ABSTRACT
A focus on the universal need for healthy food, the cultural dynamics of food in community, commerce and health is a way to explore universal needs and rights, and to distinguish common and unique values expressed through food. Plastic is everywhere—and the price of its use goes well beyond the wrapping of our food. Invite students to consider how the cost of extracting oil and transportation and disposal of the plastic products are calculated into the price of the plastic wrap around a cucumber or a plastic bottle of water. Invite them to imagine and include the real cost of attaining the source of the plastic to the eventual de-commissioning of the vehicles that transport the oil and the products. Invite them to consider the net effect of the growing noise pollution in seas and the skies that are disrupting the flight paths of many species, adding to their distress and perhaps extinction.
