{"id":1439,"date":"2012-01-13T15:31:45","date_gmt":"2012-01-13T19:31:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hnetalk.com\/?p=1439"},"modified":"2012-01-13T15:31:45","modified_gmt":"2012-01-13T19:31:45","slug":"lowest-common-denominator-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/hnetalk.com\/home\/2012\/01\/13\/lowest-common-denominator-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Lowest Common Denominator"},"content":{"rendered":"

Listening to the radio this morning, I heard an advertisement for a juice drink that came in several flavors, including \u201cberry\u201d. I wondered what kind of berry<\/em>? Strawberry?\u00a0 Raspberry?\u00a0 Blueberry? Raspberry?\u00a0\u00a0 Each of these berries has a fabulously distinct flavor. But what is the taste of the generic \u201cberry?\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Similarly, why would anyone drink a juice that touts itself as containing \u201c10 percent real juice\u201d? What is in the other 90 percent of this beverage?\u00a0 A combination of \u201cartificial flavors\u201d, \u201cartificial sweeteners\u201d, and mostly, water.<\/p>\n

Still listening to the radio, I heard another advertisement that boasted their product had won an award in a beer tasting for \u201cbest light beer brewed by an American manufacturer<\/em>\u201d or something like that. Again I wondered, is there really such a thing as an award for a watery, flavorless, mass-produced liquid whose name is probably (mis)spelled as \u201clite\u201d? Am I an effete snob, who drinks only hand-crafted micro-brews? Well, yes, but that\u2019s not the point.<\/p>\n

What does this have to do with Body-Mind-Spirit? It\u2019s about our mass culture\u2019s tendency to strive for the lowest common denominator. If we accept that our best is mediocrity, what does that say about our spirits? What does the consumption of adulterated, chemically treated products do to our bodies? And how are our minds, our higher consciousnesses, being affected by the constant media assault that appeals to our lower consciousness, our primitive wants and desires. Sure, greasy, fatty foods taste better than their low-fat versions.\u00a0\u00a0 They bring us back to those early days of homo sapiens<\/em>, when roasting meat over a fire was a huge advancement (in flavor and in other ways) over eating it raw. But can\u2019t we do better than that? And I mean all of us, not some privileged elite. Can\u2019t we all aim for richness of Body-Mind-Spirit, and not settle for what our culture is trying to foist on us because it is cheaper \u00a0and more profitable to mass produce it?<\/p>\n

Take a close look sometime at the offerings in a convenience store. I would estimate that 90% of the shelf space is devoted to high-calorie, high-fat products like chips, nuts, soda, candy, ice cream, etc. Good luck trying to find a piece of fresh fruit in a convenience store.<\/p>\n

What do you think? Are you happy with the way you or your children eat? Would you like to see higher-quality foods in school lunches and on store shelves? If American consumers decide that they didn\u2019t don\u2019t want those addictive but unhealthy offerings, food producers would have to change their ways. It\u2019s up to us.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Listening to the radio this morning, I heard an advertisement for a juice drink that came in several flavors, including \u201cberry\u201d. I wondered what kind of berry? Strawberry?\u00a0 Raspberry?\u00a0 Blueberry? Raspberry?\u00a0\u00a0 Each of these berries has a fabulously distinct flavor. But what is the taste of the generic \u201cberry?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[19,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1439","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mind-body-and-spirit","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6ZZxW-nd","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/hnetalk.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1439","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/hnetalk.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/hnetalk.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/hnetalk.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/hnetalk.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1439"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/hnetalk.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1439\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/hnetalk.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1439"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/hnetalk.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1439"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/hnetalk.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1439"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}