This post was originally published on The Daily Yonder.
In 2018, I was the manager of an urban farm in Greenville, South Carolina, that employed local teens through a workforce development program. One day, while trying to teach them about the American food system, I asked where they thought the ingredients for bread came from. After an awkward silence, one student answered, “The grocery store,” which set off a roar of laughter. I lost their attention for the rest of the day.
But despite my failure to spark the interest of teenagers, I’d like to revive that quintessential question, “Where does my food come from?” The following five maps show where your Thanksgiving meal might have come from if it were sourced entirely within the United States. (Keep in mind that many of these crops are also imported into the country.)…