Food for Thought Students increase their awareness of food by
studying their own diet and preparing and eating a Native
American dish. When we eat something, we are enjoying the fruits
of photosynthesis. Every morsel of food we ingest was created by
the sun, the Earth, water, and carbon dioxide. Each meal
represents the beginning, growth, life, and death of plants and
maybe animals. Seasonal weather variations can have drastic
effects on this cycle, creating anxiety over the prospect of
hunger. "Will there be enough to eat?" is a question that shaped
human cultures and distribution worldwide. Our relationship to
food changed radically with the industrial revolution.
Populations shifted from rural to urban, from food growing to
food buying. The exploitation of abundant fossil energy (oil and
coal) insulated us against hunger; if a crop failed at home, it
could easily be imported from a thousand miles away. Most
Americans today do not know hunger. We expect grocery stores to
provide a cornucopia of food year ro