‘Lil FoodSpook in the 1950′s
Many of you reading this blog were not on this planet in the 1950′s. In other words, the stork hadn’t brought you yet.
Well the stork brought me to San Francisco in April 1948. What a joyous occasion that must have been. My parents had arrived here from Texas and Louisiana to build Liberty Ships in the local shipyards. They bought their first house for $8500 in 1950. Eighteen months later we had a TV with three channels that went off at midnight. My father was also a preacher besides working at least two or three jobs during the week. Mother was a house mom except during the summer months when she worked at Del Monte Canneries canning fruit from the luscious San Joaquin Valley.
By 1956 I was in the third grade. Elvis had recorded “HoundDog” and was becoming a major star. All of the little boys in the neighborhood were trying to twerle their hair to be kool like the Everley Bros. Their first big hit was “Peggy Sue” followed by “Bye Bye Love”. Of course I did’nt realize at the time that my hair was of the Negroid persuasion and could never curl down over my forehead like the Everley Brothers. But, I tried. By the way, ‘Lil FoodSpook is yours truly, the author, T. Jeffery. That name is retroactive to my youth as a precursor to what I would become in my later years, FoodSpook.
I want to warn people about FOOD. There is a connection between what we eat and contracting Type 2 Diabetes. Their are concrete reasons why our young children are in jeopardy of becoming Diabetic. Foodspook grew up a lttle colored boy in San Francisco, Oakland and Richmond, CA. Life moved at a slower pace than now. My family became Black in the mid 1960′s. We became African Americans in the 1970′s. This is what we considered as “progress”. We was ‘moving on up’! However, some things didn’t change. In the 1960′s there were massive nationwide protests against the Viet Nam War. My college military deferment card disappeared in my 2nd year at San Jose State so, I got drafted. But that’s another story. The 1950′s was a time when Americans trusted our government. Actually we trusted almost everybody of authority in this country. It was inconceivable that our government (FDA) would allow restaurants to exist to sell you garbage! Well, that’s what has happened. You have NO ONE looking out for your welfare when comes to your choices of food being sold in your neighborhood.
I have become FoodSpook in my middle age because I am outraged that this epedimic of Diabetes is consumming millions of Americans and the silence from from our national media is deafening. Type 2 Diabetes is preventable and we have people that are becoming Diabetic without knowing what they did in life to bring on this condition. Diabetes is a killer if you do not understand its nature. It can destroy your body by increments over a period of time. I have become FoodSpook to try to do something in my own way to scream to people, just because you may be Black or another minority without access to great medical information, you must become aware that if you are overweight you are at risk of becoming Diabetic. You must know that the consumption of sugar by itself is not the cause of Diabetes. Ingestion of too much sugar for your body to process to energy can cause obesity. When don’t exercise that much and you like to eat fast (processed foods) that contain a high percentage of disguised carbohydrates (sugars), eventually your pancreas will not be able to produce enough insulin to break down the SUGARS in your blood stream for energy and necessary nutrients. Thus, you become a Diabetic.
When “lil FoodSpook was a young boy, it was NORMAL for most of the senior ladies in my father’s church would eventually have a lower leg or foot amputated. Growing up as a child this was NORMAL and expected. It was expected that our older men would go blind or wind up on a dialysis machine to stay alive because Diabetes was ravishing their bodies. Today, children as young as 2 years old are becoming type 2 Diabetics. Basically that means their Pancreas is not producing enough Insulin to break doiw the sugars they are ingesting in so many forms of our manufactured foods, (processed foods). They results in 25 to 30 years from now for our children will be CATASTROPHIC.
What ‘Lil FoodSpook saw in the 1950′s was the natural assumption the life is good and protecting. In reality life as we knew it, ( that is us coloured folks) was destroying us. BBQ, Ham Hocks and Pigs Feet and not to mention the Heavenly homemade Flakey Biscuits was clogging up our arteries as my parents would sit around after dinner and talk about how Pres. Roosevelt has helped us all. We were dying then and still are today. FoodSpook is hollering WAKE UP! Type 2 diabetes is so unnessesary.
FoodSpook
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