Eating healthy isn’t easy. It does become a little bit easier when living with an illness. However, finding really fresh and safe fruits and vegetable isn’t easy unless you live near a farming community. As a city dweller, I don’t know who to trust. While I do not believe eating healthy will cure any disease I now have or one that I may get in the future, I do believe it makes me feel better.

When I was much younger raw fruits and vegetable were quite tasty. Now many seem bland and tasteless when eaten raw. When cooked, I can add seasoning. I used to think it was my pallet that was going bad. Now I tend to believe we have serious quality issues when it comes to the fruits and vegetable sold in supermarkets.

 Not too long ago (that really means a long time ago at my age), fruits and vegetables were fresh and you could actually eat them off the vines or off the shelf without the worry of some bug-killing chemical causing a new disease to worry about. It wasn’t that long ago that I heard about lettuce contain a killer virus sold in a fast-food chain. Now that’s serious!

If we ever let down our guard about the things we put in our mouth, there will serious consequences for our country, any country for that matter. It’s happened with our pets, it can’t be long before it affects the human population as well, If it isn’t already.  With the emphasis on making money in the food industry and not on our health, we have to be very careful. It seems that big farms are growing for looks and not for taste. Anyone who has purchased tomatoes in a supermarket for many years can tell you that they do not taste the way they used to. Many do not even look like tomatoes inside. Apples are gown to look great on a shelf and given an artificial shine, but have little taste. Red Delicious are, well, just red.

 While I do not want to spend my time digging in mud planting seeds and hoping for some fresh vegetables, I do dream of doing it, but my body says, “are you kidding me?” I was happy to run across a web site that offered a novel way of getting the fresh vegetables I crave without getting dirty or getting blisters from hacking away at hard clay with a hoe. The folks at AeroGraden offer a unique way to grow greens, herbs, cherry tomatoes and chili peppers without dirt. That’s right, without dirt.

Okay, maybe you can’t grow the lima beans, cucumbers and big boy tomatoes, but I expect that if this catches on, there may be a way to scale this contraption. It’s kind of a hydroponics, with the roots being misted with water and nutrients instead of sitting in water. It does not cost much more than one of those Ghia pottery animals that grows herbs and I expect works much better. You can buy an AeroGarden for $19.95. And just maybe, while munching on fresh greens, you can figure out how to convert you living room to an indoor garden that includes a wide variety of plants and fruit. There is already talk of building skyscrapers as indoor gardens in large cities. I have a lot plants in my house that I water and tend, but I don’t think I can eat any of them. That is without some serious digestive problems. But when you start paying fifty cents for one cucumbers, then growing your own seems like a bargain.

Of course, I still have to purchase fruit, but for some reason they didn’t mention anything like Strawberries I keep talking about planting fruit trees out back, but waiting three or more years takes the drive right out of me. Of course, more than three years have already passed and I continue to think about it.  I guess I, like most people, I want immediate results. You know, drop in a tree and pick fruit tomorrow.

Anyway, for some fresh greens in your home,  try out the AeroGarden. There is nothing like growing your own food. Now, if they can figure out how to grow and slaughter chickens, cows and pigs indoors without the guilt.  The thought makes me want to consider the vegetarian life again.

This entry was posted on Saturday, December 1st, 2007 at 1:07 am and is filed under Useful Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.