In a world of inside out and upside down it may be important to look beyond the surface and see what goes on behind the veil, behind the curtain, behind the packaging and even before our time.  It might take removing the rose coloured glasses and seeing, as if for the first time, how helpful a bit of spittle might be to understanding.

Before packaging and labelling the butcher carved and rolled meats to your personal needs.  There were no styrofoam trays of prepackaged steaks.  Not even bar-coded scale tickets. Ratios of lean and fat visible! There were no dyes or preservatives.  Meat was carved from the whole animal and delivered with glory and imperfection.

The bakery delivered fresh bread daily.  Preservatives were not used.  Bread went stale (dried out done) in  3 or 4 days.  The natural glutens did not create a generation of allergies.  Bread was a carrier for jam and nut-butters and cheese and meat.

Walking down the street the green grocer emerges (Remember?) selling vegetables in season.  No air-freight, no packaging, no washing, no trimming.  Vegetables with all their imperfections.  The damaged leaves went into the stock pot for soup.  When I consider all the progress we claim to have made I am embarrassed by the riches of nature we have wasted.  We want instant.  Might it be possible that our planet wants us to deconstruct our packaged foods and discover with wide open eyes that the future deserves a look back.

Those varietal cheeses might contain the microbes of the future.