or my family?
Will they judge me for it?
Will I lose a friend when they really know?
Will my own fucking family turn on me?
I know why you hold it in and act like it's ok too.
I can tell you what the phases of starvation are. How you push yourself past the feelings in your stomach day after day until you finally faint, or worse. The tricks you use to pass through the hunger because you don't know the next time you'll get food. The things you tell yourself to make it easier.
Because I've been fucking through it.
I can say things like "I understand how that feels." "I get what you mean." "I get how it must affect you."
I can ask how many times a person has suppressed the urge to eat or the nausea from it being so long. I can ask how many times they've fainted.
You can't.
The very minute you open your mouth in this way toward someone that has gone through it, or is now, you have began to offend them so it's best to just shut your trap and help with action instead.
Stop letting this happen.
Start making this happen.
Hungry people don't bite...
usually.
Here's the part you may not like.
Even though you don't own the super market chain, or the distributor chain or any of the grocery stores...
You are still responsible for the gap.
You have done the most innocent of things but it's directly at the very center of starvation in this world.
Simply supporting the money for food bullshit makes us part of it happening. This literally makes it our responsibility to balance the energy.
You supported the concept of exchanging food for money.
That is it, that is all you've done.
It seems so harmless but the fact that everyone supports money as the main exchange for food is what has directly allowed the starvation of our world to start, grow and persist. The further we get away from this, the better off humanity itself will be.
The fact that you aren't questioning your dependence on groceries and markets...
The fact that you don't address the disconnect between us and our food directly...
The fact that you carry on as if everything is normal...
Makes this mess your responsibility. It's mine, it's yours, it's all of ours.
It's literally our responsibility because we supported the energy of the gap itself.
Every single time you pay money for food you are furthering that gap.
Your support of money for food is literally why the world is starving.
Boy that is a fucked up realization isn't it?
The big box stores will just keep trucking but you and I can choose different.
We can choose to do something about it.
You can at minimum offset it some by just giving out some fucking food to someone that really needs it.
Not some fucking food drive or charity... but an actual person.
Even when a place is doing a food drive and they are on the up and up about it, total transparency (super rare in that world)...
You have still furthered the disconnect.
I've been to the food banks and free meals and such all over America. There is total disconnect there to. You see the people giving it to you but never the real person that gave it. It's usually not even things that people can put together to make real meals. There is no real connection there either and it loses it's magic.
Let me ask you something.
If you emptied your entire cupboard right this second, emptied the fridge and all other places that you have food...
Would you recover fast?
Could you just go buy more to replace it tomorrow?
Could you go to the grocery store you're trapped into buying food from and get more of what you threw out without killing your finances?
Then fucking do it!!
Empty every single piece of food in your house right now and take it downtown or wherever you're used to seeing homeless people and give it out.
Then go get more and refill your pantry, cupboard, fridge or whatever..
It was not clear in the job description of buying food for money but trust me when I tell you...
It's your fucking job.
Not doing something to attempt to balance that energy will leave it unbalanced in your life.
I literally refuse to tell you, right now anyway, what that imbalance will cause in your life.
Because you really shouldn't do it for that reason.
Do it because you finally know some of what people go through because some dumbass had the balls to tell you publicly how it really is to starve.
Do it cause you give a shit maybe.
Do it just to start over with the food in your house. There is often a ton of shit just built up that we never got to. It's nice to clean out and start over semetimes.
If you have the money, get an extra sandwich for some person on your way to work and drop it off for them.
This isn't about giving money at all.
Fuck money and it's hierarchal bullshit.
Give food.
Who gives a shit why, just do it.
I'll mention this part as conclusion.
I'm going to fix this shit.
I'm on a fuckin mission to feed this world.
I'm not ready to publicize how just yet but it's coming.
I've been working on something for 20 years straight. I've recorded countless hours of audio about my design. I've went very far out of my way to learn overwhelming things that I really don't need in any other way... just for this purpose.
Plus, I've actually starved and know what it's like and the reasons we don't see for why good, hard fucking working people are starving each and every minute.
I'm feeling finally like there are enough components gathered, learned and realized to actually initiate my plan.
So if you're as angry as I am, if you are sick to death of the level of starvation in this world and want to do more. Maybe you've pondered this issue for 20 years too and keep hitting walls.
Just know I'm in the process of tearing those walls the fuck down. Piece by piece, wall by wall. With your help, we can crush the rocks that held these walls together into fucking dust.
So stick around and jump on board when I finally have a model that I can release, because it is coming....
It's fucking real..
And it's fucking stronger than any perceivable thing that would attempt to thwart it.
I'm way to fucking pissed to sit idle any longer and will be taking extreme action very soon.
Thanks for reading, this post has been an overwhelmingly emotional ride for me.
Do You Ever Think About Food
#1 in the series "Michael David Talks Food"
by Michael David
Co-founder of #thealliance and loyal since before the egg.
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