6 ways to be creatively grateful for a good Thanksgiving meal

My theme this month has been about finding creative ways to express gratitude. As we approach the the US holiday of Thanksgiving, I thought perhaps we could examine some creative ways to show gratitude for our food.

This weekend, the weekend before Thanksgiving, is often a big "preparation weekend" in our household.

My husband Pascal is our household culinary artist (one of his early jobs was Head Chef at a health-foods restaurant, and cooking has always been a creative outlet for him). This weekend in particular is especially fruitful for those of us who love pie!

But how, I wondered, would be some good, creative ways to express gratitude for the food we eat?

Gratitude to/for Animals
In some cultures there's a tradition of thanking the animal that gave its life so a person can eat. Other than saying "grace," though, how else might people express gratitude, and/or make certain their meal was humanely obtained?

This has been a thorny problem for years, because deceptive labeling practices abound. Recently we've been offered some help.

The ASPCA has published guidelines for sorting among the labels you may find on food, as well as a downloadable PDF with comparisons and particulars. If you want to find humanely-sourced meat, milk, and eggs.

Look for the Animal Welfare Approved, Certified Humane, and Global Animal Partnership labels. These are much more well-defined than other, more amorphous, possibly misleading, and sometimes downright deceptive labels.

Did you know that "Grass Fed" can apply to animals that were pastured on grass for a while before they went to the feedlot? Did you know "Cage Free" has no meaning when speaking of poultry meat, since only laying hens (for eggs) are routinely caged? Poultry reared for meat is housed in large, densely packed sheds . . . technically not caged, but also not free to act like a normal chicken, turkey, duck, or goose, and certainly not fed normal food.

Gratitude to/for the Providers: 
Migrant farm workers

There's a meme going around that reminds us someone--most likely a Hispanic migrant worker--picked the crops that provide the food we eat. Even if you've seen it before, it seems appropriate to use it for this post.

Migrant workers certainly do provide essential services that are not easily replaced, as the state of Georgia found out in 2011.

They tightened up their immigration restrictions and enforcement--only to find that migrant workers were afraid to come there and work (even if they were "legal," which of course many of them were not), for fear of harassment due to racial/ethnic profiling.

So much for the myth that immigrants take jobs away from American citizens: crops rotted in the fields. Don't assume this was a one-off fluke or outlier, either. Alabama experienced the same problem that year. Indeed, we still have examples of this effect happening in 2016.

Don't be part of this problem! If you're grateful for the food on your table, seek intelligent immigration reform and fair practices toward those whose labor harvests our crops.


Restaurant workers
I've recently written about the minimum wage issues facing millions of workers--certainly including restaurant workers--all over the United States.
If you're eating out this Thanksgiving, please leave a generous tip, because (with only a few progressive exceptions) most restaurant servers depend on tips to survive.

But also please support efforts to raise the minimum wage in your state and in the US. No one should have to work two or more jobs, but still not be able to feed their children!

Fair Trade growers
"Fair trade" sounds kind of like one of those loosely defined designations, on the order of "Cage Free" or "Grass-Fed"--but for once it's not just a nice-sounding logo on a box or bag. It actually means something.

I'm old enough to remember a time when large corporations from Europe or North America practically owned--and in many ways controlled--entire, less-developed nations and pretty much controlled their economies, and provided the only source for many goods.

These "capitalist imperialists" (more recently called "corporate globalists") monopolized markets to produce raw materials and food products such as sugar, coffee, and--most famously--bananas, in a way that produced maximum profits for the companies, while ignoring the destruction of the environment, the rights of workers, and many other issues in the countries where they operated.

They may not have been "the highest stage of imperialism" as Lenin claimed, but there has been an undeniable link between unrestrained capitalism and imperialistic approaches that persists today.

The Fair Trade movement seeks to give indigenous growers and agricultural workers more leverage against the multinationals. When you buy products marked with one of the Fair Trade logos illustrated here, you know that a list of important standards has been applied, and the producers of these products have passed the certification standards.

It's another creative way to say "thank you" to the people who produce our food, and vicariously to the Earth, because Fair Trade standards take environmental quality into consideration.

IMAGES: Many thanks to Waldorf Education and The Magic Onions via Pinterest, for the "Mealtime Blessing" image. The label images came from the websites of their sponsoring organizations. Please follow these links to learn more about the Animal Welfare Institute, Humane-itarian-dot-org, and The Global Animal Partnership. Many thanks to Blame it on the Voices via Duck Duck Gray Duck, for this image of the "Thanks, Jesus" meme. I also am indebted to Clay Bennett of the Christian Science Monitor, for his eloquent political cartoon about the inadequacy of the minimum wage. Many thanks to Fair Trade USA and YouTube for the Fair Trade logos and video.

The Pot and the Bowl

Artdog Image(s) of Interest 

We often hear that the United States is a great big melting pot, where immigrants come from all over and get assimilated, so that they can become Americans. As you can see from the style of the image above, this idea has been around for a while.

This "melting pot" idea assumes the cultural differences will get melted right out, and we'll all turn into generic Americans. Everybody will share the same cultural references, speak English, and leave the Old Country behind.

It's balderdash, of course. People don't "melt" that easily, and they can only interact with the world via the cultural references they have. Even several generations after the first, many aspects of a person's cultural heritage live on in them. I do like the "Equal Rights" spoon Miss Liberty is using to stir us with, though. It would be nice if we saw that spoon a lot more often in public life.

  

Or maybe we're like a salad bowl, as a more contemporary image says: all the assorted individuals mix together and interact with each other, but they maintain most of their original flavors and characteristics. (in this illustration, is the English language kind of like the . . . salad dressing?)

I'm not sure that's an entirely apt metaphor, either, because after a while we do grow more like our nearer neighbors, while older ties and influences may loosen. Assimilation may never be total, but it is an important force.

Fact is, neither is a perfect image, because people aren't (normally) pieces of food. We're way more complicated than that. This is a worry and an irritation to those who like to keep things simple, but I have a feeling those folks have enough frustrations already: life is rarely uncomplicated.

If you're the kind of person who lives in fear, then the "otherness" of people from different cultures can be frightening. If you're the kind of person who finds variety to be the spice of life, then nothing tastes better--pot OR bowl--than cultural diversity.

IMAGES: Many thanks to the WYPR article America: Melting Pot or Salad Bowl? for the image of Melting Pot Stirred by Liberty, and to the Oswego (NY) City Schools Regents Prep website for the Salad Bowl of Immigration image. 

How Inclusion Looks: Artdog Image of Interest

My series on social justice continues. To me, Black History Month and Women's History Month should go on all year long, but in special recognition of both (for February and March) I've been celebrating Social Justice Awareness. My focus is on inclusiveness, acceptance, and the challenge of reveling in our diversity.

How are your circles drawn?

Anyone who's been paying attention has probably noticed the many ways in which diversity can strengthen communities. 

Whether we are talking about a biome that resists decimation by disease more readily, a balanced stock portfolio, or a country strengthened by immigrant inflow (yes, America, I'm talking to YOU!), acceptance, inclusion, and cultural exchange makes us stronger, better, and wiser.

Cultural exchange is one area where creative people in the arts play a cutting-edge role. In our interactions, and in the cultural cross-pollination of our art-forms interacting with those of others, we form some of the first bridges to understanding between people. It's just one of the important things artists do, but it is a very important part of why the world needs art.

IMAGE: I found this image on Facebook, but missed getting the source (Sorry! lapse in judgement; after much searching, I haven't found it again, so that's my bad). According to TinEye, the earliest posting of it seems to have been on Friendship Circle, a special needs resources website's Parenting blog. Wherever it originated, I think it paints the picture well.