Urban Thought Collective

Last week I went to the grocery store to pick up a few things to hold me over. Today, I did my usual bi-weekly routine of going to the laundry mat and venturing to Super Walmart to stock up on food for the next two weeks.

The store was half empty, just the way I like it, and located in midtown Atlanta where I know the fruits and vegetables will be fresher than in my neighborhood. It’s a damn shame considering the fact that I have a grocery store five minutes from my apartment. It takes me just 15 minutes to walk there, but the store is too depressing to shop in. The lighting is dim like they’re trying to cut back on electricity. It’s like that DL Hughley comedy routine when he says his mean Grandmama always said any and everything he did raised her light bill. You know, like, “Stop breathing, you gon’ make my light bill sky high.” It’s very unwelcoming. Then, the customer service! Damn, I know everybody ain’t working the job they want, but why take it out on me??? All I asked is if you sell fresh beets…. Yes, I know you sell canned beets, but I want to know if you sell fresh beets… You don’t know… Ok, well can you ask somebody… Yes, I could go other there wherever over there is and ask somebody else, but could you stop testing gravity by standing in place waiting for your homeboy to hit you back with a text to help me.

I love my people, but damn!

So, Yaminah grocery shops in midtown Atlanta where the light is cascading off the walls and my sneakers are squeaking on the newly shined floors and employees who seem thankful to be working greet me!

I grabbed by buggy and headed over to the produce section and suddenly stop dead in my tracks. I realized this would be my first time not buying fresh spinach. I took a much-needed moment to let it set in for I am a spinach fanatic. I love spinach; it is one of my favorite vegetables, not to outshine broccoli. I LOVE broccoli. I remember when my family used to take trips during the summer when I was little and we’d be driving on the highway in between states with all of these tall trees and I turned to my mother and said, “Mommy, these trees look like broccoli!” She looked at me strange and said, “You really love broccoli, don’t you?” and laughed at me. I remember feeling relieved because the trees represented an abundance of broccoli. And I’m going to keep it real, on some rare occasions when I’m on the road with nothing but trees and pavement I still get a feeling of abundance. Crazy, right? Be glad I don’t tell you everything going on in my mind!

But I digress.

Why am I not buying fresh spinach? The Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the government agency pegged with the enormous responsibility of making sure our food is free of contamination – you know, of stuff like E-coli – has decided to zap spinach and lettuce with radiation. RADIATION! Check out an article about it here.

This took effect immediately in August, but I figured what the hell, I’ll continue buying it. How bad could it be? Even though I don’t like microwaves and don’t own one, I use the one at work and I’m still in one piece. So, I continued to enjoy my spinach salads, garlic spinach, stir fry jerk spinach with fish among other dishes I love to cook. Then, a few weeks ago I was cleaning out my refrigerator and found a half-opened bag of spinach. It was at least a week after its expiration date, but do you know that spinach looked just as it did the day I bought it?!!! The only way I could tell it was spoiled was its smell. But it looked like a fresh bag of spinach. I threw it away and was done with fresh spinach.

I called my friend who told me about the USA Today article and she said this is the FDA’s alternative to staffing inspectors. In fact, she said they fired a bunch of them last year. I did a Google search and found this article about it.

The government decided to cut funding on inspecting our food supply. Inspectors lost their jobs. Folks around the country got sick while, unfortunately, others lost their lives and they’re solution isn’t to increase the inspections. No! They decide to zap our food with radiation. What the hell???

Lord, what is we gon’ do if they start zapping our collard greens???

This just reinforces a thought that’s been passing through my mind. I need to make a connection to the land. Get my feet and hands in dirt. Learn about gardening. I shouldn’t be so depended on someone else supplying me with food. My neighbor’s whole front yard and some of her backyard is reserved for growing vegetables and herbs. And she told me she’s getting ready to join an online group that exchanges produce with one another.

Ain’t no telling what’s going to happen when I get my hands in the dirt and connect with Mother Earth. If the land could talk there’s no telling the stories it would tell. I think this is a perfect opportunity to connect with the ancestors, those whose lives revolved around working with the land.

I can just imagine myself in a garden, on my knees with my fingernails filled with dirt and the sun shining on my back. And do you know the perfect song while I’m growing my own food? Roy Ayers’ “Everybody Loves the Sunshine.” I’m listening to that A LOT lately.

Yes, just bees and things and flowers.

UTC readers: In all that we seek to be or do or have, we humbly realize that in the Presence is our power to think, our very thought of aspiration, our will to commence, our strength to keep on, our power to achieve, and the glory of all our accomplishments. This is the Truth and it is now done. ~ A prayer from “Discover the Power Within You”

Envisioning you with much love, light and fulfillment. See you next week.

Yaminah Ahmad is editor-in-chief of The Atlanta Voice and contributing editor to Collective Voices, a newspaper published by the non-profit, SisterSong: Women of Color Reproductive Health Collective. More information on the group can be found at www.sistersong.net. Ahmad can be reached at missyaminah@gmail.com.