BEING Grateful For the Food We Eat
Someone worked hard to create every bite you take
Thank heavens there are still people willing to grow food.
The world seems to have become a place of impatience and self-entitlement. Everything is about getting it all now. Rushing to buy a Black Friday deal. Making sure your brand names are showing. And having the biggest, newest, or MOST of this or that.
But every single day, you eat food.
Food doesn’t typically command our attention in the same way that other designer and consumer goods seem to. Ironically, we are often willing to sacrifice quality in the name of speed and convenience when it comes to what we eat.
I think we forget just how incredibly lucky we are to walk into a store and have food from around the world at our finger tips on any given day. We rarely have to stop and think what day the food supply truck comes to town. The food is just there waiting for us.
I think we forget the amount of time and energy that has gone into creating that food.
We don’t think about the people who have worked to let us eat today.
We thank the cook - but what about the grower?
If you have grown a garden or kept a pet, you have a tiny inkling. . . .and I do mean TINY . . . of what it actually takes to be responsible for growing food that feeds hundreds of people.
For millions of people around the world who live on farms, growing food is NOT a job. It is a lifestyle. . . . a 365 days a year lifestyle.
It’s a commitment with few comparisons. There are no weekdays and weekends. They are all weekdays. They are all work days.
I live on 16 acres with Dexter cows, Silver Appleyard ducks and heritage chickens. They need food and water and care every single day. Yes – I can hire someone to help or have someone farm-sit. But in the end, they are still my responsibility.
Like the old Postman's Motto "Neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds."
Same can be said for the growers and farmers of the world. They are the ones that put that food on your plate, day after day, and year after year. And we rarely stop to thank them.
For me, when I do somehow squeak out for a few days to an ocean-front or mountain-view hotel (my favorite kind of get-away!), my eyes flash open at 5am because I KNOW the roosters are crowing. Being hundreds of miles away doesn’t change the lifestyle pattern of living on the farm. I know they are crowing - I am awake to listen – and they tell me the farm has safely made it into another day.
Walking into the grocery store, you don’t see those hours of work (the days and weeks and months) that have brought you that food.
You don’t see the farm hand that got up at 5 am (or earlier) to go work in the field all day to harvest fresh vegetables for you. Or the one who toiled in the heat and humidity of a hot house to raise those tomatoes and peppers.
You don’t see the devastation on the face of the citrus farmer hit by an unexpected frost that ruined the crop - years of time and energy sometimes lost by a random dip of the thermometer.
You don’t feel the anguish of the farmer whose fields are now flooded. The one who has to sit and pray the water recedes in time to plant or before the damage to the crops or soil is permanent. Watching their income rot in the field.
Thank the universe today that there are still people in this world willing to face the exceedingly wild circumstances standing in the way of growing food. They are still out there trying and innovating and collaborating to make your food possible.
I know after 6 months of climate disaster after climate disaster in 2021 (the heat dome, the catastrophic wildfires, the atmospheric river, and the record snowfalls that hit BC). . . . even I thought about quitting. Just giving up. And I never imagined in my whole life that anything might sway me from my love of food and growing. But 2021 nearly broke me.
Don’t take food for granted.
Don’t take growers and farmers for granted.
These people hold skills and strength that the general population has forgotten.
I am dumbfounded that we pay sports athletes millions of dollars a year to toss a ball around and run fast, while the people who provide us with our daily food can barely keep their lights on.
Too many farmers struggle under crushing debt just to keep their equipment running while billionaire grocery chain owners are making record profits. There is something profoundly wrong with this picture.
So today, as you eat whatever food is on your plate, why not pause and say thank you to the amazing souls who produced your food.
Be grateful that these people still exist.
Bless the growers and farmers of the world, today . . . . and everyday.
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