It amazes me how little we understand about our food system, yet how much we depend on it. I was making my own pumpkin puree which requires you to bake a pumpkin (preferably a sugar pie one). When I do this I usually save the seeds to bake and eat. This process is not easy since the inside of the pumpkin is very stringy and slimy, so all this has to come off the seeds. I am sure many people understand this process since this is a common step when carving pumpkins for Halloween.
The thing that amazes me is pumpkin seeds are so easily available at the grocery store. How does the food system do this in an efficient cost effective manner? Many questions arise from this:
-Are they paying their workers such low wages to make this price effective?
-What machinery are they using to make this time effective?
- How much energy and resources are being used just to produce this one food product?
This is also just one example of many food that are produced from the food system daily. Many of these foods are bought for their convenience or price. Customers tend not to think about the process it went through to get on the shelf and ready to eat.
I feel that if we thought more about our food, our food system would be able correct itself. We would see how much it takes to produce each item of food and be a bit more educated on our food system. Hopefully this would make a consumer want to choose more sustainable choices, meaning less processed food (such as produce). All food takes a lot of energy and effort to be made but processed food are even more energy intensive since it is taking a whole food (often corn) and breaking it down to a very highly processed form of food, one that is not only draining our resources but terrible for our health.
So please educate yourself on what you are eating and make the best decision you can.
