I heard that there is a law or practice that if the fruit falls to the ground, you cannot sell it or bring it to market; because if it falls to the ground it is ripe—so they won’t accept it in the market when you bring your produce to be sold. And so, you have to pick the fruit before it ripens.
And a “ripening process” can be used not necessarily by the grower, but by the person who is buying from the grower: The un-ripened food is colored, and then the food is gassed to ripen it. So when you get your food at the supermarket, no matter how wonderful it looks:
It was plucked before ripened, and then “ripened”; so it is never as sweet, and not as nutritional as food that we could allow to ripen!
Pregnant mother, this is like getting your baby when you’re only six, or five months pregnant: You can’t take that baby home! They have to develop something compatible to your womb, so that they can nurture that baby for growth and development, so that soon you’ll be able to take that baby home with you!
Well, it is the same principle: 1.) Pluck the food before it’s ripe, 2.) put it in an environment to chemically ripen and color it, and 3.) then send it to the market. And in that process, you also do something to extend its life—because after “ripe,” the next stage is rotten.
So the only way you can protect yourself from the stage of “rotten” is that you pluck it before it’s ripe, put it under these conditions, and then put it in the market! Well, you have to apply some additive to it to extend its life.
‘Eating Unripened Food Is Harmful’
A farmer that lives close to our little farm in Michigan said to my son-in-law when he went to visit him: His wife was very sick, and he was also; and he told my son-in-law, “I never got sick until I stopped eating from the land of what we produced and starting eating from the supermarket.”
Well, in Current Science (Vol. 99, No. 12), the December 25, 2010 edition, medical doctor Wasim Siddiqui and R. S. Dhua, who are in the Department of Post Harvest Technology of Horticultural Crops and on the Faculty of Horticulture, wrote a paper entitled:
“Eating Artificially Ripened Fruits is Harmful.” They state: “Most fruit sellers use Calcium carbide for ripening the fruits. Calcium carbide is extremely hazardous to the human body as it contains traces of arsenic and phosphorus.
It is banned in many countries of the world, but it is freely used in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and other countries. Thus we are at risk of short-term and long-term health effects simply by eating fruits that are induced to ripen.”
Well, you remember that in India, Mr. Rothschild took over the development of fruits and vegetables, and has become the largest grower of fruits and vegetables! And now those fruits and vegetables are eaten in Europe, in America, and in other parts of the world.
[Editor’s note: The following article contains an edited distillation of the hour-long message delivered by the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan as Part 37 of his 58-week Lecture Series “The Time and What Must Be Done.”]
