The Real Meaning of Farm To Table

AntiMSM March 15, 2016 1,414 Comments

The Real Meaning of Farm to Table

Remember when you used to sit down at your favorite restaurant, tell the waiter or waitress that you were going to have your favorite cut of meat, a filet per say, and that was it? You didn’t have to say anything more than to what degree you wanted it cooked. Medium. Medium Rare. Well-done. But how the times have changed. People who enjoy going out for a nice meal are now food critics, dictating to people what business should or should not be frequented. Suddenly, every single ingredients’ birthplace is more important than the taste that it produces. How and when did this happen while I am still just looking for a nice cut of medium rare steak, black peppercorn crusted, with a side of baked potato? How do we get back to the beginning, which isn’t long ago, to find out the truth about what people who love to use the term “farm to table” are talking about?

The term “farm to table” has been around for a long time but has only become a household phrase in the past few years. As a person working in the grocery business for over six years, I have some knowledge of how the process actually happens and know that most people have no idea. It’s just another fad. The amount of effort that it takes to put into actually getting all of your food straight from a farm to your household is nearly impossible, unless it is Aunt Sally’s backyard farm, that’s being sold at a farmers market. Farmers’ markets are good for produce, but how many household wheat growers do you actually know off of the top of your head?

The reason the term “farm to table” has picked up so much steam is because people want to believe that what they are eating is all natural. No herbicides. No pesticides. No dyes, and certainly not GMO. But why? Do people know what any of this actually means? You hear the term organic and automatically say YES! No herbicides or any sprays. WRONG! Being organic only means that any type of spray you will use on your product must have been derived from a natural source. In studies done at University of California, Berkeley, it was found that up to seven types of organic pesticides were needed to match the effect of one synthetic pesticide.

Why is everyone pressing for organic or natural so adamantly? Recently, there have been attempts at genetically modifying grains of rice to contain all of the nutrients necessary for a days’ worth of nutrition. Any person against GMO will tell you this is terrible. Buy why? Why is it a bad thing to try to get a person all their necessary nutrients in something as simple and cost effective as a bowl of rice? Because it is not natural? This could essentially cure world hunger, but I digress.

Let’s steer the conversation in a slightly different direction, but keep the GMO protestors close in mind. Imagine someone close in your family that becomes ill. Your sister for example. Your sister is in desperate need of a donor liver. You would do it right? But you sit on this side of the table saying I won’t eat food that has been sprayed with this pesticide because it isn’t natural. Of course every single person on the planet, well mostly, would do anything they could to help, GMO haters included. But isn’t any kind of body transplant about as far from natural as you can get? But it saves lives, so of course we do it! We understand that organ transplant is for the better good. But still GMO is a bad concept.

I am longing for the day where we strive for a world where the term “farm to table” can deliver the farm to every table in the world, including places in the world that cannot even afford to have a table. I hope for the day that we can restore faith in our fellow man that wants to help create product so little, yet packed with so much (nutrition in this case), that everyone can go to sleep adequately fed. The day is not far away, so when you hear someone say they are against GMO ask them why. When you hear someone say “farm to table” ask them what they mean. It’s time to educate!