“Tried Vegemite?” she asked. And from that simple question a conversation unfolded between the 3 of us but what I’m about to talk about was not included in the conversation.
Did you know that many moons ago, the beer industry in Australia had all of this waste matter from the beer making process and didn’t know what to do with it. It was like a black sludge that wouldn’t break down in land fill. The solution? Add some salt, put it in a jar and give it an Aussie marketing campaign.
“Young Peter loves Vegemite” says the ad, “and his mother loves giving it to him”. The ad continues to explain however that Mum can’t buy Vegemite as easily for her son though, because there’s a war going on and the Vegemite is going to all those smart and brave aussie soldiers, of course. Truth or lie? I probably won’t ever know – but what I do know is this is mind manipulation at its finest. Scarcity creates an attraction and the catch phrase here is “He’s doing his bit for his dad”. By buying Vegemite, you’re being a little trooper sponsoring a company who is sponsoring the war.
The war in question was 100% fruitless and unoriginal for Australians. It had nothing to do with us. We got nothing out of it. We had massive losses.
Back in the 40′s, you did what you were told. It was very much still a white christian nation back then. You didn’t ask questions- you followed orders. They were the sheeple days and we honor those sheeple every year with anzac day. “Lest we forget“. Yet what we are told to honor is the bravery and the loss, yet are made to forget the stupidity and blind following of a campaign that had nothing to do with us and that served no benefits. We were simply another wing / extension for Imperialistic countries with their own agendas. The war was as good for Australians as Vegemite is good as putting my penis in a blender is good for my health.
I see Vegemite as a great metaphor of the mass stupidity. A toxic waste that doesn’t break down is given a nice badge. But whats truly incredible, is that Kraft is owned by non-australian companies. Am I right?
The same stupidity exists today, when a new fandangled campaign comes out like ‘Swine Flu’. It came from the Swine, of course. Or is it that its mass produced in China and its the year of the pig aka swine? Coincidence much? Almost as coincidental as the avian flu coming out the same time as the year of the Rooster.
Where am I going with this? Yesterday I tuned into an awesome recording with Don and Tyler Tolman who dissected the origins of additives and preservatives and how over time we have seen toxins turned into anti-oxidants through the evolution of words which is more or less well devised marketing strategies, like what Kraft devised with Vegemite.
Have a listen. check out the blog post at ConsciousLifestyler @ http://www.consciouslifestyler.com/were-back-with-the-wednesday-webinar-this-week-with-don-tolman/
I blame the war for a few things – namely, I believe the war got most of the world addicted to comfort can food and jar food. Pre 1940′s a massive portion of the world was still growing vegetables in their back yards. But what happens when you have a string of world wars and the only comfort for the men in those times is a little bit of highly addictive can foods its easy to get the world hooked on it. You would think when the troops came home everybody would have gone back to the vege patches right? Wrong. Because without the solid man in the home unit, the woman were being marketed to about the ‘new trends’ in the kitchen. It simeltaneously became seen as being poor to have to grow your own food and as the 1950′s kicked into gear, people were wanting to have the picket fence and tv’s.
People blame generation Y today. But did generation Y walk away from natural home grown food? Nope. Did generation Y make computers? Or did they make TV the coolest thing since fresh fruit? Nope – we did not. The dumbest decisions in all of history were made roughly 60 – 80 years ago. Deciding to make canned crap with preservatives more ‘sophisticated’ than growing your own food to me is not even proportionate to children of today who get smashed and grafitti brick walls and disrespect authority. Its really a balancing effect in my opinion. A few generations ago, people followed blindly, today, the antipode has arrived.
Its not all doom and gloom however, actually its far from that, its anything but doom and gloom. In my opninion, this is the first time in roughly 60-70 years where potentially more than 50% of the worlds population are going “hey, we’ve been lied to!”. And that is wonderful news for us. Firstly, a little bit of scepticism is healthy for the planet. Secondly, it means people start looking into things a little deeper beyond the coat or the hat of the person giving the information. For far too long it was enough that a person with a pointy hat from the church or doctors in a trench coat or a scientist from a lab could tell people something and it would be believed dogmatically — without a single bit of personal research. We just gobbled up their lies like they were our breakfast cereal.
“Hey, its on the TV – it must be true.”
“Media channels have an agenda? Don’t be fanatical.”
“Why on earth would a doctor lie? He’s here to help people. Afterall, look at House – thats what all doctors and nurses are like.”
I’ll tell you what I believe. I believe in nature. I believe in the ocean. I believe in not knowing everything. I believe nobody knows everything. I believe that when a part of my body is visible to the Sun, it feels warm. That when I’m in the water, I feel wet. I believe there is so much more to it than that — what is wet, afterall? Being slippery? Being hydrated? What is hydration? What is warmth for that matter? As you can see — I believe in questioning. I believe in questioning why I am questioning and questioning why I am questioning why I am questioning and so forth.
What do you question?
Where does disease come from? Are people today getting sick more because there are more additives in the food? Is ‘can food’ cooler than ‘tumors’ or ‘ADHD’ or ‘autism’? Is seeming to be switched on with our picket fences and clipped grass more enjoyable than picking fresh fruit and nuts when we walk out the door? Do we simply goto work to buy cars in order to goto work? Do we simply buy nice houses close to the city so we can get a job close to the city to buy the house? Isn’t it all a big f’ing waste of energy? Who cares about energy though right – its not like there’s an energy crisis or concerns about there being too much waste. Afterall, we can just turn our toxic waste into the next Vegemite, right? We can just turn the poisonous allumunum waste product into dental care aka flouride! Yipaaaaaaay.
Am I cynical? You better believe it – but you also better believe I am happy. Why? Because of what I eat. Mostly everything I eat is still something identifiable in nature. And once you’ve eaten fresh whole foods for as long as I have, you start to know what the difference is between eating death compared to eating life. I don’t eat animals, I eat pulse. I don’t eat subway, I eat abundance. I don’t eat, mcdonalds, I eat spinach. I don’t eat, vegemite, I eat almonds. I don’t eat canned salmon, I eat cayenne chilli’s. I don’t eat ice cream, I eat music.
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