OK, warning: this is a rant about food assassins!
My ranting could be because, beautiful as it is on the river, it is brrr-cold and windy and even the river seems to bubble its complaints. You can see its ripples and almost a tide stretching out from the bank to its middle. The ducks aren’t playing, or even flying overhead. My toes are cold, the radiant heat is working hard, where in this 30 degrees F feels like 15 degrees F, it has to heat the floor to 82 degrees F to get us 65 degrees F.
That being said, it has nothing to do with the actual rant I intend. It’s just that cold brings out the guttural response to stuff. After two weeks in less than warmish, but sunny California, where the nearest “good” produce is blocks away, not an hour away, like in Enfield, CT, I got used to having good-for-you produce, and delicious, albeit, largely vegan food at my daughter’s house. 
So returning to the cold weather, chain store produce, and temptation to eat packaged, processed food (which is less tempting when going out for treats requires facing frigid temps and strong winds outside), I, instead, reached for my dried figs, rehydrated them, and am munching on this amazing sweet treat with all kinds of goodness resident, like fiber, minerals, vitamins, anti-oxidents, lowering blood sugar, helping with weight loss, enough tryptophan to induce sleep, and enough calcium to ward off bone loss.
Try getting that from your Twinkies!
Why I call them food assassins
It just gets me thinking of how God created all of these amazing tastes for us, including sweet, sweet fruit, that when dried is even sweeter, and when dried concentrates the benefits, yet we geniuses have decided to discard wholesome snacks like figs, and reach for highly refined white flour, white sugar, no-nutritent, high calorie, high fat, processed snacks that do absolutely no good, and actually do harm.
Even if you do want a processed snack, try comparing a European cookie, for instance, to an American one. A serving for the folks across the pond may be 4 or 5 cookies, to our 1 for the same calories. Why? Why? Why?
I believe it has to be in the ingredients and the processing.
Watching documentaries like FOOD, INC. had me sobbing throughout, with how we are literally killing ourselves, with stupidity and greed, and feeding these obnoxious concoctions we call food to children. I promise you, you can’t watch this and have no response. 
We are usually consuming what the documentary calls “food-like products,” which replace actual food and nutrition. And, the mega-companies make it difficult for us to shop in normal grocery stores and hope to get anything like the whole, delicious foods God intended for us to consume. Even the whole foods that are there, are likely to have been picked and stored for long enough periods of time to decrease any nutrients they could have offered.
So, yes, I know it’s a choice. And, yes, I know a cookie or two, even a Twinkie, isn’t going to kill us. But a lifetime of eating this x&%(*xx@# daily IS going to seriously reduce the quality of our lives and health, and is probably going to shorten our lifespans.
You don’t have to switch to being a vegan or a vegetarian.
You don’t have to give up the tastes you love.
But, for the love of God and your own lives, please, consider taking some baby steps in this new year toward making choices for life.
I promise there isn’t a taste you can’t enjoy, and a processed food you will miss, once you get on the right track.
For starters, have a daily snack of dried figs. You will love them.
And, for some great tips of sharing life-changing, healthful recipes and lifestyle, visit three of my favorite sites:
www.be-still-farms.com/blogs