I was wondering tonight when our country—which includes myself as a citizen—lost the ability to feed ourselves?  It’s so evident (by looking at our rear-ends) that that most of us have lost this part of our brain, which is labeled “commonsense” brain matter.  What the heck happened?  Feeding ourselves should be commonsense, but most of us can’t live without instruction these days.  People feeding instruction is a gazillion dollar business in this country.

Now, for many of you who are lost at this point—here’s a 101 update.  Ask yourself how many diets, diet products, diet experts, etc. fill-up part of our daily existence? Well, it’s a lot.  Sometime between the cavemen days and year 2010, some part of the majority of the population’s brain was zapped away.  We want to know what to eat, when to eat it, how much to eat and how fast to eat it.  Sheesh.

I suppose it’s not really hard to figure out.  Americans are just plain spoiled.  We aren’t like the people in third world countries who are just happy to have “something” to eat.  We expect choices.  I was baffled last week listening to a man that was in charge of a non-profit food bank in our community.  He was relating to a group of people (in which I was a part of) that their facility has started letting people “shop” for their food versus just giving then a pre-packaged mix of what was available.  At first this sounded like a reasonable concept, but later I wondered if people in Haiti right now were demanding to “shop” for their free food.  Of, course not.

And, that’s the problem.  Most of us feel entitled and have grown accustomed to choice.  And, the more choices Americans have been given over the past 100 years have made them fat (again, this includes myself).   It’s even trickling down to our children.  You can’t pick up a parenting magazine that does not feature a “how to feed a picky eater” article.

On the flip side – we do have a choice in this country.  And, along with everybody else—I personally need to make better choices.  We are lucky to have good choices.

I pledge today to not be a dope when it comes to feeding myself.  It does not take a college education to know that eating fresh fruits and vegetables, along with drinking more water might make me healthier.  It’s simple.  I’m no longer going to be the baby bird with the “feed me” sign hanging around my neck.  I can feed myself, thank you.  (And, I’ll be saying that 20 times each morning before I head down to the breakfast table for my first feeding of the day).