Perceptions

Have you ever wondered how much of what you know you actually know? I mean, you think you know what you know, but what if what you know you know is wrong? Even worse, what if you know that what you know is not what you know because it is false? Would it change how you interacted with people?
For example, the other day my brothers and I were talking about...something. Someone brought up a "shocking" ingredient from some food. Yawn. We all know that most food is not exactly handled safely or cleanly. If this is shocking news to you, I am sorry for revealing such "surprising" news in such shocking fashion. It is no shock to most people that food includes stuff we would prefer not to eat and is handled in fairly unsanitary ways. It is sort of the nature of the beast...in an era when the people who grow their own food are few and far between, it is probably unavoidable. The sheer economies of scale in producing, harvesting, transporting and packaging these volumes of food mean things are going to happen...and those things have been happening for a long time.
A lot of people still buzz over what was accomplished when Sinclair wrote The Jungle. And it was valuable...but reality states what I mentioned above. And yeah, if you think, really think about what goes on in the food industry...are you ever going to eat ANYTHING again? That includes the organic grown stuff, the commercially grown stuff...
It never ceases to amaze me how people think, "Oh, this came from another country so its better". Or worse. "US cattle" regularly spend virtually their entire lives in Canada...but they are owned by people in the U.S., so they avoid a lot of regulations. But ask yourself how they are marketed?
Still, though on some level, most of us with any amount of education beyond the standard scholastic realize on some level that the foods we eat ARE contaminated...the question is how much and how much are we willing to live with? What is more important to you...the cleaner but still contaminated methods you pay a little extra for to go organic? Neither thing is debatable...those foods ARE cleaner and ARE more expensive. or is the money you save by purchasing cheaper but dirtier foods more important?
If you really, truly think about it, neither is a good option. Only truly clean, sanitary foods and food handling methods should be acceptable. But how many of us are willing to grow our own food? because that is essentially what it would take.
So we know the food we eat is unclean...but we subjugate that knowledge to the realization it always will be and rationalize it but justifying the LEVEL of uncleanliness. It always brings a smile to my face when someone will eat at Sheris but not McDonalds because of "what those people do to the food." Uhm...yeah. That is like a bald guy with food in his beard complaining about someone's dandruff. You just sort of look at them and say "huh?"
Note, I am not saying you shouldn't eat stuff that is not clean...it would truly be impossible to do in today's world. In fact, I am not even going so far as to argue in favor of the cleaner, healthier organic foods. Nor am I saying todays filthy foods are killing us. To the contrary, I just saw an article a few days ago where life spans are longer than ever before in recorded censuses...or however that word SHOULD be spelled.
What I am saying is if we really think about what we are eating we would be horrified. Remember the reaction people around you had the first time you picked a piece of candy or gum or whatever up off the road and popped it in your mouth? Don't most kids do that at some point? Is it my fault I got strange looks because the first time I did it I was 27?
Cheap jokes aside, did it kill you when you did it as a kid? It is safe to assume that is a rhetorical question. To the best of my knowledge, no ghosts read my thoughts. But the truth remains...many, many kids did eat stuff like that and survived to live happy, healthy lives. But the PERCEPTION of what would happen is so powerful as to overwhelm the senses. How many of us would do something like that today?
As repulsive as I find the show, think about what contestants on that brain-killing show perform without it causing them injury. They eat live worms, blood encrusted cow eyeballs, and things far more disgusting (note: I cannot verify those exact combinations have been done on any particular show, but the individual elements I have seen in passing by. I don't have enough spare brain cells to actually watch that crap myself) without visible harm...or, I would argue, real risk.
Why would I say without risk? Well, in today's society...do you really believe any intelligent human being (and I just proved I was not by inferencing Fear Factor in a sentence containing the word 'intelligence') would open themselves up to a huge lawsuit by knowingly giving them harmful material? No, it is all about perception.
We perceive it as repulsive, disgusting and reprehensible...so it is. Because of our culture. Don't believe it is cultural? The following foods are delicacies in other cultures: horses, dogs, rats, snakes, mules. Perception becomes reality.
If we really knew what we think we know then we would have vastly different perceptions of almost everything that goes on around us. We would speak and act different. We would engage in different activities. And that is not limited to food.