Three Tomato: The Tale Continues

It's another rainy afternoon. It has rained every day this week. Yesterday afternoon the sky cleared and we enjoyed a great few hours. This morning we woke to fog and rain. We took our regular morning walk. The light mist between rainfalls was refreshing.

Before I get on with the last segment of the Tale of Three Tomatoes, I'd like to ask a question: Why can we keep dogs in the city but not chickens? Chickens are quieter, cleaner, provide eggs and companionship. Okay, a chicken may not jump on your lap but you don't have to walk them.

Do you know how far the last tomato that you ate travelled? Where was it grown, and what is the distance between where the tomato was grown and your kitchen where it will be used? How did it travel; transport or train? How much fuel was used just to move it from field to table? How does it taste compared to a local field grown tomato? How where the workers treated who grew the tomato? Who packed the tomato for shipment and loaded it onto box car or trailer? What were the crates it was transported in made from? What happens to those crates when the tomatoes are unpacked? How much was the tomato sold for at point of origin? How much did you pay? How many other people got a slice? What did the grower get?

I'll stop there. That is enough to help you begin to understand the journey that tomatoes and many foods make each day. We have built an intercontinental network for shipping food across and between countries. What does this network cost to maintain? The real costs need to be considered. North Americans demand cheap food, at the same time they want access to food that can not be grown locally. The situation is that the price we pay for food has hidden costs that we never see at the grocery store check out.

We pay the price in quality of life issues, such as air and water quality, not to forget the potential impact on global warming that thousands upon thousands of transport truck have as they travel back and forth between Canada, the United States and Mexico. What about shipping food from another continent? What impact on the oceans does that have? Next week the Tale concludes; or does it?

Take some time and ponder the questions I asked. What you eat matters.

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