week 9

1. Today’s dinner appeared to be just a regular sandwich consisting of ham, cheese, lettuce, and tomato on wheat bread. However, it was much more than that when you actually break it down and consider where it all came from. The main part of this sandwich, the ham, did not just come from the Fry’s deli. Instead it came from gentile pigs that roamed a farm in Indiana, feasting on nutritious slop and other things pumped into their veins. They were then transported to a slaughter house in Indiana, where they did everything for the last time, and were slaughtered. The chunks of ham were then sent to a packaging and distribution center in Kansas. From there they were sent to Fry’s, where two lucky slices found themselves on my ham and cheese sandwich. The next item on my sandwich was two slices of cheese. The cheese originated from cows at a California farm. The milk was taken from the cows and then sent to a place that specializes into turning milk into cheese. Once through the transformation process, in which milk solids are separated from the liquids, they are put in an area to complete the aging process. The process also included vitamins being added to the cheese and other precise slicing to turn it into the lovable cheese slices that sat comfortably on my sandwich. The other item on my sandwich was some lettuce. The lettuce came from a farm in Georgia, where lettuce heads were abundant. The lettuce was pumped full of water and the proper soil as well as tons of prolonged sun exposure to promote it’s growth. It was then ripped from the ground as well as many of it’s lettuce head friends and was harvested and packaged. It was sent here to the Arizona Frys’ supermarket, where it was purchased by me. It then was brutally butchered by my cutting knife and placed in my sandwich. The tomato was grown in South Carolina, and similar to the lettuce, was raised on sunlight, thousands of gallons of water, and plenty of fertilizer and pesticides. It too was harvested and packaged and then shipped here to Arizona to meet it’s demise. I guess I have never really considered all the effort and hardwork to put food on my plate. Each item has it’s own unique story as it’s been handled by all sorts of people, from all sorts of places, with all sorts of stories. It’s actually pretty cool when you think of it this way. The only thing I wish I hadn’t learned was the exact processes that it takes for some of this food to get here, and how it is made. Some foods that are “natural” are actually loaded with all sorts of junk that really shouldn’t be consumed any living organism. Sometimes however, we must sacrifice what is “natural” for what is convenient.