The peanut table

“Now they sit at the Peanut Table,” said Sarah, who is 8 years old.

We were talking about allergies over dinner Monday night.

Apparently peanut butter and jelly sandwiches were banned at Sarah’s elementary school for a couple years before they came up with the Peanut Table, the place where all the kids with peanut allergies can sit and be safe in the lunchroom.

“Well, that’s practically un-American,” said Jim.

We nodded in solemn agreement that peanut butter and jelly sammiches are indeed sacred, like Hershey bars wrapped in foil and Band-Aids in a snappy-lidded tin.
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Allergies. Seems like they’re getting worse, doesn’t it?

Thirty years ago we didn’t have the peanut table. We had the retard table.
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Wheat. Peanuts. Dairy. Sugar.

Everybody’s got something that gives ‘em trouble.

I’ve had the tests. I’m ‘allergic’ to wheat, dairy and sugar.

And when I was being good and eating right, I never felt better. But it was a royal pain avoiding all that stuff and eventually I gave up.
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So you’re saying you’d rather feel like crap than take the time to eat right and live longer?

Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying.

Besides, living longer is over-rated.

I’d much rather go out in a blaze of glory at 65 than hang around ‘til I’m pissing my pants and calling you Charlie at a foggy and fading 85.
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From what I’ve been told, allergies are getting worse because we’re eating too much of these things.

Our bodies can only take so much wheat (which is in everything it seems) and refined sugar, so they respond by not functioning as well.

Our bones ache. We have less energy. More kids are asthmatic. And peanut tables abound.

All because of the stuff that we eat.

Of course I’m no scientist, so this is being pulled straight outta my ass, but I think Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) also comes from food allergies.

We’ve got this sad propensity for pills here in the U.S.

Rather than figuring out the cause of a problem, we mask it with medication.

People with chronic pain become addicted to painkillers. Folks suffering from depression rely on drugs to keep them from thinking too much and solving the very real problems they face. And generations of children are doped so we can manage their behavior rather than searching for the source of it.
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And why wouldn’t the food we eat have a direct effect on how we feel, even how we act?

Plants thrive in the right soil. Hell, your car performs better with the better fuel.

Why don’t we view food as fuel?

I see people walking through the Loop in the mornings before work – a cigarette in one hand and a Starbucks in the other.

If I started my day with all those toxins I’d be face down and drooling on my desk by lunch.
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Back at the peanut table discussion, us Indignant Americans agreed that banning peanut butter was a Violation of our Constitutional Rights.

But the school was right to do it.

While I don’t like it when the freedoms of many are limited to protect the needs of a few, nobody deserves to die by peanut butter. Especially not kids.

And nobody’s stopping you from eating a peanut butter sammich at home.

Off of a paper towel at the kitchen counter, as God intended.
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I am listening to: Korn – Coming Undone
I am reading: Oracle event status
And I am: Craving a peanut butter sammich