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My first thought is that, if this field trip helped us process the information we've been discussing in class regarding the impact of our food and our lives on the world, it was worth its environmental impact, since without it we might not have gained the same degree of awareness of that impact. The more I consider it, though, the harder it gets for me to try and quantify our collective learning. Does progress the trip helped us make in our own private thought processes count, or must it somehow translate into actions that can be equated to the Blue Bus's carbon footprint? If, as a result of what we learned at Pete's, we make choices that conserve as much gas as we used to get there and back, does that even things out? I feel like I'm probably overthinking this question, but I am not sure how to go about it better.

I was struck at the farm by Pete's account of his partnership with the food bank that takes his extra produce, and that he grows food for specifically. I think he made a good point that cheap food is most often unhealthy food, and that it takes effort (and money) to provide hungry people with food that won't kill them. To me this is one of the nastier parts of the food industry we've been learning about-- it traps people who need and expect cheap food into ill health and bad nutrition, because it's cheaper to produce food that's not good for you. Pete acknowledged that it's mostly richer, more educated people who buy his produce, because they can afford to make choices they feel are healthy and environmentally friendly.