Below are a few foods you might have eaten at the meal. Did you have help?

• Bread
• Did you plant, harvest and process the grain?
• Did you bake it in an oven you made from the earth?
• Meat or fish
• Did you kill it, skin, and remove internal organs?
• Did you make the what you killed it and cook it with?
• Milk, coffee, tea, beer, wine
• Did you milk the cow or goat?
• Did you brew the beer or make the wine?
• Vegetables
• Did you plant them?
• Did you make the microwave you heated them in?

What appear to be simple tasks take a great deal of coordinated behavior. How many of the thousands, possibly millions, of people who aided in preparing your meal did you think of? Did you think of the farmers who planted the crops and raised the herds? The people in the genetics labs? What about the factory workers who made the farm machinery and truckers who carried the grain to market. Someone cut the trees and made the boxes (or plastic) the food was stored in. Someone stocked the grocery shelves and someone checked you out Paying for your food may have brought a credit card company or bank into your meal. If you paid with legal currency, the government was involved.