Have you ever wondered why the fruits and vegetables at the grocery store are so perfect? That is because someone decided that was the image fruit and vegetables had to conform to. Ugly fruits or vegetables are just not good enough.
We live in this world that always tells us what things should look like and how things should be but who\’s to say that is right. Advertisements influence us day to day providing this narrative for what “normal” is. There is this unsaid standard created by consumerism that everyone strives to achieve, consciously and subconsciously. However, nobody or nothing has a perfect exact way to be, yet consumerism shows us this example of what perfect is.
How criminal it is that you can’t even go to the grocery store without being shown a fake reality of how fruits and vegetables are. Not only that but there are millions of starving people on this planet and the so-called “ugly” fruit is shamefully wasted because the media sees it as unfit to be a fruit. How sad!
This is not just the sad reality of fruit but the sad reality of most of what we experience today. Everything is modified to form an arbitrary standard. Genetically Modified Foods, also known as GMO’s are an ample example of this. Did you know that Salmon is not typically pink and corn is typically smaller than the size of your pinky? Who thought to change this? If we continue to let advertisements shape what “normal” is for our life then nobody will know the truth. Nobody will have a voice.
Normal is defined as “conforming to a standard” (Merriam-Webster Dictionary). How naive you must be to think something should be normal. If that is the case you are wanting everything and anything to conform to some set standard.
We can’t just be like the perfectly waxed apples stacked exactly symmetrical. If we live our lives as one of those apples, we are conforming. Conforming to the norms of society. Conforming to a narrative. Conforming to the media. Conforming to a biased principle set by a random human who hides behind an advertisement.
How sad is that?
We will all be shaped by the world we live in rather than shaping the world into the place we want to live in. Don’t be a waxy apple. Be an imperfect fruit.
https://www.imperfectfoods.com/join?utm_source=adwords
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/normal?src=search-dict-hed
The fact that societal beauty standards are so embedded in our society that it has an impact on the produce we eat is very saddening. While reading this, I thought of the fact that nice-looking foods are so desirable, people make whole careers photographing them, these being “food influencers” on social media. People don’t even need to make a living off of it to promote perfect foods, as it’s so popular to take pictures of meals when they’re most presentable, but when you take a bite and ruin the presentation, it’s no longer Instagram-worthy. Also, I will now live by the saying “Be an imperfect fruit.”