Growing with a Hella Fine Gangsta Lean

Growing with a Hella Fine Gangsta Lean

When I was younger I was working as a server at a restaurant (I shall not name) when I first discovered how deceptive the food industry can be. On our menu we advertised real mashed potatoes as one of our side dishes for our dinner entrees but I discovered in the kitchen they were boxed. When I asked one of my coworkers about it he told “We get away advertising it as real mashed potatoes because the box says it’s made with real potatoes.” This was shocking to me considering how many customers had asked me about this. I felt like I lied to so many people. I felt guilty. I started wondering how many other restaurants do this. I then started telling people the truth when they asked but one day a corporate manager over heard me. I was imminently pulled off the service floor and sent home. I got a call the next day from my normal store manager telling me he saved me my job and that I could no longer respond “No” when asked “Are the mashed potatoes made with real potatoes?” From that day forward I came up with the clever response “Yes! At least that’s what the box says.” Fast forward a few years I was working at an Asian food place, where like many Asian restaurants, their claim to fame is “No Added MSG” Once again a tricky word play. They don’t add MSG it comes with it. And yet at another server job I discovered egg substitute being advertised as real eggs. Whenever I go out to breakfast now I always asked for shelled eggs. This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to some of the lies, tales, deception, and corruption in our food industry. My solution to all of the food industries problems is to leave the food industry altogether. We need to grow our own food.

            I recently learned about the man known as the Gangsta Gardener, Ron Finley, on an episode of Ted Talks. Finley grew up in South Los Angeles, an area known as a food prison. Surrounded by fast food chains, liquor stores, and empty ran down lots, Finley witnessed others around him form health and obesity issues. Realizing the nearest fresh fruit or vegetable was about a 45 minute drive away, Finley decided to do something about it. In 2010 Finley found a loophole in the laws about the curbside strip outside of his house. The Rules are he had to maintain the curbside strip but is not specific on how or with what. Finley started to grow vegetables in the curbside dirt strip and started a revolution. The Gangsta Gardener set out to change South Los Angeles from food prison to food forest. Finley’s green thumb led him to a run in with authorities, who threatened to cite him for gardening without a permit if he did not remove his garden. Being the Gangsta that he is, he told them to”Bring it!” Finley fought back. He started a petition and got the attention of fellow green activists who helped demand for the right to grow and garden food in his neighborhood. The city has slowly backed off and let Ron Finley transform South Los Angeles’s curbsides with tomatoes, pumpkins, kale, corn, red peppers, and sunflowers. Finley has become a leader in his community. I believe we should all follow in his footsteps. We need to grow food wherever we can and help turn these concrete jungles into forests of food. Not only is growing our own food a cost effective solution, it will help eliminate some of the problems with the food industry such as mislabeling, false food revolutions, and too much government in our food.

One reason I believe we need to grow our own food is we can no longer believe what food companies are telling us about their products. I’ve already given you some common misleading food marketing with “Real Mashed Potatoes” and “No Added MSG”, now I would like to focus on everybody’s favorite maker of cereal Kellogg’s, who since 1984 has been putting whatever they really want onto cereal boxes. They claim their right to do this is protected by the First Amendment. This has lead to such famous Kellogg’s slogans like “All-Bran wards off cancer” and “Coca Krispies now helps support your child’s immunity”. Kellogg’s was also forced to pull a commercial for Frosted Mini- Wheats that claimed “A clinical study showed kids who had a filling breakfast of Frosted Mini-Wheats cereal improve their attentiveness by nearly twenty percent.” John Oliver rips on this ad on an episode of his HBO show “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver” saying “the only reason they got nearly twenty percent is because they’re rounding up from eleven.” Oliver then shows an article off the Federal Trade Commission’s website stating “the children who ate the cereal for breakfast averaged just under eleven percent better attentiveness” and this was “Compared to children that ate no breakfast.” Oliver then jokes a better slogan for Kellogg’s Frosted Mini-Wheats should be “Literally Better than Nothing”. Kellogg’s probably ain’t the only ones putting wild claims on the boxes of their products and using the protection of the First Amendment to do so. How can we trust want these companies are claiming on their food packaging? Well we don’t have to worry about what it says on the box if we just grow our own food. I believe the claims made by food companies are just going to get more and more outlandish making the necessity of growing our own food more and more important every day.

Another reason I believe we all need to start growing our own food is we no longer know what is healthy to eat anymore. False diet movements and health guru’s have over flooded the health scene with so much false information it’s hard to tell. Is chicken better for you then red meat? According to Dr. Caldwell in the documentary What the Health, it’s the same preference as “Being shot or hung?” The carcinogen levels are similar, the leading source of sodium in the american diet for adults is chicken, and the number one dietary source of cholesterol in America is chicken. What about fish? They have become mercury and fukushima sponges. On top of all this we don’t know what they are feeding or pumping into these chickens or fish(if farmed). Deli Meat? One serving of processed meat per day increased risk of diabetes by fifty-one percent. Veggie burgers? Well I recently learned Morning Star Farms one of the main makers of veggie burgers is owned by Monsanto. The same company that previously produced such evils as the insecticide DDT, PCBs, Agent Orange, aspartame and bovine growth hormone. Then there is always someone cashing in on the latest health trend. Today’s current Joel Osteen of whole foods is Michael Pollan, who wants you to shop at costly so called whole foods stores, eat fried tofu, and vegetables covered in bacon and/or sea salt and call it healthy eating. In David H. Freedman’s article “How Junk Food Can End Obesity” Freeman calls out some of Michael Pollan’s propaganda by proving tofu can be just as fatty as beef, especially when you add floor, fry it in grease, and add some sauce to it. Freeman also adds your body can’t tell the difference between sea salt and regular salt. Rather its from the sea or engineered in large amounts it raises blood pressure in most people. Although I agree with Pollan that we need to be like the diabetic Aborigines who went back to the bush to heal themselves, I don’t want to go back to anybody’s bush but my own. Especially some whole foods $5.99 for a so called organic apple bush. Don’t believe the hype, grow your own.

And even another reason I believe we should start planting is to eliminate government out of our food process. Call me a poser if you want but I’m going to go ahead and say it, “Anarchy in USDA!” Too much government in our food industry has lead to such ridiculous laws like the “Ag-gag Laws” and “Cheeseburger laws”. Ag-gag laws are class of anti-whistleblower laws that apply within the agriculture industry that forbid the act of filming or photography of activity on farms without the consent of their owner. I don’t see how punishing people that are pointing out things that can be improved in our food industry as a good thing. Are we not supposed to take what someone is saying is wrong with our food industry into consideration. You mean it’s not open to debate? Or democracy? What’s the point of having government in our food industry then? Stick it to the man and grow your own.

I believe If we start growing are own food like the gangsta gardener out in South Los Angeles and leave the food industry altogether we could eliminate these problems and so much more. I think we could do so much more then the curb side strips. With todays advances in solar power and water recycling I believe we could grow more indoors. Thousands of pounds of Marijuana is yielded indoors yearly. Why can’t we use similar methods to grow acai here in America so they can still afford it in Brazil? Maybe growing our food could end more issues then just those in our food industry. Maybe it wont matter if your black, white, or brown. All that will matter is that your thumb is green. We won’t know unless we start growing gangsta.

works cited

Finley, Ron “A Guerilla Gardener in South Central LA” TedTalks

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EzZzZ_qpZ4w (March 6, 2013)

http://ronfinley.com

http://www.designindaba.com/articles/creative-work/gangsta-gardener-bringing-affordable-and-nutritious-produce-california’s

Freeman, David “How Junk Food can End Obesity” July/August 2013 issue of the Atlantic

Oliver, John “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver” Mislabeling

“What the Health”A.U.M. Films & Media Kip Andersen

March 7, 2017