Tuesday, 23 June 2009

• Food For Thought - Thoughts on Potato Chips

  
  image source
  

  
  Do you eat potato chips? I know a few people do. The salty, crunchy flavoured chips made from thin slivers of potatoes are a fantastic snack sometimes. Do you ever think about how many potatoes go into a bag? Ever think how much it actually costs to make one bag of chips?  Just for the heck of it, I began letting my mind wander a bit, did a little bit of math and came up with some pretty wild facts and figures.
  
  Here in Canada, a big bag has about 250 grams - say about half a pound roughly. So, this bag of regular, salt and vinegar, BBQ chips gets sold for around $3.00   That's where the fun begins. Half of a potato gets cleaned, sliced, run through a vat of boiling oil, then dried, flavoured and packaged. One half of a spud, winds up being sold and $3.00 changes hands. I made an estimate and figured that on any given day, over 10 million bags of chips are sold, say across America and Canada. Multiply those bags times the $3.00 and you have 30 million bucks a day, going to a big company that makes chips. In a week, that's 210 million, a month, 840 million$. In fact, in a year it will be over 10 billion dollars!   That number I quoted is an estimate but, I believe it to be quite fair. I'm not trying to be accurate with these figures, just make a point. I didn't include all of the different kinds of chips, other snack products. I'm only making a rough  guestimate to make a point.
  
  I think it's a shame that people are hurting themselves shovelling garbage down their throats, missing out on real decent food nowadays. Chips, all kinds of snack foods are too readily available and the proper food that people need is becoming harder to find and way too expensive. The health of many people has declined, cancer is having a hay day, more and more kids are obese now. Junk food is everywhere. I'm not saying it's all bad. It's just too available and it would be nice if good healthy food was out there for people too. Why not have a snack machine at work that sold a small fruit salad or some kind of mixed veggies and nuts or tasty cereal mix?
  
  I remember years ago when there was a farmers market. The people took pride selling all of their produce. I saw one guy sit and polish every apple in every bushel he sold. Home made jams, pies, smoked meat, sausages, fresh beef, poultry, pork. The farmers brought their products in, it was fantastic as far as quality goes and now, farmers markets are becoming a thing of the past. I remember a family that brought fresh fish in every Saturday. The nets were pulled in maybe 12 hours before, the fish cleaned, laid on ice, customers went home and had the best perch, trout or walleye every weekend. Now, I'm afraid to buy a piece of fish. They're grown in a pond 1100 miles away, forced to eat some kind of pellets, they are trucked in and over the 3 days on the road lose their already bland, pellet like taste. The final insult is when the grocery store puts a price tag of $ 34.00 /kg on a walleye.  I've had to throw one out because it stunk, another because it was going green.
  
  I guess what I'm really trying to say is this. It's about time we got behind the farmers, let them open some sort of Co-op,  have more people get involved in the community and buy local. Farmers hardly get paid a decent rate per pound for their livestock, fruit and vegetables. I think it's disgusting when I see a pound of apples that sell for $2.00 a pound and asparagus going for $10.00 a kg. in the store.  The grower of the apples got 10 cents a pound. The guy growing the asparagus was paid 45 cents a pound. I'd like to see the day where farmers held their potatoes back, demanded more money. A 10 pound bag of taters was $6.99 here today.  I'm sure all the farmer gets out of that is about 50 cents, if he's lucky.
  
  Going to the farmers market years ago was a real treat for me when I was a kid. On top of looking at everything there, I got to meet the nicest people. People that worked with the land, appreciated the fruits of their labour, they could see their efforts and hard work in a physical form. It must have given them a lot of satisfaction. How many long hours went into working the soil, watering, feeding and nurturing the broccoli, corn, tomatoes and fruit that they brought to a small market?  Families that work from sun up until dark to provide others with the necessities deserve a lot more than what is given to them.  What would people do if all of the farmers went on strike tomorrow?
  
  Remind yourself and others to think about the importance of your local farmers. It sure would be nice to see a few more farmers markets open up, no matter where you are. Instead of buying something that's been shipped in from overseas or trucked in from a place 1500 miles away, think about using what's available locally.   Get out, find some farmers market and take a look at what they have. You'll be glad you did.

  • 7:23 PM
  • 1201 Views
  • 24 eProps
  • 18 Comments