Where we get our food from

One of the things that I often do before a meal (at least when I'm being conscious) is think about where the food came from. When I was driving down to Santa Barbara from Berkeley yesterday, I passed fields and fields of food crops, some of which were being picked. At one field, there was a semi, with a flat bed with lots and lots of boxes of cabbage. I recognized the boxes as ones I'd seen in the supermarket - when the folks were stocking the vegetable tables with varied kinds of vegetables.

I also passed two semis with big buckets full of just picked carrots. I wondered if those were going to be processed into "baby carrots" (sorry, no, they don't pick them small, they take regular carrots, and process them into baby carrots.)

I've always known that much of the veggies and fruits I buy, especially between November and June, are from California.  It was amazing and revelatory to spend several hours passing through the farmlands that are the source of my food.

Also, especially having had the experience and conversation about slow food, as well as the experience of knowing how expensive fuel is getting, it really made me stop and think a bit about the whole thing.

But, I guess, now that I'm living here, I get the advantage of the abundance of relatively local food grown year round.