More tomatoes!
Barbara Kingsolver wrote a whole chapter in Animal, Vegetable, Miracle about the tomato harvest in their family garden. She describes being overwhelmed by trying to cope with 20% of a ton of tomatoes (400 pounds, or about 180 kilos). We heard in the Gourmet article about tomato harvesting in Florida that one worker picks a ton of tomatoes per day — which gives us some perspective both on how many tomatoes she is dealing with, and how many tomatoes an industrial farm handles.
Today’s discussion was really interesting and informative. I think all of this explanation about eating locally is important to our society. We live in a very rapid society where everything needs to be done fast, and the majority of people do not know how to appreciate fresh food. Nowadays, the society’s way of leaving is very different as it was before. It is really important when people eat homemade food. Tomatoes in this society are something that we may eat every day. However, nobody ask in the supermarket how, when and where these tomatoes where produced. It is important to value, to learn how to cultivate, and why not to make fresh sauce with tomatoes at home.
It is sad that industries and business prefer buying cheap pesticide ridden produce versus locally grown food which is a little more expensive. But i am not suprised because united states, is the Land of the Cheap and fast. I dont think people are ready to change their eating habits any time soon. I thought the tomatoes i ate were fresh now but now i am hearing that they arent. But that point isnt strong enough to make me yearn to try the locally grown tomatoes.
“Closed eyes cant see future”
The latest in the news on food, is the pistachio recall. The public is being asked to avoid pistachio nuts and all products made from pistachio, due to a salmonella outbreak, found in pistachio. This latest development, continues to support our readings in which authors like Kingsolver and Michael Pollan urge for the decentralization of the food system, to prevent massive clusters of food from being poisoned, all at once as we are seeing with the pistachio recall. Our utilization of local and regionalized farming would serve to decrease the regularity and extent to which large portions of food are tainted and have to be destroyed. And I found the news release so weird as I usually associate salmonella outbreak mainly with poultry.