Do you know where your food comes from?

Food is a vital requirement for us to live; fortunately it is also something we have in abundance whether we like traditional British foods or the wide range of popular foreign cuisines such as Oriental and Indian foods.  The food we eat can be as varied as we like as we are lucky enough to have large supermarkets stocking everything we desire.  What many British citizens are not aware of though, is where our food comes from. A lot of our food we eat on a regular basis actually comes from far away, as far as Africa and South America.  A lot of foods grow in particular seasons, often summer and warmer climates, as we leave those seasons these food items are then imported from countries where they are in season. This process ensures we always have the food we want available to us in the shops 365 days a year, whilst this is undoubtedly convenient many activists and environmentalists have concerns over the cost on the environment that flying these groceries in to our country is having.  Climate change and harmful gases have become key subjects in recent years, airplanes are bad for the environment and many countries are looking to cut down on their emissions by encouraging people to fly less, including the food industry. Some supermarkets are even actively encouraging customers to buy food that is in season with promotions and recipe ideas for food that has been ethically sourced.  Another factor that people are unaware of is the people that work to give us our food.  These workers are often forgotten about and the conditions they work in are not the best. With poor pay for the food they produce a lot of companies and supermarkets have been accused of focussing too much on lowering their own costs at the expense of their supply network.  Fortunately there are now measures and schemes in place to ensure that these workers not only get a good wage for their work and produce but also ensuring their communities are supported by the companies that work with them.  This could mean building schools, medical centres and other facilities that would benefit them such as clean water wells. It’s entirely understandable that when we go to the supermarket that we would only be looking for the food we want to eat and not put much thought into the processes and people that went in to bringing our food to our dinner tables.  As awareness grows of fairtrade foods and climate change though we should be looking for ways in which we could help where we can. There are plenty of different fairtrade food and drinks available from fairtrade wines to fairtrade sugar and other produce, when shopping at your supermarket try and choose fairtrade food where you can

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