Last week, the World Food Program received the Nobel Peace Prize for their work on food scarcity and security and how it impacts conflicts and is used as a weapon of war.

The Nobel Peace Prize 2020 was awarded to World Food Programme (WFP) “for its efforts to combat hunger, for its contribution to bettering conditions for peace in conflict-affected areas and for acting as a driving force in efforts to prevent the use of hunger as a weapon of war and conflict.”

It made me think about all the agricultural workers in the U.S. and how they are treated and how little consumers think of their plight when buying food. I recently attended a discussion with Chefs and this topic literally did not come up. I don’t see how that is possible in today’s world so from now on I am going to focus some light on this as well.

The same can be said for vineyard workers who are often seasonal laborers. How much do we collectively think about them when we buy a bottle of wine? Do we ask ourselves if they have been treated ethically? Speaking for myself, it is not the first thing I think of but from now on, it will be one of the questions I ask myself when I purchase food or wine. It is not always easy to know the full extent of any of the operations behind products we buy of any kind. Yet we are in a position to find out by asking questions and I will start doing, asking questions of myself and others. On today’s holiday be it in celebration of Columbus or indigenous people’s, it’s time to ask hard questions and look beyond what we assume to be true.