Fruits and processed reality?

I am trying to eat more healthy these days, and I mean really trying, so that means more fruits and vegtables. My problem so far has been fruits. I mean I just don't think of them as an option when trying to pick something to eat. They look very nice bright colors, and interesting shapes and textures...sitting pretty in a fruit bowl...it completes the look of a kitchen. But actually picking one up, peeling or cutting one, well thats asking too much.

I had never really paid attention to this before, then it hit me yesterday: I am so used to "food" being processed or packaged in some form or the other, that eating a fruit to me is almost like eating leaves from a tree, I mean its what the cave men ate (well some of them)!! I thought back to the time when I was visiting the Human Kindness ashram the guy showing us around pointed out a fig tree and suggested we try the figs...it took me a few seconds to realize he actually meant pluck the fruit from the tree and put it in my mouth, no washing or cutting (or pesticide, I don't want to eat a worm!) . Now when I was a kid I remember eating dirt, and some edible plants, but as a grown up I get my food from a shelf, not a tree! I was really amazed by how hard it was for me to pluck a fig from that tree and put it in my mouth, even though that should be a basic instinct!! I had to ask if it was safe to eat or if I should at least wash it first, I really thought "man this might make me sick"! On that same tour we saw a persimmons tree from which our guide suggested we try a fruit again, once again that fear crept back , this time he started to look for the ones that had fallen on the ground...o boy!!

Since then, I have started becoming more aware of food, I mean real food, not the cardboard boxes that we see in the grocery store, the one that actually grows in the ground surrounded by dirt, and bugs and who knows what else. I realized I didn't know much about any of the fruits and vegetables I eat. There is so much to learn! I mean like one pineapple takes like 3 to 4 years to grow! Its amazing to see how it grows like a flower in the middle of a huge plant (not in trees or like a root as I had first imagined). Its amazing how trees promote reproduction by making the fruits a bright color to attract animals to eat the fruit and spread the seeds, or how filling an apple can really be, or what "fresh" really tastes like:)

It always amazes me how little we know, or maybe I know , about nature...even though its the only reason for our existence. I am clueless about plants that feed us, or animals that live with us. I feel so distant from things that are truly "real" and instead identify with such a "processed" reality.