If you're anything like me, your earliest memories of food come from mom, assuming the even earlier food dealings went through her, too. Things didn't change much from the inutero days immediately, but with enough time, the kitchen would stop being the land of potions and other magical dealings, and become what is truly the land of nurturing, even self nurturing.

But something happened in the land of the mystics. Evil forces must be brewing about. One third of the US population is overweight, and another third is obese, or some other debated figure, but the court isn't out, we're fat, some taking up multiple seats, others getting sick and dying. How did this happen? When did the nurturing food start becoming a poison we can not resist?

A lot of what has destroyed food has occurred for a single reason: food is cheap. When something gets too cheap, it can become too difficult to make money by selling. This is why we turned oats into granola bars, wheat into pasta into canned pasta, water into soda, and believe it or not, corn and soy into beef. Call it greed, call it economic forces, call it human nature, but when food is as cheap as it is and someones trying to turn a buck from it, it starts to move away from health and along other axis', like convenience and taste.

Making pasta involves planting tomato, basil, wheat, onions, and garlic, then harvesting and milling the wheat... well, you see where this is going. Even from the super market, it involves boiling water, browning onions and garlic, doing things semi-properly, and having enough skill to keep yourself entertained with the dish. Or it involves using a can opener, or calling the local pizza chain.

Even worse is the treatment done to poor things such as oats. A perfectly affordable and healthy food turned by Quaker into Cinnamon Roll flavored "Oatmeal Express," a single serving in a ready-to-use cup for 79 cents per ounce, unlike run of the mill (literally!) rolled oats, which are 8 cents per ounce, and already cook near-instantly. Then the box has endless fix-all health claims on it. Please do not eat oats unless you need a straight carbohydrate for energy. Do not eat them with intentions of reducing your risk for heart disease, that comes from complete life style.

Because food is cheap, it's become convenient. We're now able to pay more to have more of the work done for us. The kitchen realm that is inhabited by mystics is now always so for some people. They never learn the sacred art of feeding themselves. Which use to be alright. Portions and meals were dictated by someone who cared enough about you to keep you healthy, something a fast food chain can be a bit careless about at times. Sadly, now even when that person is mom, chances has it she's as lost in the strong currents of the supermarket and advertising seas as everyone else.

The convenience is truly a luxury of the modern age. Never before in history has food ever been this around us, this available to us, but never before have we been so separated from it. The American farmers aren't the best paid of our society, they're actually very low on the totem pole. The American government pays farmers not to grow their crops as well as pays in-part for others to guarantee that they will always be cheap. We get pouty if the food we want is not available. We get oranges year round coast to coast, and more often than not, they ain't half bad. We see two types of commercial cooks today, burger flippers and Wolfgang Puck. Commercial products are made by people closer to chemists than cook, even the cans with Wolfgang Puck's face on the front or innocent Little Debbie.

It's not all doom and gloom, there is good news in all of this, and that's that food is cheap. I'm not talking about Kraft Mac 'n Cheese or the Value Menu. I'm talking about food. The items your great grandparents would recognize. The stuff your body can use to turn into a good you.

In this blog, and some of my other projects, I hope to show you some food, and share some ramblings to help you understand my point of view. It's a little bit insane, but trust me, you've tried Weight Watchers, you've tried Jenny Craig, Atkins, South Beach, and so on, now try out my style, even if it's just for a week, you may like what you find in yourself, and I wont even ask you to buy snack bars from me.