We Live in a “Food Desert”

What does a food desert even mean?!?! It is a phrase that has been born out of Americas obsession with fast, convenient, and cheap food. Corn is a crop that is subsidized by the government. The reason, as it was explained to me, is partially because corn can be harvested and then preserved to last for years after the harvest. When people are investing in a crop they want to make sure the investment yields the most product as possible. If we grew spinach, we might not sell it all in the week or so window we have to sell it before it spoils. If you have corn you can dehydrate it and make things like cereals and other products that have a very long time to sell before it goes bad. The thing is, the process of preserving the food takes away from the nutritional content. When you heat something, the molecular bonds bonds break and change configurations in the process. Sometimes the food producers will add synthetic vitamins into the processed and preserved food because they know they have ruined a significant amount of the natural nutritional value in the food. There is a lot of concern that these synthetic vitamins do not react in your body as a natural, food based nutrient would.

Also, chemical preservatives are used in our conveniently prepackaged and ready to eat foods. I will go in depth more about this in another blog because this is a very interesting and hot topic where there is a lot of concern and much confusion too. Ultimately, I believe, that our body is delicate and the least amount of foreign chemicals we put in our body the more natural state our body will remain in. The whole point of this topic is to simply highlight that day in and day out we eat these foods that are lacking proper nutrition because they are convenient. Our body has a very long list of REQUIRED nutrients, also antioxidants are so vital to preventing disease states and can be found in fresh fruits and vegetables. When you make a smoothie it is so easy to get these very nutrients and antioxidants that your body NEEDS. A five minute smoothie in the morning routine can literally add quality of life for years to come.