WE WANT DONUTS!

A few nights ago we went to go see the worst team in baseball, our very own Kansas City Royals. Right now they are winning one in four games which, for those of you who don't follow sports, is bad. In our town you definitely go to the game either for "the experience" or to see a good team come to town. In this case I feel like I experienced the saddest day in Royals baseball history. I'll explain:

The local division of Krispy Kreme Donuts has a deal going that if the Royals get 12 or more hits in a single game, just show your ticket stub for a FREE dozen donuts. As you can imagine this is very popular yet highly improbable. In the bottom of the 9th inning the Royals were down by 3 runs, had no outs, and had 11 hits for the game. The Jumbo-tron in the stadium suddenly announces that one more hit and that makes a dozen for the Royals and a dozen donuts for us! So the crowd is now into the game. There is a reason to watch, and now everyone in the stadium is chanting "We-want-do-nuts-clap-clap-clap-clap-clap". This is true. All 4,000 people were cheering their team on to get a hit. To come back and win the game? No! For some last minute heroics to turn this lousy season around? No! This 3rd fattest city in the nation wanted our donuts!! Give us our FREE dozen donuts! How sad. As there was a pause in the action, I am confident that every player on the field heard our chanting. I felt guilty. But I too really wanted those donuts!

In the end, everyone lost. No more hits, no last minute heroics, no win for the home team, and no donuts for anybody.

The Future of Food

The other day I came to a realization...About strawberries. I was thinking about when I was young my family would get strawberries (only for dessert) and we would slice them up with some short cake and then COVER them in sugar. They were so good! What wouldn't be, covered with sugar? I got to wondering why strawberries, of all the berries in the world, would need sugar added to them? So as I was cutting up some conventionally grown strawberries at work, I was very disappointed in the general lack of flavor. Later, I cut some organically grown strawberries and marveled at the wonderfully sweet taste! That's when I had my realization!! Conventional strawberries just don't have the same flavor because of how they are grown. To some this may be common sense; and surely it should have been to me, a produce manager of 4 years.

So it got me thinking: how strange is it that we have zapped all the sweetness out of berries that we would need to add sugar to them! This is so absurd! Can you imagine making a pitcher of orange juice from concentrate, and then adding a cup of sugar like it's freaking kool-aid? Maybe that's where we're headed. Granted, strawberries are sprayed more than any other fruit, so oranges will not be the same kind of case. But we lack all kinds of nutrients in our soil (that's why we have multi-vitamins) because of how we farm so badly.

I guess the realization happened because I have all this farming information in my head, but I don't feel like I see the actual results of it very often; mostly because I only eat organic. When you go back to conventionally grown produce, you are often sorry that you did.