Desirae Merrill

Humanities
Food ethic
The Taste of Cuba

The summer of 2018 was a memorable summer, where I did everything and anything to
have the best summer ever before my challenging junior year starts. I spent 13 days in the
fabulous island of Cuba. It was my first time out of the country and as a 17 year old it was scary.
I was excited to learn about the culture, the dancing, the music, and most of all the food.

My daily diet consisted of rice, beans, plantains, guava juice, mango, pineapple and
pork. With a handful of people who are poor in Cuba most of the food they could only afford was
rice and beans and maybe more. Although with little sources it was all fresh, local sustainable
farms where everywhere you looked. They weren’t the typical farms we had back in United
States or even Colorado. Their produce does have chickens, cows, etc. however due to their
warm climate they have tons of fruit produce that consist of mangos, pineapple, coconut, etc.
Farmers had no need or desire to use chemicals in there crops and produce; if they could afford
it.

For five days my colorful group full of many personalities and I got to experience and
work on a enormous pineapple farm first hand. Day one; my group and I showed up to the farm,
already sweating from the humidity. We were all given the tasks to work like farmers and
harvest the pineapples out in the field. Looking out into the distance all I could see was
pineapple plants, growing and soaking up all the sun. You think harvesting pineapples are easy,
little did we know it was a lot harder than just pulling the fruit off the plant. With farming
especially pineapples, there are a lot of tasks that need to get done. The owner of the pineapple
farm, Willy and his workers assigned us to about two different groups. My group and I were
given the task to grab a hoe and dig all the unwanted plants that grow around the pineapple
plants. While other groups picked the ripe pineapples in the field. About fifteen to ten minutes
later I was covered in sweat, dirt, and bites from the ants that live and burrow within these
plants. As painful as it may have been it was gratifying to see how much of our labor truly paid
off in the end.

While using my hoe and jamming it into the ground as hard as I can, off in the distance I
hear a knife slicing into some kind of food. I turned around and saw that one of the farmers was
cutting some of their freshly grown pineapples for the group to taste. I Immediately stopped with
no hesitation, dropped my tool and walked over to where all the pineapple was sitting ready to
be eaten. I grabbed one of the ripest, juiciest pineapple ring and took a bite out of it. My taste
buds where dancing with excitement, it was like tasting a pineapple made from God. All I could
think about was the word fresh, it was truly a fresh pineapple and you could taste the difference.
Eating pineapple in Durango, they where always rough and hard to bite through not as juicy or
gratifying as the one’s freshly grown in Cuba. You could truly notice the hard work that was put
into every individual pineapple. The amount of work my group and I did was only a fragment of
what the farmers do on a daily basis to make every pineapple taste like it was your last one. For
the farmers it wasn’t just a job to get money it was an art as well.

Those five days on the pineapple farm changed my food ethic for the better. I was able
to understand the difference between “fresh food” and fresh grown fruits, grass fed cows, and
etc. When coming back home I knew it was going to be different especially the way I eat and
shop. Before Cuba I always ate good healthy meals but I was oblivious to the process behind
the food I chowed down on. Whether I was eating a corn feed cow that lived in feedlot or
whether my food was injected with chemicals that naturally shouldn’t be in our food or bodies in
general.

I remembered the saying “ your body is a temple” being stuck in my head after Cuba.
Reminding me that I need to take care of my body as if it was a ancient temple. My body
needed and craved those nutrients fresh food provides. When we as consumers eat processed
food injected with many different unnatural chemicals, it is stripping away all the nutrients from
the food; preventing our bodies from getting what it needs, John Pollan described. I wasn't doing
my body a favor by continuing my nasty habit. It truly showed when I wasn't eating as well as I
should've, I was always tired and in general didn’t feel like my best self. But while in Cuba when
I was eating fresh food I never felt better, I was a happy ray of sunshine and I knew that I
wanted to continue on this path, It was time to make a change big or little.

As not being blessed with tons of money like others around me it was especially hard to
afford organic products. My family always did there best to eat healthy food, however some
processed products would sneak their way through. One way we resolve our problem was to
start growing our own fruits and vegetables. Not only did it save money it also provided us with
100% organic products, by doing that we knew where some of our food came from. Even
though we couldn’t afford the grass feed cow or chicken meat all the time, we tried to make a
little bit of a difference in our diet. When we implement local sustainable farms in our small town
we get fresh products for a cheap and reasonable price. “ You get what you paid for” Joel a
local farm in a small town said. He created a way to create an all natural farm with grass fed
cows, chickens and so on as well as keeping the products at a low price, he helps us as
consumers understand that organic food when buying at local farms is cheaper than going to a
natural grocers.
One juicy fresh pineapple ring, something so small changed my food ethic for the better
and has opened my eyes to the reality of our food system. I’ve started striving to understanding
the process behind my food and to create my own small garden so I can make at least a small
difference. Sometimes I do fall through and feed my guilty pleasures consisting of occasional ice
cream, chicken nuggets, and so much more. However through my food changing experience I
replace spaghetti noodles with spaghetti squash, bread, with lettuce wraps, dessert with fruit,
soda with home made shakes made from fruit grown in my garden. Through my fresh transition I
have never felt better.