No More Mr. Fat Guy!

Most tomatoes you buy at the store look nice, but don’t taste very good. Especially in winter. So one Florida grower bred his own version of tomatoes that still taste good even after being shipped hundreds of miles. Customers swear that they taste much better than ordinary tomatoes. And they’re willing to pay twice as much for them as they pay for regular tomatoes. But they don’t look so hot; in fact, they’re marketed as UglyRipe Tomatoes. But you can’t buy them anymore, thanks to the Florida Tomato Committee. They have the power to determine which Florida tomatoes can be sold and which can’t. And they’ve decided that UglyRipe tomatoes are, well, too ugly to be allowed to be sold, no matter how many people want to buy them.

Oh, well. At least we still live in the freest country on the planet, where you’re allowed to burn the flag, cable and satellite companies provide hard core porn 24/7, and our government allows all kinds of genetically modified Frankenfoods on the market, while protecting us from less than aesthetically perfect natural produce.

And I’m proud to be an American, where at least I know I’m free!

Update: I didn’t notice until after posting that the story was three years old. So I Googled around and found out that in January of this year, after a three year battle, the USDA finally granted UglyRipe tomatoes an exemption. So the ugly tomatoes are free at last!

Why cut back on portions, eat healthier foods, and get more exercise to reclaim your health? Because that’s the only way to lose weight and get in shape. But scientists continue the search for a magic Frankenfood that will taste great, fill you up, and not make you fat. It’s big business for one company in Holland right now. But I say it can’t be done. That’s not how life works, or nature works. Nature already provides us with foods that fill us up without a lot of calories. They’re called fruits and vegetables, and they contain fiber. But we prefer other, tastier foods.

If something is invented that “works”, I can’t imagine how eating it could be healthy, since to have any effect it would have to interfere with or shut down the body’s natural processes. Wasn’t diet pop supposed to make us all skinnier? And yet some studies show that people who drink diet pop are fatter than those who don’t. If you’ve ever seen the Albert Brooks movie Defending Your Life, you remember that in Heaven, everyone could gorge on their favorites foods all day long and never put on any weight. I doubt very much if Heaven’s going to be like that, and I’m 100% convinced that life on Earth will never be like that, no matter how many billions companies put into research and development. We’re fat because we eat too much, we eat the wrong stuff, and we don’t get out and move our bodies. That’s the reality, and no Frankenfood is ever going to “fix” reality.

Just sneeze on it. That oughta do the trick. At least according to the FDA, which has approved spraying lunch meat with viruses to kill bacteria:

Even for snoopy journalists, there is such a thing as learning more than you want to know. We’ve just had one of those unwanted learning experiences; perhaps you did too. It came over the weekend in a news story reporting that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved using viruses as food additives.

Specifically, the FDA approved a mixture of six viruses that food companies can spray on lunchmeat, hot dogs and sausages before packaging them.

The viruses are supposed to kill any Listeria monocytogenes bacteria that try to multiply on lunchmeats. Listeria causes an infection that seriously sickens 2,500 Americans annually, causing 500 deaths.

The spray-on viruses are called bacteriophages (Greek for ”bacteria-eater”). They don’t hurt humans or plants, and they normally live in our digestive tracts, the experts say. FDA approval also is to be sought for another kind of virus that would be used to keep E. coli bacteria from sickening people who eat ground beef.

It’s great to know that the spray-on viruses will save hundreds of lives and prevent untold suffering. We keep telling ourselves that this is a good thing.

But the mental picture of viruses chewing on bacteria that are growing on the lunchmeat we are chewing on is unappetizing, to tell the truth.

I’m not real crazy about the thought of genetically modified foods and pharma crops, or what some folks call Frankenfoods. I’m no expert, but it seems to me that when it comes to food, the closer to the way God made it the better. Now they’re talking about injecting safflower and barley with human genes:

Ask the people around you if they want experimental drugs and industrial chemicals in their food or beer — without their knowledge or consent. Chances are they’ll say no. Then tell them experiments that could make that happen are occurring right here in Washington state.

As you read this, a professor at Washington State University and a private Canadian company, SemBioSys, have applied for permits to turn two common food crops — barley and safflower — into virtual factories for synthetic drugs or chemicals.

On its Web site, SemBioSys declares its plan to inject safflower with human genes to produce experimental insulin and a drug for heart attacks and strokes. WSU confirms that it plans to grow barley, injected with human genes, to produce artificial proteins with pharmaceutical properties. Where these fields will be is secret; nearby farmers and residents won’t be notified.

Human genes in your beer? “Honey, is it me, or does this Michelob taste like Bob?”

Maybe they can use the genes of skinny people to make light beer.