In Defense of Food
Food Defense. It's so prevalent that the dynamic between the defense of food and the threat of sabotage could be claimed as a major force motivating the emergence and movement of human history. The use of poisons to sabotage food for political reasons dates back several thousand years in some cultures. In the west, not long after the discovery and empirical analysis of what makes a poison a poison, defense against the misuse of poisons found its place as a cultural phenomenon. The big cases like political assassinations even generated entire cottage industries with very dangerous career options. Even in our own time, the events of September 11, 2001, brought the philosophy of food defense back into discussion as an intensified concern. By now, thousands of scenarios have been imagined and scrutinized for viability. Responsive defense objectives have been planned and developed. In a world such as the one we live in, agricultural terrorism becomes just one on a long list of many possibilities.
And then there's industrial manipulation, a whole other type of food defense which is why we have so called 'health food' stores and buying co-ops protecting us from all sorts of bio-tampering ventures, like genetic engineering, pesticide spraying and chemical fertilization.
And then even closer to home, in a world not as crazy as our national and global scenes, in a world defined perhaps by our own gardens and pantries, there are other types of food defense scenarios we face. Based on factors that emerge for less insane reasons, to be sure, in our everyday reality, we constantly protect crops and other food sources from a variety of threats, like contamination by rodent infestation or fruit and seed pilfering by birds. Even shooing flies off the freshly cut cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers and avocados is a form of food defense. From deer fences to cattle guards, even canning is a way of defending food from threats, as in the many microorganisms that would otherwise make the food unfit for intended consumption.
Defensible Vegetable Platter
- 2 freshly picked tomatoes
- small ripe avocados (home grown from California)
- several freshly picked cherry tomatoes
- several freshly picked sweet banana peppers, seeded and sliced
- 1 large freshly picked cucumber, peeled and sliced
- any other freshly picked, raw eating vegetables prepared how you like them
The platter will be absolutely defenseless against one or two of your favorite vegetable dipping sauces.