Whole Food

My wife and son are basking in the Arizona sun while I hold down the fort. That definitely worked to their advantage Friday: A storm moved in and it snowed all day leaving about 4 inches on the ground.  The way things have been this winter, though, I'm sure it will be gone in a day. Or two.

In spite of the weather I had taco salad last night. My own personal fiesta. A great big bowl of it complete with brown rice, tomatoes, "chiken", chips, and a boatload of fresh vegetables. I never go too heavy on the lettuce though. It's pretty but just filler in my life and diet.  But as I stood there and chopped up a few leaves of green leaf lettuce I remembered how my brother Dan told me about riding the train from Los Angeles to Oregon in the late 60's. He told me how he had ordered some kind of lettuce salad just as they were passing through Salinas. As he did, the conductor came walking through the cars announcing the scheduled stop in that small agricultural stronghold by calling out, "Salinas, next stop! Salinas! Lettuce capital of the world!" California seemed like the greatest place on earth in 1968, and it probably was.

The other thing that came to mind while chopping lettuce (there were only a few leaves, really-- my mind just works fast) was the fact that I never buy organic lettuce. Here in Michigan it is hard enough to get any kind of nice looking crisp lettuce in winter, let alone organic. So when I buy lettuce I usually just pick up the best looking head I can find. Anyway, chopping up this bright green, farm raised, chemically infused leafy vegetable got me to thinking: I wonder if the day is coming when a majority of people in the US will look back at non-organic, commercially farmed vegetables with the same disdain most Americans presently have for cigarettes and asbestos?  One day will there personal injury lawyers advertising on TV? "Have you or a loved one suffered illness or injury after eating lettuce raised by... call 1-800-BAD-VEGY" And  I can just hear it now, "Dad, why are you still eating those nasty vegetables?"

I guess that probably wouldn't be all bad.  I think our heavily cultivated and treated vegetables are probably not right on a couple of levels. Then, too, I would hope by that future date in time solicitous personal injury lawyers would be a thing of the past as well.

For now, taco salad was just the thing on a cold and snowy February night.