Au Naturale!

Went to Starbucks 12/3 to get a cup
of coffee while I waited for my car to
get fixed at the auto shop across US1.
My youngest son was with me. The
clerk asked my son if he wanted
something to drink. Tommy held
up an orange juice and asked if it
had pulp in it.


The clerk said, "Probably, all our
orange juice is natural."


I asked him, "What is unnatural orange
juice?."


He replied, "Juice that has been
processed."


"If it hasn't been processed how did
it get in the bottle? That's a process."


He refined his answer: "I mean juice
that has been altered by humans."


Again I asked, "So how did it get
in the bottle if humans didn't put it
there?"


At this point he was starting to get
peeved and I really wasn't in a mood
to be that snotty. I just got the
coffee (Tommy doesn't do pulp) and
gave the guy a healthy tip.


The upshot of the story is I still don't
get the whole devotion to "natural"
and "organic." We are part of nature
and incapable of doing anything that
is not natural. And, all food is organic.
After all, we don't eat a diet of silica.


The problem is that man, man's ideas,
man's involvement are inherently suspect
in the food business (to pick one example).
Minimizing the impact of people supposedly
makes the food better or safer or
something.


The very fertilizers and insecticides
that have kept this world from famine
are now seen as antithetical
to healthy living. As a former history
major I know that famine is not that
long past.


I imagine that this all exists as a
weird combination of hatred of
the Image of God and misapplication
of Total Depravity. It definitely is
religious and wrong headed.

ofs