Last week I bought my first strawberries of the year. Not having guests, I used one berry every morning in my muesli for the last seven days. The one in the photo is seven days old – an immortal batch. I suspect irradiation …
Generally, would immortality solve all out problems? I hear you laughing. Think again. The battle is on to eliminate decay, any quirk of nature, and of course the insurance claims in the waiting when technologies go wrong, and equally when what is known is not applied. (I wished the latter held true in education.) Objectors to the seemingly elegant solution of irradiation from fruit, grain, herbs, eggs, meat, hamburgers, letters, blood, and what next … have their say: http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/campaign/food-irradiation/
But hold your gun, nothing is simple these days. Since financial concerns in a free market drive research and decision-making, food industries must also evaluate liability risks. This article on the legal perspective of irradiation by Denis W. Stearns makes interesting reading: http://www.marlerblog.com/uploads/file/DOC065(1).pdf The book itself is a ‘little’ expensive: http://eu.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-0813808820.html
Daring a leap, here’s a unique take on the freedom of corporations and the accepted risk of going into the future: http://www.documentairenet.nl/review/the-yes-men-fix-the-world/
It seems the age of reason has reached its fill and is superseded by another ‘Oracle of Delphi’ phase – called – ‘The Miracle of the Free Market,’ which may be just another periodical quirk of the natural up-and-down learning-spiral in the human experiment. What do you think?
Course of Mirrors 
I prefer the Oracle of Cumae! 😛
Lol. Great post again, Ashen. It’s funny, I’m very pro organic and anti any GM, artificial etc foods…but I remain undecided on irradiated goods. I just don’t know enough about it yet, and although I hate the whole ‘tampering with nature’, irradiation could be the forerunner of the ultimate longevity gene – immortality! Next question…if we could be immortal, would we want to be? 😀
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Immortality, maybe not just yet, it’s far from being perfected. At least our Sibyl poets/writers, includes us, can indulge the imagination. What immortal strawberries lack, for now anyway, is the divine strawberry scent and taste.
My mother used to make strawberry soup in summer. Take them ripe and plumb, slice them fine and sprinkle plenty of sugar over them. Wait a while until the juices are drawn out, pour cold milk over all. A dish to die for 🙂
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Oooohhh! That makes me want the summer NOW! 😀
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Love the picture. Yes it is a conundrum and I honestly can’t make my mind up. I have to say that I do try to eat the food in season as far as possible but being a long way from the shops and trying to keep our fuel consumption to a minimum, having food that stays edible is a wondrous thing. I try to grow what I can but am far from self sufficient. Oh heck I just don’t know and that’s a fact.
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Totally agree, Diane, having food last longer is very convenient. In fact, we could probably survive on pills and do away with all the cooking … but heck, we are here to enjoy through our senses and create beauty. Like you, I grow some and try buying local organic food. It simply tastes better. And I have a field of wild strawberries in my garden.
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The absolutely HUGE strawberries you see now give me the willies.
Pretty soon all you’ll need is one to last a week.
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Magnified goosebumps, Alethea, a story there?
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Maybe!
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I try not to eat things that my grandparents would not have recognized as food.
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Ha, ha, a great line to start a story.
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Verily, verily I say unto thee: the only thing that can kill you is your own mind. :o)
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🙂
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You’re mean it was knot John’s mind that killed him? 🙂
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Light is both particle and wave, and though we can only observe one at a time it is still one light.
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In the very deep structure, everything is a wave, Love. 🙂 Butt spea king of John’s mind and his death, have you heard of Yasuda Zenjirō?
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Fascinating. No, I didn’t know he was Yoko’s grandfather, and that John felt a connection to him.
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