17-06-2005 21:37									#1
	How disconnected from your food are you? Support Apolyton, buy Civilization: The Boardgame

I was wondering how disconnected from food are people around the world. Especialy in the urbanised western societies.

So the question is have you seen the actual plants and anymals that your food comes from. Have you seen a tomato plant or patato plant, etc. Have you seen a real pig, chicken, cow? Have you killed your own food e.g to slaughter a pig.

My guess is that there are people who have only seen food in the supermarket but it is interesting to know how many are those.

It would be interesting to know your age and where you live.

It would be best to make it a poll but I am not sure how to do it and can't think of the options.

Last edited by Sir Og on 18-06-2005 at 15:39

	17-06-2005 21:46									#2
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Sure I've killed fish and animals before I ate them. Normally I just go to the store and buy them but I have done it before. Growing up we had a vegitible garden but my current house doesn'thave much of a backyard so I can't manage much more then a few herbs in a planter.

I do try to buy organic though simply because I like the idea of buying chemical free foods which normally are selected because they taste better and not because they're easier for big companies to ship. Take tomatos for example. Most big commercial packers use one type of tomato which is designed to be large, bright red in color, and have a very tough skin to reduce bruising. The fruit also is completely flavorless and tastes like water and the flesh is tough to chew. Organic producers use old fashioned tomato breeds which are softer & better tasting so they're a bit harder to ship but they actually taste much better then the mass market breeds.

	17-06-2005 21:47									#3
	Lose 30 kilos (of popups)

I'm 30 and live in San Jose, CA

I went to college in Davis, CA and grew up in Fresno, CA

Until I moved to San Jose the towns I lived in were Ag towns. The fruit I ate was picked from the tree around the corner, the corn from the field down the street, and the meat I ate from the pasture behind my house. I still by my meat off the hoof at fairs, and grow as much as the herbs that I can. Fruit and Veggies I get at the store though, but I know, have seen, and have picked most of what I eat. My wife's father grows grapes for raisins.

	17-06-2005 21:49									#4
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I've seen more livestock and crops than I could possibly remember. Managed to stay away from the processing plants, although there's a pig slaughterhouse just down the street from where I live that kicks up quite the stench from time to time. Uplifiting stuff driving by the rows of trucks filled with live pigs, too.

	17-06-2005 21:50									#5
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My mate's dad is "known to the authorities" for growing the "special" ingredient in "special cookies". Does that count?

Or do all the speechmarks disqualify it?

	17-06-2005 21:50									#6
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I thought food was only produced in factories!?!

	17-06-2005 21:57									#7
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I went to a petting zoo once, where I saw some lamb chops before they became lamb chops.

	17-06-2005 21:58									#8
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I was born in a large city (over 500,000) and now live in a urban area of over 10 Million people.

That said, I have gone to farms and ranches and seen animals being processed, and the plants many fruits come from.

In Panama its easy to have a mango tree in the back yard and eat those fruits, as well as plum trees. I have helped harvest carrots and Yuca, seen potatoes and pineapples being harvested.

I have seen chickens and rabbits and sheep killed and then prepared to be eaten.

So, while there is plenty of alienation, I have no illusions about my meals.

	17-06-2005 22:37									#9
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We grew potatos, carrots, lettuce, cabbage, onion, turnip etc etc etc..If it could grow in eastern canada, my dad probably grew it.


As for animals, I think I have seen a live version of every type of animal I have eaten but I have not been involved in the killing or processing myself

Last edited by Flubber on 17-06-2005 at 22:51

	17-06-2005 23:31									#10
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I grew up in a small farming community, and have some step-relatives who keep livestock. Over half my classmates lived on farms. It is at the intersection of the dairy, corn, and wheat belts, and so have a great variety of crops, including LOTS of sugarbeets (which is why CAFTA is not thought of too highly here to say the least). A few years back my class got a new student from the Twin Cities. we were flabbergasted when he thought chocolate milk come from brown cows.

	17-06-2005 23:38									#11
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i love to visit farms, drive by fields etc. I like to visit wineries and get samples.

My own thumb isnt too green. managed to grow some lettuce, with POTMs help. This spring I planted carrots - but they didnt grow - too much shade, I think.


Ive never killed an animal for food - my late father-in-law slaughtered chickens though - he was a shochet, a kosher slaughterer, before moving on to bigger and better things.

Ive never been a successful fisherman, Im afraid, though ive tried.

	17-06-2005 23:39									#12
	Re: How disconnected from your food are you? Suffering from ads?

quote: Originally posted by Sir Og So the question is have you seen the actual plants and anymals that your food comes from. Have you seen a tomato plant or patato plant, etc. Have you seen a real pig, chicken, cow? Have you killed your own food e.g to slaughter a pig.

Yes, I've seen the actual plants and animals for a good portion of the food I've eaten, as in, I've seen live cows (didn't like 'em), live pigs (didn't like 'em), live chickens (didn't like 'em). I've also seen chickens and pigs butchered, but not in a slaughterhouse, but rather in a butchershop while I visited relatives in Korea. I've caught, gutted, and cooked fish (though I've only done it a few times, and the gutting part, not too well), but never killed anything bigger without a car (I did not eat the raccoon I once hit).

As far as plants... I've seen ricefields, corn fields, and mom grows the tomatoes and peppers she uses.

===

That said, I personally tend to buy food in the supermarket, simply because it's cleaner, neater, and more organized. I don't see a problem with paying someone to do all the hassle of bringing me milk in a carton, cuts of meat, and bushels of produce, so...

As far as purchasing organic/not... I think it's a load of crap, but I do ocassionaly do it when the price is right. For instance there's the Coop in Hyde Park, which sells organic produce for high prices. There's Village Foods, and there's Jewel/Osco which do not, but their produce is still tasty and cheap. Then there's Hyde Park Produce, which sells organic produce for very cheap. It's no surprise I end up getting virtually all produce from Jewel and HPP (sometimes HPP has even better deals than Jewel).

	17-06-2005 23:54									#13
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For me it's mostly been fish, octopus, squid, shellfish that I've handled. Catch the fish, go diving for octopus, and pick shellfish and the like from the shore.

Veggie-wise, it's a little harder. I've handled and seen the actual plants of some of the veggies I eat.

Fruitwise, it's a lot easier. In my neighborhood it seemed like every house had some kind of fruit tree. Lemon, Tangerine, Lychee. There are still area's where pineapple is grown. Fields of that stuff...but I never picked 'em.

Although I've never seen a slaughterhouse before...and never want to.

	18-06-2005 00:19									#14
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have I seen plants, animals etc? Wtf.. what a weird question.

	18-06-2005 00:32									#15
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You can see lots of animals or fields with plants when leaving the city and drive across the countryside....

Also children generally are crazy about seeing animals, so its popular not only to go to a zoo with them, many parents also visit a farm somewhere and show the kids what's going on there. Then they can look at those animals, or feed some of the smaller, cuter examples. Of course I don't know if they associate them with food

	18-06-2005 00:34									#16
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Kids like seeing animals? NO way.. there are zoos? In which they keep these animals at display? Next thing you tell me, there's these creatures living under water, swimming, slippery bastards! AND WE CAN SEE THEM TOO!?!?!

	18-06-2005 00:37									#17
	Suffering from ads?

OTOH I have never seen where they grow all that beer....it's quite a mystery ....

	18-06-2005 00:39									#18
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good bebro.

a couple of weeks ago we're at a picnic, where the 'entertainment" is provided by this lady who brings in some farm animals for the kids to pet - lamb, a goat, a donkey, some bunnies.

Now the picnic ends, and shes taking the animals back to her truck, some distance away across the park. She doesnt rope the goat and lamb, but essentially is trying to "herd" them along. While carrying other stuff. Now they keep wandering off. So POTM, who is one of the older children there, sort of acts as shepherd. And ya know the darndest thing? If ya get ONE animal in line, the other one tends to follow. Damn it, THATS why theyre called "herd" animals

	18-06-2005 00:48									#19
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I've seen bunny execution when I was.. 11 or 12 or something like that. Hammer to the head. Twiches. I didn't cry. I didn't like it, but I knew the bunny had to die so seeing its head crushed was acceptable even at young age for me. I learned about life and death early on. FACT.

	18-06-2005 00:49									#20
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I remember a herd of lambs and goats blocking a road we tried to use when driving through Jordan for ca. 20 minutes. Obviously the guys who owned them had some trouble to bring them in line. But it was fun to watch, and we weren't in a hurry.....

	18-06-2005 00:50									#21
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i dislike animals. it's why i always go to the lincoln park conservatory instead of the lincoln park zoo.

	18-06-2005 00:54									#22
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Grew up on what used to be a working farm, and yes, I have shot a goose, plucked, cleaned and watched my mom cook it for dinner.

	18-06-2005 00:56									#23
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My grandpa once described to me how head cheese is made, and after that I lost all interest in learning where my food came from, dangling prepositions be damned.

Not that I've ever eaten head cheese, but, well, whatever.

	18-06-2005 00:58									#24
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I would like to know what came first, the chicken or the egg.

	18-06-2005 01:28									#25
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The dinosaur.

My dad keeps a vegetable garden, so I am often treated to fresh tomatoes, fresh cucumbers, and depending on whether he feels like it in a particular summer, fresh watermelon. We once grew a pumpkin patch in the backyard as well, but the pumpkins were carving ones for Halloween.

The slightly ironic thing about the tomatoes is that we use them almost solely for burgers we cook on the grill. I could not be more separated from the source of those burgers

	18-06-2005 05:21									#26
	Re: How disconnected from your food are you? Support Apolyton, buy Civilization III: Complete

quote: Originally posted by Sir Og I was wondering how disconnected from food are people around the world. Especialy in the urbanised western societies. So the question is have you seen the actual plants and anymals that your food comes from. Have you seen a tomato plant or patato plant, etc. Have you seen a real pig, chicken, cow? Have you killed your own food e.g to slaughter a pig. My guess is that there are people who have only seen food in the supermarket but it is interesting to know how mane are those. It would be interesting to know your age and where you live. It would be best to make it a poll but I am not sure how to do it and can't think of the options.

I never actually grew up on a farm, but in a rural town.

I'm from Iowa and one of my sisters married into a farmer's family. So what do you think?

	18-06-2005 05:30									#27
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I grew up in Hull, surrounded by a wealthy agricultural county where they grow all sorts of stuff. I've also been to a pig abattoir (when I was collecting tissue samples for my PhD). I've seen pigs. Then gutted and processed...the screams and the reek were terrible. Yet it still never put me off my pork

	18-06-2005 05:33									#28
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I'm from Nebraska...

	18-06-2005 05:35									#29
	Lose 30 kilos (of popups)

My condolences...

	18-06-2005 05:41									#30
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I exclusively eat only live, wriggling, small furry mammals caught with my own two hands.

Mmmm, mmm. You haven't lived 'til you've had raw chipmunk.