During our contemplative exercise in class, I recognized how I play a role as a consumer in the international food system, and that I could be doing a better job in deciding on how I decide to source my own food, and that I can myself do a better job in making sure I don’t add to the evils of the international food chain by becoming a consumer by supporting an industry full of exploiting cheap labor and land across the world.

In a recent article I read, it was reported that almost 70% of produce and grains in an average country’s diet come from a different place, and to me this is astonishing. This just proves to me that the development of agriculture and mass production of foods can be used as an economic tool, but I do not believe that food should not be something that is used to create an economic gain.

Food should be something that helps aid economic gain by helping nourish the population of your country, as making sure everyone has a healthy diet is a key factor to ensure the health of people around the country. Food should be local and traceable, and the contemplative practice in class helped me realize that!

I am someone who loves food. I spend mindless hours scrolling through my Instagram feed and take great joy in experimenting with recipes and trying new foods. In doing the contemplative practice on hunger, I began to consider my own consumption habits. I found myself realizing that I am not very familiar with the feeling of hunger. I eat my meals throughout the day out of habit, regardless of whether I am hungry. I often snack out of boredom, especially now that I am cooped up while under quarantine. 

After doing this contemplative practice, I became more mindful of when I am actually hungry. I then applied this to my younger brothers. Instead of making them lunch at the same time every day, I began to wait until they told me that they were hungry. My parents often struggle with getting the youngest one to eat and much to their surprise he cleaned his plate and asked for seconds. 

My brothers with some paella that they absolutely demolished.

I am also taking a class on early childhood development and this week we are learning about how environmental factors shape children’s development. This also applies to food. As a culture, we are taught that we must eat three meals a day at set times. This teaches kids to ignore their hunger cues and simply eat when they are told to. Surely, this must play a role in our food system. How many people consume much more than they are actually hungry for because they have been taught these cultural norms? Over the past few days, I have found myself toying with the question of what would happen if everyone simply ate what they were hungry for. I don’t have an answer yet, but would it help balance the gap between the people with plentiful food and the people going hungry?

Bananas in the Supermarket.

I ate a banana in the morning. It wasn’t a particularly special banana. It was mushy in some parts. It tasted exactly like a bunch of other bananas I’ve eaten before. I bought it during one of my trips to the store because my mom said that our home was low on fruits. That banana was just one of the millions of bananas harvested around the world. Like those millions of bananas, it was packaged. Then it was shipped across the globe by various means of transportation before ending up at that fateful store where I bought it. 

It’s easy to not think about where our food comes from and mindlessly buy it and consume it, but the fact that I can buy bananas harvested in China before going the next aisle over and picking up a can of coffee beans harvested from Colombia and then going to the produce aisle to get some meat that came from a local Washington farm. Just imaging and contemplating that interconnectivity, it’s stunning that our society and our food system has evolved so quickly from being a primarily local endeavor to one that is international in its scale. 

However, it raises questions and worries; our food system is more interconnected than ever. However, it’s also more vulnerable than ever because no longer are problems like bad harvests confined locally; they are now problems that have to be dealt with internationally. Not only that, but this interconnectivity has allowed for abundance, some would even say overabundance of food into our lives. Yet, we still have people in areas going hungry because this abundance is not shared equally amongst the international population. These problems raise the question, has our interconnectivity widened the gap between the haves and the have-nots?, If so is there even a way to make meaningful change is such a large and interconnected food system? 

One of my favorite staple breakfast items is a parfait, it is a quick and easy option for me in the early morning hours before I make my way to attending class. It feels wholesome and healthy with yogurt, granola, and a selection of chopped fruit layered at the top. The most prized fruits I take pleasure indulging in, are mangoes and kiwis. I pick them out of my fruit bowl on the counter, which was filled either after a simple trip to the grocery, or more commonly, after my bi-weekly Imperfect Produce delivery. More often than not, I pluck them out of my full, colorful bowl of fruits, ripened nearly to perfection. Once they have been laid out on my cutting board, skinned and sliced, the sweet juices flow and I’m filled with delight – dancing about, licking my fingers as I transfer my fruity gems to the top of my yogurt and granola mound. Once my breakfast has been taken in, I go to class, about my day, and that small delight fades as quickly as my dishes fall into the sink, and my mind shifts to the tasks for the day. 

“Quick and easy,” sounds like a “non-humorous-things-seem-kind-of-fishy” type of funny, because up until my mangoes and kiwis were placed into my fruit bowl, nothing was quick and easy. It’s curious to me how almost all of us as US consumers, compartmentalize this process. We know that mangoes, kiwis, and other various tropical fruit production is limited to exactly that – the tropics. We know that the midwestern farmers and farm workers aren’t harvesting and growing bananas and star fruit. If you were to ask me, after taking a longing glimpse at my parfait, where did my fruit come from – I’d know they were from distant climates. Yet, even knowing this – knowing that if I were to travel to the farms of the kiwi and mangoes origins, it would be a full day or even more of traveling – I still compulsively think “quick and easy.” 

I sat with myself for a while, just trying to imagine the whole process of my mangoes’ journey to my kitchen counter. How long does it take for a mango to grow? How much time, effort, and energy is a part of the process? What are the cultural aspects of mangoes has the mass production completely altered? And from there, how many different hands, trucks, forklifts, planes or other mechanisms played a role in the operations between its harvest and my fruit bowl. I had expected this exercise to be illuminating in a way that would inspire maybe a deeper appreciation, but in reality – it was exhausting. I felt bogged down and drained trying to trace back the steps of this single mango that I indulged in for maybe, 10 minutes. I think it’s not just that it’s easy for us to disassociate from the realities of production, because we are so far removed from having to face these realities. But that, the various loops and chains of production are so complex, fogged, and don’t present the idealized images of a happy farmer on a green pasture – we get caught in a cognitive bias. It’s hard to say if this was a structure built with the malicious intent of constructing a veil that is upheld by the inability to fully fathom its matrix of relationships, or if this just happens to be another unintended (but conveniently beneficial to those profiting) consequence of these extreme complexities. 

I wonder how much would change if the realities were blared at us everyday. If the giant signs hanging above the fruit section didn’t imply a skewed version of the daily realities that take place all across the world, making it easy to assume that my mango’s migration has brought about no undesirable effects. Would we really continue to seek out our desires so freely? If it wasn’t as easy for us to disassociate from reality, would we work harder to avoid it? Or would something as simple and glorified as “awareness” bring about significant changes? It’s difficult to say, because even after this thought exercise, I don’t think I can promise that I won’t purchase another kiwi or mango. But, maybe instead – I/we can work a little harder to improve the conditions in which this system functions – to put this awareness beyond our dollars, and to really value lives over mangoes.