Wink’s Blog

Yesterday morning we were thrilled to see the silhouette of a Great Blue Heron wading stealthily in our pond’s wetland peninsula. It paused and struck. What was it feeding on? Most likely our friends the frogs who have taken up residence. As the long, sharp beak came down we were reminded of the stories of them driving right on through the plastic liner to produce a leak! A mixed blessing, this sighting. Fortunately, where this one was hunting there is an ample cushion of soil.

Later, we discovered that, overnight, deer had inexpertly pruned our new cherry trees in the lower (still unfinished) hoop house. This is a big disappiontment. We’d removed the protective netting the day before in order to rototill the planting beds and sow cover crop. They wasted no time in burglarizing the premises. It’s like they knew… in the afternoon Erik and I went around and tightened-up the perimeter.

In late afternoon a large Red Tail Hawk graced us with a hunting fly-by. For about a week we’ve been hearing Sandhill Cranes, invisible at altitude in the clear blue expanse, croaking their southerly migration.

This morning, our first dusting of snow of the year; good for tracking deer.

Did you catch yesterday’s Morning Edition story on Fritos and its inventor? What stuck in my craw is that the reporter invariably referred to Fritos as “snack food”. Food??? It would not have gotten my ire up if it had been referred to simply as “snack”. I would have heartily approved if they’d been correctly referred to as “snack poison” or “snack crap”.

At Mesa Winds Farm we think the proper use of the term “food” should be applied to items that, in addition to being tasty are nutritious, support health not undermine it, in which the original ingredients are reasonably identifiable. Etc, etc, etc. You get the picture: obesity, heart disease, cancer, frankenfoods.

OK. I enjoy the taste of Fritos probably as much as anyone and I appreciate the convenience of snapping open a bag while on a road trip. I don’t watch TV but I can imagine the same goes for the ability to keep the eyes on the screen and the hand moving between bag and mouth. The salt balances nicely with beer. I help Max with the popcorn at the movies. I may be staving off hunger. I may be satisfying the oral fixation that once-upon-a-time was quenched by smoking. But, at such times I am very aware that what I am putting into my body is not going to contribute to my health, my mental acuity, or my longevity. In fact it will very likely undermine these. Oh well.

In a culture that in being bombarded with evidence of the negative impacts of eating junk and no evidence at all of any positive effects, it is simply WRONG to combine the word “food” with “snack” or “junk”. I quit smoking upon the Surgeon General’s admonition and as the evidence built. As a culture we desperately need to change our understanding of food, as we once did with cigarettes and roadside litter. We need to accept that taking care of our mind and body is a whole lot easier, cheaper, and more enjoyable than chemotherapy or heart surgery or liposuction. The advertisers sure aren’t going to impress this upon us so the educational function remains to the non-commercial media. NPR should do its part by being more careful in their terminology and referring to junk as junk.