Planting Seeds"Giving Thanks"
There’s something about food that brings people closer together, whether it’s everyone sharing a meal around the table or rolling up your sleeves and putting on an apron to help make food in the kitchen.
Food is a vital part of any celebration, especially Thanksgiving. Last year’s Consumer Food Insights Report from Purdue University stated that 79% of consumers celebrate Thanksgiving with a meal.
According to Butterball’s Togetherness Report: 2024 Thanksgiving Outlook, 87% of people surveyed plan to serve turkey during their Thanksgiving dinner. The report also mentioned that 51% of consumers consider turkey to be their favorite part of the meal.
Although I consider turkey an unofficial requirement for Thanksgiving dinner, the meal is made special by the sides and desserts. Many of those dishes are eaten for holidays only: green bean casserole, sweet potato and marshmallow casserole, cranberry sauce, stuffing, and pumpkin pie.
Regardless of what you’re eating this Thanksgiving, everything on your plate has one thing in common: agriculture. Farmers raised the turkeys and grew the potatoes, green beans, cranberries, pumpkins, and apples.
You probably have Illinois’ top crops on your Thanksgiving plate without even realizing it. The tofu in tofurkey and vegetable oil are made from soybeans. Dent corn is used to make the cornstarch in corn bread and muffins and the corn syrup in soda. Morton, Illinois is nicknamed “The Pumpkin Capital of the World” because 90-95% of the pumpkins used for processing (i.e. canned pumpkins) are grown there.
Maybe your Thanksgiving dinner also has locally-grown produce, desserts made with local eggs or milk, or local honey is used to sweeten things up (bees are Cook County’s #1 livestock!).
Agriculture makes your Thanksgiving meal – and every meal – possible. This Thanksgiving, give thanks to the farmers, transportation workers, grocery store employees, production and manufacturing workers, and 22.1 million agriculturally-related jobs that bring the food we eat from the farm to our table. Happy Thanksgiving and give thanks!