Where food comes from...

When elementary students come up to our outdoor centre, their first meal is usually dinner, however, staff must go through "Mealtime Procedures" first, where they explain all the ins and outs of the dining hall and how mealtimes work. During this explanantion, 6 students are chosen by the staff, taken downstairs and given costumes representing the sun, water, soil, the farmer, the trucker and the cook. The rest goes like this:

Andrew is on stage and takes a piece of food off the table. He takes a bite, and then discards it on the floor, telling students he didn't really like it. Erin, who is at the back of the dining hall, asks Andrew what he is doing. Andrew replies that it was just a piece of lettuce and he didn't really like it.
Erin... "Do you know how much energy went into that piece of lettuce?"
Andrew... "Erin, it's just a piece of lettuce... no big deal."
Erin... "It is a big deal and I have some friends to tell you why!"
And so the sun, played by a student, comes up on stage and tells Andrew that they are the source of light for all living things and that without the sun, there would be no food at all.
Andrew plays along and asks Erin, "So you're telling me this piece of lettuce comes from a flaming ball of fire?"
Erin proceeds to bring the water up, and Andrew continues to play along, not quite understanding what the point of this is.
One by one, the sun, water, soil, farmer, trucker and cook all give their two cents as to the energy that it takes to produce the food that is being served on the student's plates.
Andrew finally "gets it" at the end and decides to not waste any food. He picks up the piece of lettuce that may or may not have been trampled on by students throughout the skit, but at the very least, has some dirt or sand on it, and finishes it off, much to the students groans of disgust.

On Friday night, I went to the grocery store to pick up some asparagus, one of the only veggies I can guarantee is from Ontario, because the sign at the front of the store boldly states it!
But as I meandered my way through the isles, salivating for a bag of chips or some chocolate eclairs, I realized that there is really not a whole lot in that grocery store that I could purchase, primarily because I don't know where the ingredients came from. When I walk into my local grocery store, first off is the vegetable and fruit section. Here, they actually tell you what country it's from! But then I hit the bakery section, with breads and pita shells and hamburger buns. Followed by canned soups, spaghetti sauce, crackers, frozen pizzas, cereals, juices, canned beans, olives, pickles, etc...

Never mind for a moment the ingredients that are in some of these items. Do we have any idea where this food is coming from? My guess is no. On the packaging, they'll tell you the ingredients, nutritional info, date of expiry and the name of the company that is producing it, but they won't tell you where that pepperoni is from on that delicious McCain rising crust pizza! We live in an age of convenience in North America, which we must take for granted if we don't even care where the ingredients are coming from. Should we care that the chickens we are buying are pumped full of hormones? Do we care that those chickens might be travelling thousands of kilometres just to reach our plate? And where the heck are those chickens coming from?

When we purchase cars, a determining factor can be whether it's North American, Japanese or European. When we buy something off eBay, we want to know what country we're buying it from. We're extremely interested as to where our beer is brewed. (Micro breweries are all the rage right now). Hell, even when we buy that little plastic gadget for the whatcha-ma-call-it to fix the such and such, it even tells us that it was made in China. So why can't our food tell us the same?