On Food Sticking to the Roof of One's Mouth

                The farming season is well underway at this point, and, although there is still an overabundance of paper work to organize, I have decided to “take a break” for a moment and start back up with my entries to “Tales of Idyllia”… the 2012 edition. What topic seems most appropriate to analyze? Oh, there are many, far too many. Nonetheless, I have settled on one, merely because it is a relatively new “awareness”, and I was reminded of it again this very evening. The topic? The issue of “food” sticking to the roof of one’s mouth.

                This is admittedly an odd topic. However, after coming to a clearer understanding of processed “foods”, or foodstuffs, a lot of old memories have also clarified. But this story starts rather obscurely… as in neither “food” nor “roofs of mouths” initiated as any type of focus whatsoever. And as my knack for digressions never seems to wane…

                A few weeks ago, Kirk…

                Alright, if the case may be that you are unaware of whom Kirk is, his farm, along with his wife, Jen, is the farm I am partnering with who raises the cattle, pigs, chickens and turkeys… that taste so incredible! Anyway…

                Kirk and I were engaged in the task of installing a fence for a horse farm. Nothing dynamic there. Once noon hit, we decided to find some grub in our somewhat rural Carroll County location. (Here I am thinking rural means no fast food restaurants. Egad how the county has become urban sprawl!) We stopped at a roadside deli of sorts and ordered sandwiches. It was a “Ma and Pa” set up where a computer was not involved in the ordering process, pen and paper sufficed.

                I feel the need to pause here. Although my farming operation, which consists of mainly produce and herbs, was first “certified organic” back in 2001, it has only been over the past few years that I have become aware of how… disgusting the factory farming style of, well, farming actually is. My intention was to avoid the use of chemicals in growing produce… which I have done… for over a decade. What I was not aware of was the crazy, and I use that term loosely, manner in which animals are “reared” in factory farming. Having met Kirk and Jen in 2010, and having witnessed how their animals are treated in comparison, it is always difficult for me to purchase a “meat” product from a random source, realizing that the animals the meat originated from most likely lived a life of hell somewhat reflective to concentration camps in our own species’ recent history. So, at this “Ma and Pa” set up, I needed to forget the reality of what cruel and extreme torture was involved in the raising of the turkey that ended up sliced on my club sandwich… But again, I have digressed greatly!

                I ordered my club sandwich on rye bread… Oh, how I love rye bread, that is, REAL rye bread, not one with high fructose corn syrup, bleached or enriched flour, etc. I love rye bread with untainted rye and wheat and caraway seeds, etc.  And this leads to the topic of this entry.

                Kirk also ordered a sandwich, which was not on the “white” bread that had been part of our normal diets growing up. To pause again, Kirk is ten years younger than I am, and while I was ten years old when high fructose corn syrup first forced its way into the food stream, Kirk, literally, grew up with it. But high fructose corn syrup is not the issue here either. Allow me to explain.

                So it was noon, or thereabouts. We pulled out of the eatery’s parking lot and started driving back to the work site… I have to pause again. We were in south Carroll County. I have not personally been in that particular area in probably a decade. I was struck by the fact, that behind all of the developments that had arisen in that short period of time, all the far off “farm” land housed horses. I searched for cows, but saw none. None, that is, until our day was done and we were almost into Westminster later that day. Wow! What just recently used to be agrarian landscape has metamorphed into a hodgepodge of developments and horse farms! Who is going to grow our produce, raise our meat animals, etc.? But I have digressed… yet again.

                So it was noon, or thereabouts. Kirk and I had to wait a while as our sandwiches were being crafted at the “Ma and Pa” deli. And as we waited, patiently, that is, all that lined the aisles of the store were such items as Tastykakes and similar products; products which when you read the ingredients, you feel as though you are reading a foreign language, or some poindexter scientist is attempting to outwit you with verbiage. (Perhaps I have digressed yet again?)

                Nonetheless, our sandwiches arrived. And they were delicious. (That is another digression, but I digress.) As we were on our way back to the job site, Kirk commented on his memory of white bread… (At last! We have reached the point of this entry!)… and, how when eating sandwiches on white bread growing up, the bread always stuck to the roof of his mouth… (pause)…  Oh how many memories arose in my mind of my distant youth at that moment! White bread! Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches! That is the memory of my own youth. And always, the bread stuck to the roof of my mouth. It was annoying, but that was merely the reality of eating a sandwich… I always thought it was the peanut butter…(okay, another digression… none of us were allergic to peanuts back then… figuring out how so many peanut allergies have arisen over the last decade is not the point here… GMO peanuts, inoculation, etc.)… but it was not the peanut butter! Even if you had a ham sandwich that white bread stuck to the roof of your mouth!

                When Kirk mentioned his memory, so many thoughts arose in my mind. And, as my mind works in a scientific fashion, so many memories of my youth, that is, in regards to eating white bread leapt to the forefront of my analysis. As mentioned above, I have not been completely aware of how many non-natural ingredients have been used in processed foods. My knowledge has been that there are non-natural ingredients, and thus, I avoided them. BUT, the amount, or the percentage of non-natural ingredients is staggering for me to contemplate, now that I have learned what those strangely named ingredients are that are listed on our “fake” food’s labels.

                A couple of years back, I made a definitive decision to not eat anything with High Fructose Corn Syrup… and lost 45 pounds in a matter of months. I was amazed that losing weight by avoiding that extremely chemically processed ingredient was so simple. In my own simplistic manner of scientific analysis, the equation: non-natural = harmful, has become the cornerstone for my approach to ALL of our ailments as mammalian species on this planet.

                So, back to food sticking to the roof of one’s mouth… When the ingredients to white bread are actually read, there are quite a few lingering names for the ingredients that are not readily known… to the natural world, that is. White bread, (bleached flour white bread), which is actually a rather new entrant to the realm of… food stuffs, is by no means a “natural” product. And yet, that is what we grew up eating, thinking it was the “natural” thing to eat.

                Most recently, I have been a willing recipient to homemade bread on a regular basis. For about a half a year now, I have eaten almost no bread that consists of anything but natural ingredients, from the flour to the caraway seed, etc. And none of that bread stuck to the roof of my mouth! What the… heck… is with the white bread sticking to the roof of one’s mouth?!

                And here I will pause again, but this time in an attempt to analyze, and finalize this entry. Is it really as simple as, the highly processed food stuff called “white bread” is so foreign to the human digestive system that saliva, that initial interior liquid to break down food, simply is stifled by the complex and un-natural conglomeration of ingredients known as “white bread”? What else sticks to the roof of one’s mouth? I can think of no other, of course I do not eat junk food, per se. And here I stand in a bit of a state of torpor… Is it really that simple? That the un-natural ingredients in “food stuffs” are what is mis-shaping our digestion systems? As mentioned above, after leaving high fructose corn syrup behind, I left quite a large amount of weight behind as well. If eating highly processed “food stuffs”, such as white bread, can lead to such unnatural situations as having food stuck to the roof of one’s mouth… perhaps it is time to stop eating that unnatural… garbage! Try it! You will be amazed with the flavor of natural ingredients, as well as how your body will digest it!

                In the previous paragraph, I mentioned not having another example of food “sticking to the roof of one’s mouth”. A few weeks ago, my life partner, Stephanie and I were at a dinner with my family at a fine dining style restaurant. The dessert was served, and as usual, I abstained. Stephanie, however, did not. I cannot remember, but I think the dessert was some type of chocolate cake. Anyway, she took a bite of the cake and quickly relayed how delicious it was. Then, she said, “It’s sticking to the roof of my mouth.” She pushed the rest of the dessert away.