Bread is the Stuff of Life

I know carbs are bad but my children and I will never do without our bread. I even bought a breadmaker a few months ago. I make good healthy bread every day for them to eat. They don't get fat eating my bread because it is not store bought and full of refined sugars and grains.
I am in my early forties so I grew up eating that supermarket bread. My parents baked their own bread because they grew up in that lifestyle where making bread was part of a daily lifestyle. Buying bread only became in style during the post World War II era in the 1950s. This is when as a society we were introduced to the concept of being able to buy anything that we want.
The art of breadmaking was almost lost when I was young. In fact you had to go to a restaurant to get fresh bread – usually an expensive Italian or French one. As I was raised in that supermarket era of white bread eaters I never really knew how great eating fresh homemade bread could be until I got this breadmaker. I was introduced to the concept after tasting some fresh made bread at a friend's house. I was intrigued because she was having us dip it in flavored olive oil rather than smothering it in butter which is why I had been avoiding home baked bread in the first place. The temptation to slather cow fat all over it was just too much.
My homebaked bread is the centerpiece of every meal we have in my home. The kids love it. It is healthy for them and I get to control what goes into the bed. My bed is all natural and there is no preservatives in it. I make a new loaf every day or every second day depending on how much of it we actually gobble up.
I got so enthusiastic about making my own bread that I even bough a Magic Bullet for grinding up my own grains. I make ordinary breads but I also make savory and sweet loafs as well. My olive and sundried tomato bread with coarse salt is to absolutely die for.
Now I also know that my bread is always fresh. The worst thing about buying bread from a store is that you never know how truthful the expiry dates on it are going to be. Remember opening up those bread boxes and seeing loafs of breads covered in green or black mold. Those days are completely over for me. This is why I can now truthfully pray 'Give us our thanks this day for our daily bread!'

Gattaca is Here

Remember the science fiction movie 'Gattaca?' In that movie a world was depicted where parents could choose the characteristics of their children or have the talents and looks of their natural children assessed. Occupations were then chosen for the children based on these considerations.
Well these days are closer than you think. There is a clinic in Los Angeles called The Fertility Institute that is advertising a new service in which you can select your baby's sex, hair color, eye color and even more.
The website at the Fertility Institute posted this futuristic statement on their website -“For the first time ever, patients having genetic screening for abnormal chromosome conditions in their embryos will be able to elect expanded testing that can greatly increase the odds of achieving a healthy pregnancy with a preselected choice of gender, eye color, hair color and complexion, along with screening for potentially lethal diseases, screening for cancer tendencies (breast, colon, pancreas, prostate) and more.”
Wow! The future is finally here! Initially this type of screening was supposed to be used to prevent us from having children with cancer and other fatal diseases. Now it is used to create a race of super children. It is very much like something Hitler and his cronies would cook up.
I am surprised that we can start fooling with Mother Nature like this at all. I think it is also something that is very petty. Since when do we judge kids so much on appearances in the first place? Isn't it almost a crime to choose a red head over a blonde if your DNA assigns you the blonde kid over the first place? I am not even going to get started over the racial and sexual discrimination that also might result from this.
The other thing that is disappointing about all of this is the lack of surprise at the end of the pregnancy. I am one of those moms who just do not want to know the sex of the child before the day it is born. I like the surprise of it all. I love not knowing what color of hair or eyes my child will have. It is part of the joy of being pregnant.
In fact that is what that movie Gattaca was partly about. Choosing your baby's chromosomes are not only discriminatory it is also not very human. In a way too it is an insult to Mother Nature who creates human beings to adapt to our environment so who knows what kind of chaos or disease we are courting by bringing selective human beings into the world.