Giving Thanks

In the spirit of the US holiday of thanksgiving that occurred so recently (Ok it was a week ago now almost), and that I got a chance to participate in due to a friend of ours from the states hosting a thanksgiving dinner, I would like to post some thoughts I had about the general tradition of giving thanks before meals (rather than the tradition specific to this holiday).

Yes I have some thoughts about saying grace before meal.

It is supposed to be sauying thanks for the food that we are about to receive but how inconsiderate is it to not give thanks to the people who actually provided the food the farmers who grew it, those invovled in the processing of it (ie bakers butchers etc) and possibly most importantly in our consumer age the person who earned the money to buy it. (ok I could really get pedantic and talk about the ancients who domesticated the crops and cattle - by genetic modification through cross breading and artificial selecttion but then that really should be a subject for its own whole history of science post).

How arogant is it to ignore all the effort that goes into the food we eat and give thanks only to god.

If you take the farmer or the baker out of the equation it pretty much falls over for most people in this day and age so it is to them that the bulk of thanks should go.