The French coined a new name for an American company, Monsatan, they call Monsanto. This coincides with CNN recently reporting that more Americans die younger than their peers in other developed nations. We should certainly look at all potential causes including genetically modified organisms (GMO)s, but let’s first examine ourselves. Monsanto, Monsatan by the French, behaves like most companies, they find and exploit something we want.
Part of the drive toward GMOs comes from our insatiable appetite for cheap and convenient food. We demand convenience from everything especially our food. Convenient and his sleazy sister Cheap have become the gods of the age. In his endorsement for my book Food in God’s Place, Mark Moore, founder of MANA nutrition, says “Half the world is stuffed and half the world is starved.” These two gods reside in the stuffed half of the world.
Monsatan the Spawn of Convenient and Cheap
We worship the gods Convenient and Cheap, and in turn they allow us to be stuffed. Pretty good arrangement for a while. But like with all false gods, there is ultimately a price, in this case, obesity. Is Convenient the beast? Is obesity the mark of the beast? Probably not, but certainly the worship of Convenient is one of the greatest plagues upon our society. Not everyone who suffers from obesity is a slave to Convenient, but I suspect that this is true of too many. As Satan arises to offer us ways to cut corners in life, Monsatan—excuse me Monsanto—creates the international foundation for Convenient and Cheap food.
We are sometimes quick to blame Monsanto, other companies, even our government for our problems, but these external metaphors for our problems arise because we do not accept personal responsibility for our choices. If we want better companies to serve us with better products, we must decide to learn to appreciate and demand value. We must stop buying empty calories and cheap products.
Now after we accept this responsibility for making better choices we can turn our attention back to the companies which in some cases may be poisoning us. I will update this post from time to time with links to groups that can help us identify safe food.
Some of my favorites:
Don’t forget to pray for the demise of the GMO industry.
Convenient and Cheap are lousy gods. They are liars. In Food in God’s Place, Anna learns that food is fuel, to choose the best, to connect with God, and to overcome the false god, Convenient.
