How Organic Food
Prevented a School Shooting
By Zen Honeycutt
One day, not long after yet another school shooting, a supporter called me and told me she needed to tell me a story. One of her best friends wanted me to know what she was about to tell me, but she wanted to remain anonymous. She said, “You will understand why.” I listened.
She said that her friend was a single mom with four kids, living in a low-income Hispanic community in Santa Ana, CA. When her son was about nine years old, she he knew he had mental health issues and asked his school’s teachers to help her, but they did not do anything about it. Then, one day, the school Principal called her and said, “You need to come pick up your son from school. He just threatened to blow up the school with a bomb and kill everyone in it.” She responded that she knew he had mental health issues, and she had been asking them for help...would they help her now? The Principal finally agreed and they arranged a meeting with a psychiatrist.
The psychiatrist spoke with her son at length and at the end of the session he said, “Here you go, here is a prescription for a medication for your son.”
His mother said, “That’s it? That’s what we do is just medicate him for the rest of his life?” She was concerned about the side effects...and what about the cause for his behavior? Wasn’t there anything else they could do?
The psychiatrist said, “Well it’s either this medication or you look at the food you are feeding him.”
She asked, confused, “What do you mean?”
He asked, “What are you feeding him?”
She said, “Hot dogs, tacos, pizza...you know, whatever he will eat.” She was a struggling mom and just need to get him fed.
He said, “Have you thought about the preservatives, food dyes, and pesticides in the food you are feeding him?”
She realized that she had not been thinking about that.