When I was a mere child in elementary school, a part of our history lessons had to do with the Spanish explorations into the areas that later became part of the United States. One of the things that puzzled me most was the story about Ponce de Leon and his search for the Fountain of Youth which led him to the discovery of Florida. Even though I was just a youngster, I was savvy enough to know that there could be no such thing as a magical fountain that would make you young again – or at least stop aging. And I couldn’t understand why any grown-ups would even think that something like that could even exist.
Fast-forward a few decades and add in the ability to look back and observe, and I see now that Ponce de Leon was only following the instincts of human nature. All of my life, people have continued to seek the Fountain of Youth, but the quest has always been updated to match the times and isn’t readily apparent to anyone at the time.
Keeping within our own time frame, let’s review what’s been happening more recently. First of all, back in the 1960′s some outfit that made and sold yogurt mounted an advertising campaign featuring a community of forgotten villagers in a remote region of Russia that had a collective history of unusual longevity. It just so happened that one of the staples of this primitive settlement was yogurt made from goat’s milk. So the Madison Ave. slicksters made a compelling 60-second commercial that implied that their lifetime consumption of yogurt is what kept them going all those extra years in their hovels. Presto! Millions of Americans experienced a sudden awakening of that internal desire for immortality and the rush to stock the fridge with an unpalatable cup of goo was on.
And don’t forget the fable of bran benefits. In the 1970′s came the faddism for everything-bran. Breakfast became a meal consisting of a 2-lb. muffin that featured “bran” as its primary ingredient. Suddenly Post was no longer the sole source of Raisin Bran cereal. And the next generation of 20-somethings snatched up cookbooks featuring bran flour and dedicated themselves, for a while, to stopping their aging process. Nosiree…they weren’t going to become slow and wrinkly like their ugly parents.
For reasons that I don’t understand, the bran fad was quickly followed by the rice cake fad. Potatoes were out and rice was in. Rice became the preferred side dish at every dinner and the grocery stores started stocking boxes of six individually-wrapped rice cakes that you could drop in your purse or pocket for a between-meals snack. Those bland tooth-breakers were even worse than yogurt.
The Fountain of Youth hoax of this decade is easily spotted if you are ever in a grocery store. Most of the markets now have an entire section devoted to …… Organic Food. Some bunch of Hippies somewhere got smoked up one night and formulated the specious reasoning that vegetables fertilized with all-natural cow dung were much better for you than those treated with chemical fertilizers that actually kill insects and lead to plumper plant harvests. This one has really gotten traction.
City folk don’t realize it, but there’s nobody any craftier that a farmer. And the farmers saw this one coming along with a huge $ sign. First they concocted a set of “rules” that delineate what the word “organic” means and then they start applying little stickers on all their produce along with a hefty price increase. There appears to be enough concern amongst the Boomers who have suddenly found themselves unable to run the bases on the softball diamond, that they’re automatically snapping up anything with the “organic” label on it. And the retailers are obliging them by putting it on almost everything along with the mandatory price increase. Last week I saw the ultimate in Fountain of Youth folly at a market that had a big supply of “organic milk” on the dairy shelves. Can anybody tell me, with a straight face, just what in the he – - organic milk is? One thing it is for sure, is a profit-maker. The prices of the organic milk cartons were almost double the cost of ordinary, poisonous milk.
Apparently most folks missed THIS ARTICLE from Reuters this summer that leads off with:
Organic food has no nutritional or health benefits over ordinary food, according to a major study. Researchers from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine said consumers were paying higher prices for organic food because of its perceived health benefits, creating a global organic market worth an estimated $48 billion in 2007.
A systematic review of 162 scientific papers published in the scientific literature over the last 50 years, however, found there was no significant difference.
If history is any guide, as this fad finishes out, another sure-fire ticket to the Fountain of Youth will spring up to take its place. If any of you have any idea of what the next magic potion will be, will you please let me know? I want to stock up before the price skyrockets.
Now let’s work on our equipment’s longevity and get it checked out. I’ll get the organic coffee started.
