Gratutude: A Time for Real Tomatoes (Not GMOs)

Nothing artificial about any of this, and it's goooooood.

Today, I am grateful for:

The ripe, heirloom tomatoes I just picked in my back yard today and how they will play into the health I hope to achieve in the coming months.

My brother, Paul, called this morning to see if I was at death's door, as everybody seems to believe (I'm not), and in the course of the conversation of comparing diagnoses (when family does this, it is beneficial because of heredity; when friends do it, it's boring) we got on to genetically altered foods, which Paul battles constantly.

"We have this 65-acre tomato plot across the road from my business," in Asheville, N.C., Paul says, "and it produces four crops a year. Tomatoes don't do that. Tomatoes also aren't the size of small pumpkins, but these get sold to Ingles [a local food chain] and are resold as 'locally grown.' Ingles doesn't tell you anything about the genetic modification, just that they are 'local,' which doesn't really mean much any more."

He went on about chicken breasts "the size of a rump roast" and other genetically modified, inhumanly-rasied foods and concluded, "We're told to eat right, to eat well, to eat healthy, but how in the world do you do that with food being raised this way? Grow it yourself?"

Yep.

Today, I will eat at least two meals that feature the tomatoes you see above. I have an interview scheduled in Blacksburg for a story I'm doing and I'll take the big one to the lady I'm interviewing as a courtesy. These babies have all kinds of positive uses, I'd say. Eat healthy, make friends. Good enough for me.