I love strawberries. So you’d think
this time of year I’d be in strawberry heaven. That, however, is not the case.
Because this year, more so than in any previous year, I simply cannot find strawberries
that I feel good about eating. That is, normal sized strawberries. Not anywhere.
Well, to be honest, I haven’t gone to a certain popular yet expensive natural
foods market, but that’s because I know I won’t be able to afford what I find
there. But I do hope that they, at least, have not stooped to selling those repulsive,
genetically altered and hyper-horticulturalized monsters everyone else sells. I
think I invented that word, by the way – hyper-horticulturalized. I tried
Googling it just to see, and up until now anyway, it doesn’t seem to exist. So
I’m putting it out there. Because unfortunately the practice of
hyper-horticulturalization is growing, no pun intended.
We can all probably agree that eating
healthily on a tight budget seems to get more challenging each day. Especially
when our food markets offer sales on things that are not actually good for us.
For the past few weeks my local market has had strawberries at buy one package,
get one free. Which is tempting, to say the least. Until I look at them. Then all
I can think about is the laboratory experiments, chemical fertilizers, and pesticides
it took to make them grow so unnaturally huge. And I walk away empty handed.
When I was a child, my grandparents
had a strawberry patch on their small New Jersey farm. Nana made strawberry
shortcake beyond compare. With exquisite anticipation I trudged into the garden
rows with her on cool summer mornings, stooping low to search beneath the
dew-covered leaves for the ruby-red berries. Back then I could easily cup my
hands around several at once. Of those I find in the grocery store these days
my adult palm can hold maybe two. This is not right. Nor are those anemic white
interiors they all seem to have now, or the absence of flavor and juice, or
those humongous seeds. Strawberries are not supposed to crunch!
I do miss strawberries. Real,
unadulterated strawberries. Nothing
evolved from a test tube tastes that good. Kids growing up today have no
idea what they’re missing. That’s sad. And probably perilous.
Am I the only one who’s suspicious
of these things? Are we all so naïve as to think food that’s been genetically
altered and over-fertilized in order to
make it grow bigger, fatter, and faster is not going to have some kind of
effect on us as well? What about all these kids leaping into puberty years
earlier than normal? What about the soaring obesity problem? I’m thinking we
should revolt. Just stop buying them, stage a strawberry boycott like the grape
boycotts denouncing pesticides back in the 80s. I’m already having my own
personal version of one, going several weeks now without one of my most
favorite things.
Why should I drive 20 miles on $4.50
a gallon gasoline to pay $6 or more for a pint of strawberries just so I can be
assured they haven’t been genetically altered and treated with heaven only
knows what? My local market should have them, and they should cost the same as
those mutations they now sell. Or less, because it must be cheaper to grow
things that haven’t been scientifically modified and loaded with additives,
right?
I admit I don’t know a lot about
this stuff, because I’m not a farmer. Or a scientist either. Perhaps I’m all
wrong – maybe the strawberries are growing this enormous all by themselves, but
somehow I don’t think so. Just imagining the kinds of things that are
being done to our food gives me the creeps.
With all the important issues going
on in the world, I feel a little guilty obsessing over strawberries. Perhaps
I’m a little too absorbed in this. But, I don’t know, giant fruit could be auguring
a future we’re none too happy with. Maybe we should all be worrying. What’s
going to be next? Grapes the size of ping-pong balls? Oh, right, they're
already out there, too.
