After listening to a two hour lecture on Raw Foods presented by David Wolfe-- Essene Priest, Raw Food Vegan, and author of The Sunfood Diet Success System, Superherbs and other bestsellers-- I was ready to put what I learned into practice. As part of the Ausar Auset fast I had been eating oranges in bulk during the Spring Equinox in order to both cleanse and substitute for fruits and foods with a high glycemic index. Wolfe touched on the dangers of seedless fruits and oranges in particular. Apparently seedless oranges are harmful to the endocrine system and can lead to Candida. Yet oranges with the seed intact are very useful and beneficial to the system. For example, the seeds of oranges help heal Candida.
Seedless fruit negatively affects the reproductive system—go figure, just think of the metaphor. Seedless fruit? You are what you eat right? Seedless. Exactly. And this is not to say that if you eat a seedless fruit then BAM, you’re sterile. However the energy of food is real and very important. Not only are you, in the long run, affecting your health and the quality of your seeds but you are also influencing your future children's general health and reproductive health since your blueprint will become theirs.
In my effort to raise my consciousness and walk the talk I selected organic oranges during my next visit to Whole Foods. While waiting for a friend to complete her shopping I began eating an orange. Problem. I went to customer service, with my half eaten orange, and explained to the rep that the orange labeled organic had no seeds. She apologized saying she had no idea how that happened and told me to get another orange. I thought this was funny. Yo, what are the odds of picking a mutant orange out of a bunch of healthy oranges? Too close, I know. I asked the customer service rep whether ALL the oranges were seedless. She called someone from produce to answer my question. He became instantly upset when I inquired about the oranges. He told me that (in his opinion) the label organic does not attest to whether the food has been genetically modified and that it only speaks to how the food was grown. We got into a "no it's not!" "Yes it is!" back and forth regarding whether seedless fruit and unspecified organic labeling was problematic. I caught myself and kept it Hotep.
But know that I am peacefully outraged. After we deaded the back and forth, which was hilarious, the rep told me that the Whole Foods ONLY carried SEEDLESS organic citrus fruit. Note: a seedless orange is NOT a Whole Food. My Disney World perception of Whole Foods being this fantastic company that knew the facts and provided its customers with the best, first surfaced to my conscious mind and then immediately changed. But as Nutritionist and Food Activist Marion Nestle said a grocery store is not a "social service agency." Talk about a reality check. It seems they’re all in it for the dollar. Yet I would like to believe that in some meaningful way they care.
Solutions? I need to join a local group that focuses on this kind of issue. “Vote with your fork” Nestle says. Ideas or tips on organizing? Would anyone else like to join a movement! It doesn’t have to require much. You can just become more mindful of what you eat and if your grocery store presents a problem, let them know that it is a problem. But of course you are welcome to be more creative.
A brother once told me it didn’t matter and that no matter how you tried to play it the game was the game. “They’re trying to sale a product, point blank,” he said “and there’s always going to be an issue.” Well, I have been perceived as naive but I am a warrior when it comes to the vision. Peace, prosperity and sustainability…seedless fruit will not get us there. Saying it doesn’t matter is basically giving in to someone’s vision. It is the vision of someone or somebodies that had the plan and practice in place to bring their vision into fruition (pun definitely intended). We who dream of a better world need to step up our game.
I am thankful to now have the knowledge since before I ate my oranges with no notion of seeds. I shared this story with several of my friends and we all reflected in awe at how during our childhood we always encountered orange seeds. Now, there are hardly any seeds in sight. How freakishly tragic. My sis Andrea now calls the citrus fruit at Whole Foods "computerized". Grafted, hybrid, computerized...its no good. It’s a shame that with all the technology the initiative implemented is removing seeds from fruit. Why? Because someone thought seeds a nuisance. Sigh. And the saddest part is that we all bought into it. "Oh wow, seedless watermelon!" Grassroots, guerrilla education is indeed necessary. Here is where I start.
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