Ruth and I love food and cooking and fresh natural ingredients were already part of our diet. Frozen fruits are in fact often healthier, riper and less processed than the “fresh” produce in the supermarkets. So we do use some frozen fruit too. We have also been blessed with some lovely neighbours who have kept us supplied with green, leafy and vegetables.

Now that we are also blessed with a bit more space we are working on our own veggie patch. Some days I include some frozen kale or spinach in my daily smoothie.

The pesticides used in mass produced fruits and vegetables mean that our fruits and veggies do not have the same properties as in times past and therefore may have a different effect on our bodies. Traces of pesticides – which are poisons – remain on the produce that we buy. No study has yet assessed comprehensively the cumulative effect on our bodies of the traces of pesticides on our food.

Methods of producing fruits and vegetables to have a ripe colour and yet be firm and lasting enough tor long distance transportation mean that none of the produce in our stores is ever truly ripe. Some of the produce we see in our fresh foods sections have artificial colours and preservatives in them.

It will be another generation before we know the impact on our own bodies of eating foods with the suicide gene in them – such as companies like Monsanto are trying to universalize. The obvious injustice of GM-sterile crops is that they privatize the world’s food supply, preventing farmers from doing what farmers have done for millennia, and seeding next year’s crop from this year’s harvest. But the impact on our bodies needs to be considered too.

The simplest way to avoid all these detractions is to return the pattern of our grandparents – and grow our own! This is what Ruth and I are moving towards. There is really no alternative, and nothing better than a diet of clean, fresh unprocessed food of every different colour!