What if we knew the source?

What if we could look at something and know all the materials used to make it, the source of those materials, and the processes it underwent to take that form?

  

            Having the ability to know the source of everything we see would change human lives in three ways, 1) I think that we would be far more responsible consumers 2) we would be more respectful and 3) we would be healthier.

            One of the weirdest things about our current world is that we use things all the time, but often have no idea what the source is. I know that there is cacao, sugar, and milk in the chocolate bar that I eat, but I have no idea who harvested that cacao, where the cows that produced the milk came from, or the long journey that the sugar took to make it to the Hersey’s factory. Given that it has recently been proven that the cacao used in many mainstream chocolate candies is harvested by child slave laborers, I wonder how many other products have a similar background (http://www.foodispower.org/slavery-in-the-chocolate-industry/). If we could see the countless hands that worked in sweatshops in India to produce that cute shirt from Forever 21 for only $4.99 would we buy it? Would we spend several hundreds of dollars on fine leather couches if we could see the inhumanly treated animals that compose it? While I am not a vegetarian, or a protestor of chocolate, I think that knowing exactly where all the components of items we use and buy came from would allow us to pick responsible companies and make us willing to pay a “fair price” rather than the lowest possible price in exchange for piece of mind. In the end, I think that this would lead to more companies being socially responsible and an increase in total welfare.

            The second thing that I think would change would be the level of respect we have for the items we use. As I write this sitting in the library, countless wooden tables and chairs surround me. I wonder where the wood used for these tables came from? How much more respect would I have for the stained chair that I am sitting on if I knew that it grew for hundreds of year in a forest in South America? I also think about the rocks used to make buildings. Many of the rocks that we walk on and stumble over daily have components that have been around for possibly millions of years and have traveled through parts of space that NASA will never discover. How much more would we respect and admire the rocks that make up the walls of the Gordon B. Hinckley building if we knew it had traveled space?

            My final thought on this topic is how much healthier we would all want to be. How many ingredients do you know in a Pop Tart? While I know what “flour”, is I have no idea what niacin, reduced iron, or thiamin monoitrate are, even though they are all components of “enriched flour” according to the label. If we really knew what was in our food would we eat it? I doubt it. 

Many years ago my sister was diagnosed with Celiac Disease and could no longer eat any food that had even traces of wheat, rye, or barley. I was shocked to learn that many of companies use wheat as a filler to make products cheaper—would you still want to eat that cube of cheese if you knew that it was injected with cheap genetically altered wheat? (For a list of foods that commonly include wheat additives visit http://www.drgourmet.com/gluten/containsgluten.shtml#.Ui-q8RbNVUQ ). This leads to an even stranger question of would you eat food if you knew wood was in it? Countless high profile companies have been including wood pulp in their foods and listing it as cellulose (http://www.mainstreet.com/slideshow/lifestyle/food-drink/10-brands-put-wood-their-food ). While wood pulp is approved by the FDA for human consumption it still is strange and serves no purpose other than to make food “larger” and less expensive. I know that I would be far less likely to eat a McFlurry if I knew upon first glance that it was loaded not only with sugar, but also with wood. I think that a “perfect knowledge” would also have a vast impact on the meat industry. I would not buy meat if I knew that the animal who provided it was pumped with hormones and antibiotics since birth and grew up in a tight cage never having the opportunity to walk and roam around. Over all I think that this perfect knowledge would force food companies to produce more “clean” food and would cause people to be more willing to put less value on simply how cheap food is—because knowing that cheap food is filled with strange things and comes from horrifying places makes it rather hard to stomach.

            In the end, my silly question that hit me while looking at a chair has a rather serious answer. If we REALLY knew the processes and components that make up the items we interact with daily, then the world would be a more humane, respectful, and healthy place.