One breadfruit tree produces hundreds of pounds of tasty, nutritious fruit within a few years of being planted. Apparently all they need is high temperatures, good soil, and plenty of water. That’s it. No maintenance. Capitalists don’t use them because there’s no way to profit from them. I think I learned about this from a random tiktok video. I remembered Herman Melville’s other book, Typee, a memoir about how he ran away from a ship in the South Pacific and lived among indigenous people for six months or a year or so and had the time of his life. He loved those people, and they lived on breadfruit. All they did (simplifying obviously) was hang out, swim, and eat breadfruit. And meanwhile, we are here breaking our backs and/or brains, paying more for groceries every week while wages stagnate, and none of it has to be like this. Of course people want a little variety in their diets, of course there’s already enough food for everyone, but with breadfruit alone we could provide basic nutrition to everyone for free or next to nothing with no questions asked. Food insecurity, starvation, food deserts, malnutrition, animal suffering, pollution, none of this needs to exist. It’s all there so that the Epsteinists can buy more yachts.

I know I’m preaching to the choir here but I was just thinking about this. I’m not even sure I’ve tasted breadfruit.