Would You Like Ketchup With That Dollar? :: Essays Papers

Would You Like Ketchup With That Dollar? Money does not satiate the stomach, only the food it purchases can. Material possessions contain the lowest number of kilocalories-per-gram (i.e. none) when compared to fatty acids, carbohydrates, and amino acids. Power tends to be nutrient deficient (eggs, however, are quite functional). And, as of yet, science has been unable to show any effects (positive or negative) of elite membership upon the area of the brain related to hunger -- the hypothalamus. Food is the most basic and essential component of human existence, next to air, of course. In the last instance, it -- not wealth, power, or status -- matters most. Period. Yet, its sheer abundance in the core nations of the world remains unparalleled in most or all of human history. So much so, that it goes scarcely noticed anymore. In the market it is viewed as a commodity to be bought and sold, an abstraction of itself, not real or tangible. In the grocery store the abstraction, through clever marketing and advertising, becomes a heavily constructed and objectified notion of reality. Meanwhile, the consumer remains alienated and detached from one of the elements most antecedent to life and existence. I have read of some -- great Yogis of the East, who, through their enlightened communion with the Divine, are able to transcend any physical need of sustenance. But, the revelations of Sages remain lost to most of us, too caught up in the mayhem of capitalistic endeavors to even think about such mysticism. The commodification of food and the industrialization of agriculture have removed us from the cadences of nature. With time, industrial agriculture is proving more and more unsustainable, less reliable and wonderful than it is touted to be. While large agribusiness continues to strive for greater crop yields, increased mechanization, lower labor costs, more acreage, new technologies, consolidations -- maximum profits -- farmers are striving to feed their families, to keep their land, and to justify their existence as farmers. If traditional farming is not dead already, it is surely dying. Yet, there are some who refuse to allow the fields to lay forever fallow.