This is “The World On Your Plate”, the first of my Writing Collaboration Challenges. I had an email from Kim Smyth – Thank you for contributing, Kim.
I want to change the way people think about the food they put in their bodies. I want people to realize that junk is killing them, Monsanto is killing us, and sugar is the devil, although we all succumb to its charms every once in a while. (my guilty pleasure is margaritas on date night). Besides supporting our local farmer’s markets, growing our own food, and boycotting industrial farming, can you give me some more ideas?
Kim Smyth is a freelance blogger, a writer from the DFW Metroplex who lives at home with her hubby Dave and their three furbabies. She runs two blogs, contributes to different publications on Medium and has been published in Therapeutic Thymes and VitaBella magazines.
Find her at https://kimmy1563.com
The World On Your Plate
From field to mouth we thoughtlessly consume. Everything arrives at us pre-packed and in infinite supply. This disposable cornucopia is ours to waste. Yet, what goes into the food we eat? How many fields does one cow need? The burger in your hand takes three-thousand litres of water to produce. That’s one month’s worth of showers. We feed and fatten and slaughter the cow to feed and fatten ourselves. But it means nothing to us. Driving to the fast-food chain to grab a burger is convenient for us, but increasingly inconvenient for a planet that requires intensive deforestation to support our mealtime whims.
And as the carbon chokes us, we’ll arrest and make a spectacle of those that care enough to stand up and say that we need to act. We’ll abuse the voice of youth that tells us the truth about our actions because we’re too selfish to hear it. It’s okay because we can just take a drive out in our car and grab another burger to numb the pain of life.
Leaving the tap running will not wash away the sins of our greed. In the last few years, Cape Town was days away from turning off it’s clean running water supply for good. On the edge of the world, looking out to sea from the Cape of Good Hope; you’d be forgiven for wondering how the world could be running out of water when seventy percent of the planet is covered in it. But, within the next decade, over a quarter of us on this planet will no longer have access to clean drinking water. We can’t help you with your problem, but we will provide comfort food.
We’re all on this planet together and can’t look around us anymore and say that because other people aren’t doing anything, then we shouldn’t either. This moral low-ground really progresses society and as we stand and complain about the mess that other people have caused, we should really learn to shut our mouths until we’re willing to do something for ourselves.
But if we have a penny’s worth for the debate, let’s back it with some action. Switch your energy provider to a company that provides fully renewable power. Take shorter showers. Drive a smaller car, and share a lift when you can. Eat less meat and dairy, and understand how your food gets from the field to plate to mouth. Stop dismissing the opinionated ramblings of hippies, snowflakes, and lefties because it doesn’t match the advertising message you’ve been sold. The facts are there and just because Donald Trump can deny them, it doesn’t mean that you can. He has been scientifically proven to be an idiot. Look at the companies that you throw all of your money at, and ask what practices lay beneath the facade of their glossy packaging. Vote with your pounds and your dollars; your yen, and your Euros. Spend money on products that back green initiatives, or better still, that base their whole business model on sustainability. Question everything, because pretty soon we will have nothing left to question.
This is a debate, and if you have an opinion about the world on your plate, let’s hear it…
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
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