Spinach, Lettace, Cantaloupes...

I'm as lazy as the next person. Give me a bag of cut and "washed" lettace or spinach, give me pre-chopped onions and my wallet is open. Yep, I know it costs so much more than the lettace you have to wash and tear with your own two hands. Doesn't matter. I will eat it if I don't have to work at it, it will rot, still intact as a head or a bunch, in my crisper if I have to do it.

However, however, however... I hate those howevers. If you read the FDA warnings on a regular basis (as I do 'cause I post them on the Georgia Front Page and now in this blog), then it gets harder and harder to be lazy. And wasteful in regards to money.

I once read that many of our so-called flu bouts and stomach viruses were actually small doses of e.coli and other toxins. Meat not completely bad, just on the verge. Meat at a restaurant that wasn't handled properly. Egg shells in foods with whatever evil might remain (how many of you wash your eggs before cracking them open?). Spinach or other fresh veggies not cleaned properly...

Start reading books and articles on how our food is being processed and prepared and you'll think a little more about starting a garden in your back yard.

For months now I've been getting warnings from the FDA about cantaloupes. The thing with spinach probably crippled the industry. Lettace, peanut butter, every day it's some kind of problem.

I'm eating spinach again, have been since it first popped back on the fresh food aisle. I will substitute frozen when needed, but prefer it fresh. Love to saute a bit in the morning, dump an egg in it (maybe some pre-washed cut mushrooms, too).

I am thinking harder and harder about that garden. I don't know what I'd have to give up time-wise to get it going, even though I should since I had one for years way-back-when. I know I'd have to fight those cute little rabbits that run across the yard, and the birds, and the many, many deer that park in our yard to eat.

There are a couple of organic co-ops that have sprung up in the area. I might give that a try first. Of course, that would still mean I'd have to clean, cut, bag, prepare my own spinach, lettace, onions...