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<\/a><\/p>\nWhen I was a boy I lived in the countryside, but I didn\u2019t really know anything much about it. It had changed. We were surrounded by fields but we didn\u2019t know what happened there. My friend Andrew lived the other end of a footpath past a field, Star\u2019s Field, named after the horse I just about remember there, but one day Star went and shortly after that the field went as well. There\u2019s a little row of shop for the estate there now. Adder berries grew at one end of the path. That\u2019s what we called them. Everyone did. Adders do eat they, we were told. They\u2019re poisonous.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re poisonous\u2019 was applied to everything that didn\u2019t come from a shop. It wasn\u2019t meant to be ironic, notwithstanding that a lot of the food in shops isn\u2019t great for you at all. If you want to argue about that, have a look at the incidence of obesity and Type Two diabetes, two things that\u2019ll mess you up big style if you overdo the Sunny Delight and instant meals.<\/p>\n
Poison<\/h3>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re poisonous\u201d was applied to all mushrooms in every field as soon as older people who knew that all funghi are edible but some only once had the kind of jobs that meant they couldn\u2019t be with children in the fields to tell them that St George\u2019s mushrooms, the huge puffballs, should be cooked instead of kicked and that while just the look of the Avenging Angel will suck you in almost mesmerically, shining so pure and white it\u2019s almost luminous, so will you be within a few days if you eat it.<\/p>\n
It’s Good For You<\/h3>\n
So the thing is done. Whatever industrial chemical (farmed salmon has up to 27 of them) is in the food, not including our old friends aspartame<\/a> or cancer-promoting saccharine <\/a>(look it up if you don\u2019t believe me, I\u2019m tired of saying the same thing over and again), so long as it\u2019s got a plastic wrap on it it\u2019s Good For You. If it hasn\u2019t it\u2019s Bad. Just like adder berries. I\u2019ve never eaten one. I\u2019m not actually going to try. At least until I find out what they really are and what they do. Just the way no-one bothers to when they read the list of ingredients in processed foods. They\u2019re fine, even when the makers put a label on them saying they\u2019ll mess you up. Processed food is Cheap. Convenient. Hygienic. Good For You. And that\u2019s official. Even when something is so toxic it’s banned until Donald Rumsfeld<\/a> pulls some strings to get it made ok.<\/p>\n Bad is Good. Black is White. Knowns are Unknowns, or at least, Unmentionds.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n