7. Future of Food

• After watching the documentary "Future of Food," research your own favorite food or snack. What is it?

I'll go with Curry.  That's a sort of heavily-spiced sauce with tons of veggies boiled in.

• Where does it come from?

I'm pretty sure it's oriental.  It's a poor-people's dish of sorts, and can be made from kitchen scraps.  It's usually served over a bed of something like rice and lentils.

• What are all the ingredients?

Well, there are 3 parts: spices, a liquid base, and veggies.  I just use pre-made spice-cubes from the store, as it would be hard to get that much spice in the right quantities otherwise.  I prefer coconut-milk as a base.  And I can use any veggies, but I prefer sweet-potatoes, cauliflower, carrots, and beans.

• Where were the different ingredients grown?

    It depends on where you get them, but veggies are pretty hardy: it's very possible to make it from locally grown ingredients.  The and coconut milk I like to use the most is made from Florida coconuts. (I know some farmers through occupy)  The veggies are store bought from Sweetbay, which has control policies on their vegetables which I find acceptable.  As for the spices, those are from all sorts of places, but once again: they can be grown here easily.

• Are there any genetically modified ingredients?

    I don't know.  There's probably some GMO veggies making their way in through Sweetbay, but they're on the low-risk-factor list generally, and a small enough portion of the meal that it's not really a big deal.

• How far did your food travel to get to your plate?  How much fossil fuels went into producing your food?

    Well, considering the fact that we have a national economy, probably from all over the country.  What many lefties don't understand is that food is usually grown in places where it is most efficient, like oranges in Florida and potatoes in Idaho.  That's not necessarily a bad thing either: think about how much of a burden trying to grow large quantities of almonds would put on the everglades.

    Consider how food-supply chains work: large trucks are sent around to local pickup points, and go to the train station when full.  A train takes the food around the country, where it is unloaded back onto trucks, to local storage and distribution centers within a relatively short distance from the grocery stores where they are eventually trucked to.  In the end, it's a few gallons of gas per truckload.  Considering how much food is on one of these trucks, that's not enough that I'm particularly worried.

    Lefties have a tendency to overdramatize the effect of a bit of gas on the environment, but the fact is that gas costs money, and companies are constantly trying to minimize its usage and waste.  A much larger problem is the consumption of meat, which uses animals that take TONS of food, water, and space to feed and grow.  If you notice, curry is an entirely vegan food, meaning ALL the food that was grown for it went directly to the plate, meaning it actually fed me, instead of feeding an animal being raised for slaughter.  Think about that: a single animal eats about as much food as a person, and it takes several years before it's slaughtered for food.  This means that one day's worth of meat is the equivalent of one month of veggies.

    That's some food for thought...