Since ‘organic’ has become the buzzword of the decade, many of us have hopped on this trendy bandwagon in search of healthier food and product options and with hopes of living longer, younger, stronger lives into our dotage. But really, ‘organic’ has been around a long time. Treehuggers, old and young, have been living organic lives for literally decades where I come from in the remote southwest corner of New Mexico, that haven of alternative thought and patchouli. They have been ‘growing their own” (fruits and veg, that is), eschewing petrochemicals and building with hay bales and old tires for as long as I’ve been on the earth (don’t ask).

My sister, who is an old hippie at heart, has been cramming organics and alternative healing down my throat for years and threatening to smother me while I sleep if I vaccinate my kid. I used to take what she said with a grain of salt and sort of nod and agree half-heartedly so that she would shut up and leave me alone, but over time, her hammering cut a chink into the belief system with which I had been ingrained and I started really listening to her arguments. I slowly began Googling my questions and concerns and reading and reading and reading about vaccinations, organics, natural products, toxins in body lotions and shampoos and building materials, hormones in our milk and meat, and fluoridated toothpaste.

My mother always jokes every time I go home to the US that the Library of Congress, compliments of Amazon, is stacked up in her garage for me to drag back to China to read in the wee hours of my chronic insomnia. Those who know me really believe me when I say, “I’ve read about that…” As I have read and read, always trying to look at information impartially from all sides of any given argument, in many areas I have slowly made my way to the “Dark Side.” Many of the things I’ve come to believe are extremely controversial and many can be successfully argued from another point of view, but I’m beginning to believe more and more that most of the beliefs we hold dear are simply held because we’ve never been presented with an alternative viewpoint. Much of the research is hidden or else it isn’t exploited by our global media the way standard points of view are and as a result, when we are presented with information that challenges our status quo, we often resist it and close our minds to the possibility that perhaps we haven’t always been told the truth and that the powers that be might not always have our best interests at heart.

Just (organic) food for thought….