Organic in the ring with Conventional

In the fancy schmancy hotel that I am staying, they leave a little tray of snacks in the room each night. When I first moved in, they would leave 2 chocolate truffles (not raw), 2 jelly candies, and a piece of fruit. They were very accommodating when I asked if they would JUST leave fruit, and so now every day I get 3 fresh pieces of fruit. This is a giant help when I can’t make it to the market because I’m working crazy hours. It’s conventional fruit, though, and when I put it side by side with the organic fruit that I buy, I am impressed with the differences all over again.

For instance, the conventional fruit lasts much much longer. An apple that I bought from the bio store about a week ago is starting to get a little mushy and has some brown spots. The apple that they left in the room THREE WEEKS ago still looks exactly the same. Some people would argue that this is a great thing, longer shelf life leads to more time / energy saved for a myriad of reasons. But really, gross. I don’t want the same thing that preserves twinkies and cereal in my fruit. Plus, the whole point of fruit (all food, actually) is that it’s supposed to break down and digest. If it won’t break down naturally, imagine how much harder my digestive system is working to break it down and get the nutrients.

Also, I have long been of the belief that there is a specific amount of flavor allocated to each variety of fruit. And whether the grapefruit is the size of a tennis ball or a volley ball, it’s the same amount of flavor, just spread over a larger or smaller area. Know what I mean? That’s why smaller fruit tastes better. When I did a side by side comparison, the conventional apple dwarfed the organic apple.

Weirdest of all, the conventional fruit didn’t exactly smell like fruit. The orange, for instance, smelled like orange-scented something. Like a fake version of itself. Like orange flavored gum. Strange.

Anyhow . . . the banana-date-romaine smoothie that I made last night to drink at lunch today? Not good. Bordering on revolting. Way too sweet. I was really hungry, and could only choke down about half.

Spent a lot of today fantasizing about certain cooked food. It was very weird. I’m pretty sure that it’s part of the detox process. Interestingly, though, I took the fantasy far, like actually imagining the taste and texture of the foods. And it didn’t make me want to eat them any more, such a vivid fantasy actually satisfied some of these cravings. Makes me think about how much of what I eat I taste with my brain and not my mouth. Cool, right? By the way, I was fantasizing about raw food also, specifically the sunflower pate tacos from Pure Food and Wine. And I also realized that everything I was fantasizing about was all in New York. Seems like equal parts homesickness and food cravings, huh.

One love,
Marissa