I'm Not Fighting With My Gastroenterologist.

 I can't decide if I'm more miffed by my recent gastroenterology appointment, or by any number of other things - so let's just start with the doctor stuff.

I left a recent appointment with a pamphlet that essentially says I can't digest food properly anymore because 'people today eat too much processed food'.  And that makes me mad.  

1) Almost no one is able to eat a low-processed food diet in urban Canada.  For one thing, it would require access to fresh or naturally fermented/dried produce year round, which might be available but hardly within the budgetary constrictions of everyday workers.  I can get dried apricots at the grocery store, but they're processed with sulphites.  I can buy tomatoes in January, but they came from California in a polluting truck and were probably sprayed with stuff and coated with things and genetically modified to withstand the trip.  I can buy pickles, but they're not natural pickles - they're in a jar, with salt and sugar and citric acid to keep them crispy and lots of other stuff.  And were prolly made in Sri Lanka or something anyway.

2) Which brings me to the fact that unless you are consuming organic, heritage, non-gmo, local foods in close to their natural state...guess what?  You're eating processed foods.  You think bananas are supposed to look like that?  You think cows naturally evolved to give dozens of gallons of milk a day?  You think corn, what, comes out of the husk in cans or something?  Don't be absurd.

3) And just exactly what is TOO MUCH processed food even supposed to mean, anyway?  I can't eat homemade bread because the flour was, after all, genetically modified wheat that has been sifted, likely bleached, probably sterilized, bagged, and shipped to me?  I shouldn't have strawberries in the winter?  Or is this about sugar and salt?  Is this about the nefarious 'chemicals' of...whatever chemicals we're all worried about at the moment?

4) And FURTHERMORE, I would like to point out that I DON'T eat too much processed food ANYWAY, thankyouverymuch.  I'm not sitting on the sofa scarfing down a bag of cheezits for supper, ma'am.  I have oatmeal or eggs for breakfast, everyday.  I have a piece of fruit, some rice or vegetables, and some kind of protein for lunch - leftovers from supper, or maybe another egg, or a can of fish.  I have meat and vegetables for supper.  I drink tea, coffee, water and watered down cranberry juice.  That's it.  Every once in a while I have dessert.  Every once in a while I have a piece of toast or something.  Sometimes I have a handful of seeds or nuts if they're in the house.  I have a weakness for a cup of Ovaltine and some wine gums if they're hanging around.  Once a month I eat a few slices of pizza with my kids.

5) Hrumph.

Image credit: Marc Noorman via Unsplash