Order to Stomach in 37 Minutes

At 17:41 today I hung up the phone. I had just ordered a large Hawaiian pizza from Domino's pizza.

At 18:18 I put my fork down. I had just finished my last bite.

It is not so much the fact that the pizza got to my house in twenty minutes that amazed me - though I have to admit to slight amazement as pizza delivery shops typically say it will take 40 minutes for the pie to arrive at your door.

In my ever wandering mind a few thoughts popped up - a few ideeahs - as they always do.

First off I hoovered my food. In seventeen minutes I ate three slices and sucked back a bottle of Alexander Keith's Pale Ale. Yes I tasted them. Salt, cheese, bitterness. I imagine that I must have enjoyed the food though that sensation (of enjoyment) may have come more from watching my children eat pizza - a treat for them. But I did not cherish the food. I did not taste the wheat nor feel the grains on my tongue. I did not feel the elasticity of the cheese, the tanginess of the tomato sauce. I didn't appreciate the carbonation of the beer. I did not take in the details. I took the food for granted to a certain extent. Now, three hours later I am burping it up.

While people in the world are starving we can call up a restaurant a few kilometres away and have them, in twenty minutes, cook, package and deliver a still warm consumer item to me. While the process seems simple it is born out of quite a complex set of required prerequisites. Availability of the following was required to accomplish the transaction:

Telephones

Roads

Gasoline and oil

Automobiles

Employees

Credit Cards

Wireless telephone

Electricity

Flour

Salt

Tomatoes

Cheese

Ovens

Pineapples

Airplanes

Refrigerators

Trucks

Pigs

Cows

Wheat

Water

Food. A consumer commodity here in the "rich" world. That is made in repetition, with little love or thought. Slapped together by someone who is working in the kitchen likely not out of a love of food and cooking but a necessity to make money and advance in our consumer based world.

Meanwhile in the so called "poor" world there are some who savour a grain of rice, a kernel of corn, a glass of water. Who guard food to protect their families and villages. Who will toil in their fields in the hope that some grains will poke through whatever topsoil is left. Who will look to the skies and hope for sun or rain and in the right quantities.

Instead, as they look up they may see the white condensation trail of a jumbo jet, 35000 feet up. This is the closest they may ever come to our artificial, rich world reality. A jumbo jet ferrying rich world passengers over arid lands, mobile phones tucked into their pockets, seat trays down and covered with some plastic dishes filled with something that resembles a pizza and does not taste like one, washed down with a beer.

Below, through the oval windows a beautiful, golden plain beckons memories of a time long past - so we think.

Let me know what you think about what you have just read. Please and thanks!