Peaches


mikbone
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About 30 years ago I was on a business trip as a shoe salesman in a four-state territory (lots of travel).  Anyway, I was getting hungry and stopped at a roadside fruit stand in Georgia.  When I got out of the car the scent hit me like a ton of bricks.  PEACHES!  The stand was pretty busy and the owner was working with one misshapen peach at a time and a pocket knife.  He would hand a slice of peach to a person in line and then they would hand over $20 and receive a brown paper bag with a dozen peaches.  When it was my turn, I accepted the dripping slice and ate it with gusto.  Apparently, I had never eaten a real peach previously...  It exploded in my mouth and the flavor was so intense.  I gladly handed over the Jackson and returned to my car.  I ate 2 more peaches before starting my truck.  And 30 minutes later I had eaten the whole bag.  My hands were wet and sticky.  The driving wheel was wet and stick.  My white collared shirt was a disaster and I had to go thru the luggage in the bed of the pickup truck to get a new shirt and towel off with a baby wipe.  It was glorious.

I have been chasing that day ever since.  I have never been back to Georgia.  But occasionally I will go into a grocery store and look at a geometrically stacked display of peaches.  The shapes are all perfect, the peach fuzz is pleasant to the touch, and the unblemished skin is that wonderful collage of sunset colors.  Finally, when I get home I unpack and then try out the peach - it's never as good.  And sometimes the fruit has a similar texture and taste of a baseball.   It's ALWAYS a disappointment.  But I do it over and over.  Occasionally I will find a passable peach, about once every 4-5 years when a truckload of tree-ripened peaches hits a local store and you can smell them when you hit the door.  Plenty of customers comment about the smell and are busy filling plastic bags.  But 95 out of 100x times the peaches are garbage.  Better for throwing at your enemies than eating.  And no matter how long they rest on your counter or fridge they never ripen.  Every single time this happens I feel cheated.  Cheated that I fell for the same old trick.  They look good on the outside, but they are not real.  And not only did I fake myself out again with unrealistic expectations, I wasted my hard-earned money.  Almost to the level of self-loathing.  Will I ever figure this out?!

 

This week I was thinking about peaches and comparing the experience to more important things in life like:

True love and sex within the bounds of an eternal marriage vs. pornography 

Prayer, and scripture study vs. the philosophy man and social media

Healthy lifestyle and diet  vs. overeating, processed foods, fad diets, prescription medications, workout equipment, etc

 

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That's a good analogy. I was actually thinking of a similar one this week. We often hear about the need to feast upon the words of Christ and how we should approach it as a grand buffet and not just pick at it. When reading about Enos' experience when his father's words sunk deep into his heart he said his soul hungered and I got to thinking about why our souls don't always hunger for the gospel. This got me to thinking about how the world is constantly offering us empty calories in the form of "candy and other junk foods" that simultaneously ruins our appetite and health at the same time. It's almost like Heavenly Father put us in a world designed to teach us things. 🤔

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5 hours ago, mikbone said:

About 30 years ago I was on a business trip as a shoe salesman in a four-state territory (lots of travel).  Anyway, I was getting hungry and stopped at a roadside fruit stand in Georgia.  When I got out of the car the scent hit me like a ton of bricks.  PEACHES!  The stand was pretty busy and the owner was working with one misshapen peach at a time and a pocket knife.  He would hand a slice of peach to a person in line and then they would hand over $20 and receive a brown paper bag with a dozen peaches.  When it was my turn, I accepted the dripping slice and ate it with gusto.  Apparently, I had never eaten a real peach previously...  It exploded in my mouth and the flavor was so intense.  I gladly handed over the Jackson and returned to my car.  I ate 2 more peaches before starting my truck.  And 30 minutes later I had eaten the whole bag.  My hands were wet and sticky.  The driving wheel was wet and stick.  My white collared shirt was a disaster and I had to go thru the luggage in the bed of the pickup truck to get a new shirt and towel off with a baby wipe.  It was glorious.

I have been chasing that day ever since.  I have never been back to Georgia.  But occasionally I will go into a grocery store and look at a geometrically stacked display of peaches.  The shapes are all perfect, the peach fuzz is pleasant to the touch, and the unblemished skin is that wonderful collage of sunset colors.  Finally, when I get home I unpack and then try out the peach - it's never as good.  And sometimes the fruit has a similar texture and taste of a baseball.   It's ALWAYS a disappointment.  But I do it over and over.  Occasionally I will find a passable peach, about once every 4-5 years when a truckload of tree-ripened peaches hits a local store and you can smell them when you hit the door.  Plenty of customers comment about the smell and are busy filling plastic bags.  But 95 out of 100x times the peaches are garbage.  Better for throwing at your enemies than eating.  And no matter how long they rest on your counter or fridge they never ripen.  Every single time this happens I feel cheated.  Cheated that I fell for the same old trick.  They look good on the outside, but they are not real.  And not only did I fake myself out again with unrealistic expectations, I wasted my hard-earned money.  Almost to the level of self-loathing.  Will I ever figure this out?!

 

This week I was thinking about peaches and comparing the experience to more important things in life like:

True love and sex within the bounds of an eternal marriage vs. pornography 

Prayer, and scripture study vs. the philosophy man and social media

Healthy lifestyle and diet  vs. overeating, processed foods, fad diets, prescription medications, workout equipment, etc

 

l will be in Georgia next weekend and I intend to try a real Georgia peach.  

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This is, I believe, a fairly recent phenomenon.

When I was a child, all the fruit had full flavor.  Over the years, I began noticing that unless it was frozen or canned, it just didn't have much flavor at all.  Quite a twist from previous years where fresh meant "fresh" and canned / frozen food was inferior.

I came to understand why that was.  It was a change in the processes they used for producing and preserving foods.

It was around the 80s and 90s where a lot more effort was made in both husbandry/horticulture as well as genetic engineering of fruits and vegetables.  There were two categories of foods:

1) Does it look good?
2) Does it taste good?

For some reason, there was a bit of a problem getting both to be combined into the same fruit. And at the same time, what size were they?

Original fruit tasted fine, but they were all misshapen or discolored or too small.  So, they were not marketable as fresh fruit.  The genetically engineered fruit had a great appearance, but lacked flavor.

Further, the frozen and canned fruits could be picked at just the right time of ripeness and immediately frozen or canned with much less delay from picking to packaging.  Fresh fruit, OTOH, had to sit in shipping, storage, and display.  This meant that they were picked at random times to meet shipping requirements.  Ripening was an afterthought.  So, if you got one that tasted good or not was just blind luck.

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2 hours ago, Carborendum said:

It was around the 80s and 90s where a lot more effort was made in both husbandry/horticulture as well as genetic engineering of fruits and vegetables.  There were two categories of foods:

/rant on

I'm actually a bit of an expert on this.  When I decided to become a surgeon I had to choose a major that allowed me to fulfill the Med School requirements, prepare for the MCAT, and allow me to get good enough grades while working out and competing on the Track & Field team.  I found the school of Food Science and Nutrition @ BYU!  I knew I had made the correct decision when I walked into an upper-level class (with the pre-req of O Chem), and found myself and 19 other girls standing around kitchenettes tasked with making oatmeal cookies.  

This is the problem.  Businesses must keep shareholders happy by making a profit.  Because American consumers are happy to purchase and eat peaches that taste like hockey pucks we are hosed.  

Peaches that look pleasant but taste horrible have a long shelf life.  They look good on the display table and resist bruising.  They can be transported long distances without spoilage. This scientifically bastardized peach is profitable, it makes shareholders happy.

Look at the corn industry https://nebraskacorn.gov/issues-initiatives/your-food/field-corn-vs-food-corn/

One might be dismayed to realize that less than 1% of corn grown in our country ends up on a wholesome kitchen table dinner plate.  Most of the corn that we grow is inedible - unless processed.  It is turned into fuel for automobiles, livestock feed, High Fructose Corn Syrup or abominations like...

image.png.23f4b133c00ae8715fac5726428167ce.png

In France, they have standards for food like bread and cheese.  https://www.french-waterways.com/protected-french-foods/  They protect their wholesome food.  We don't.

Do you know how many good peaches I can find in my local grocery store????  That's Right ZERO.

Do you know how many variations of Oreos you can find in my local grocery store?  Do you know how many variations of Oreo cookies there are?  The answer might disgust and amaze you.  https://medium.com/@mail_81120/85-oreo-flavors-the-complete-list-of-all-oreo-flavors-38ecee49d165 

The connection with pornography is scary.

Eventually, Food Scientists might be able to produce a peach that tastes good, is both visually appealing, and is shelf-stable.  I doubt it will happen within my lifetime.  And I hope it never happens.  Scientists are not good at being God.  We make mistakes.  There are always consequences and side effects.  See Monsanto.

 https://www.organicconsumers.org/campaigns/millions-against-monsanto

I am sure that the scientific industry will also be able to produce an android that has artificial intelligence and performs all the functions that most people desire.  But science will never be able to make an android that can make a family.  You can't be sealed for time and eternity to an android.  

And to finish, here is a wonderful montage by Jon Stewart on the current COVID madness.

My favorite line.

"I think we owe a great debt of gratitude to science.  Science in many ways has helped ease the suffering of this pandemic.  Which was more than likely caused by science"

 

Edited by mikbone
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