toe-MAY-toe...toe-MAH-toe

so for the last few days i've been in mississippi spending time with my family and now while sitting at the airport i see the latest news on the salmonella outbreak connected with tomatoes and it just hit me...i've been eating tomatoes the WHOLE time i've been down here, and never thought anything about it.  wanna know why?! because my grandma grows her own tomatoes!  she also grows her own beans, corn, peppers, and blah blah blah, if i didn't know better id think she had some marijuana growing back there somewhere!  the situation got me to thinking about this food crisis.  

if you do regular grocery shopping i'm sure you've noticed an increase in the price of everything from apples to zucchini.  Some blame the price of oil.  Since its up to 4 times more expensive to transport, the  increased expenses for the farming industry are being passed on to us consumers.  there's also been conversation on how the temperature changes that some are connecting to global warming are causing floods, droughts, hurricanes and other national occurrences that are destroying crops. 

this rising cost crisis is coming at a time when people in countries like india and china, who have previously grown their own food, are now buying it due to the country becoming more "industrialized," and the laws of supply and demand say; consumption goes up, demand goes up...so does the price.

i noticed the increase in eggs from $.89 to $1.19, but the increase isn't going to send me force me to file for chapter 13, but for those in third world countries, the increases has caused rioting.  as we've seen just last month, dictator mugabe has already used this crisis to his advantage by banning all foreign aid scheduled to be sent to zimbabwe leaving millions of his own citizens to die of starvation; all to scare them into voting for him.  his recent reelection is a clear sign of how powerful of a political weapon food is becoming.  dictators the world over  and terrorists/revolutionaries the world over might soon be using food money to finance their activities the same way they used use drug money.

so, as i eat homegrown tomatoes in my grandma's kitchen i can't help but think a few things.

1.  maybe if more of us grew our own fruit and veggies, we could avoid being dependent on the conglomerates that manipulate the prices of our sustenance 

2.  when it's time to slang them fruits and veggies...i can set up shop at grannys!