An Apple a Day...

The sweetest doll ever born is in the hospital. Betsy went from watching Real World/Road Rules Duel and eating pickles to being in the midst of an intestinal bloodbath in a matter of four hours. No one knows what happened. No one knows exactly what she had yet. Suffice it to say that this exquisite angel and well-versed hospital patient acutally asked her mom, "Am I going to die?"

The thought of her being that scared and that sick just makes me quiver with agony. In situations like this, it is a curse and a blessing that I am half a country away.

Trying to figure out how she went from fine to literally wasting away is an exercise in futility. The doctors seem to think it was something she ate or accidentally injested. The culprit could be an unwashed apple carrying an invisible but deadly bacteria that grows even faster when it's cold. It could be something hand-selected and hand-delivered as she touched her mouth. It could be something not yet described on the Center for Disease Control website, especially since the closest thing to her symptoms is E Coli. You know, the sickness that comes in bags of spinach and kills all those other people on the news.

My mom and I started doing what controlling Tauruses do... looking for ways to ensure it won't happen again. Get the vegetable wash, since water doesn't really clean them. Microwave everything for at least 30 seconds before eating it. Peel all fruits and vegetables to get the contaminated skins off them. In the end, we had to admit that we were helpless.

No matter what we do, there is a farmer trying to cut costs and maximize production, a corporation trying to get one more dollar by injecting animals with hormones and antibiotics, and a bacteria out there trying just as hard to live and adapt as humans do. No matter what, anytime someone gets that sick, it's going to be completely unexpected. There is going to be no one to blame but nature -- the nature that humans helped create by exploiting it and demanding too much from it.

I love that we have a global economy, that I can get shoes from Spain and Christmas cards from China. With a global economy has come global awareness, global tolerance, global explorations. But when it comes to food, to water, does it really make sense that we're getting apples at unseasonal times of the year from a part of the world as hungry for global participation as the United States? Is it really good business to reject what your own community can produce so that you can have more to choose from? Are we supposed to be comforted by the fact that we can't trace where the food we eat comes from, even if it could kill us?

Betsy should be fine. She seems to be getting better everyday. They're still trying to figure out what she picked up in safe and sound Louisville, Ky., where my mom and dad shop at legendary produce markets and make concerted efforts to buy healthful foods. Betsy's progress is wonderful, promising, most of all relieving news. But what if a pregnant Shannon or nursing Leiah or older grandparent had picked that apple instead of a healthy Betsy? How many other people have to fall victim to their pantries before we change the way we consume?

I don't have any answers, but I think Local Harvest may be onto something.