Thanksgiving is a holiday celebrated by Americans, famous for the excessive amounts of food we eat. It is also a time to reflect and think about all the things we have that we are thankful for. Each and every year I am thankful for agriculture and all the food that is produced. Without agriculture, Thanksgiving dinner wouldn’t even be possible! So we’re going to dive in and look at the agricultural elements of our Thanksgiving dinner!
- Turkey
-
The main meal of the Thanksgiving dinner, about 244.5 million turkeys are produced in the United States each year! About 46 million of these are consumed on Thanksgiving Day alone! Minnesota produces the most turkeys each year. Our bird friends that taste so good are so popular! Did you know that there are 6 subspecies of turkey native to North America? The pilgrims ate the eastern wild turkey.
- Mashed Potatoes
-
It’s not Thanksgiving without mashed potatoes! They’re one of the most popular side dishes for Thanksgiving and 250 million pounds are consumed on Thanksgiving Day! Idaho is the leading state in production of potatoes, but nationwide 1.05 million acres of potatoes are harvested a year! Potatoes are full of starch, so they’re more like bread and pasta. No wonder we love them as a comfort food!
- Stuffing
-
Stuffing is usually a mixture of bread cubes, onion, celery, and several spices. This means that multiple farmers help to contribute to this wonderful dish! One farmer to grow the onions and celery, one to grow the wheat for the bread, and one to grow some herbs that create your spices. The average person is only supposed to have ½ cup of stuffing at their meal, but many of us eat much more than that!
- Corn
-
Corn was definitely included at the first Thanksgiving meal and is definitely a staple. The main type of corn found on tables today is yellow sweet corn, but the original corn eaten by the pilgrims was Indian corn. Indian corn is now commonly used just as decoration due to its beautiful coloring. Each year American farmers plant and harvest around 90.0 million acres of corn.
- Pumpkin Pie
-
The most famous dessert for Thanksgiving Day, pumpkin pie is dependent on farmers to produce pumpkins! Some pumpkin puree is actually squash, but it is still a vegetable dependent on farmers. Each year, about 50 million pumpkin pies are consumed on Thanksgiving. That’s a lot of pie! But it makes sense since more than 2 billion pumpkins are produced by farmers each year.
The average American will consume about 4,000 calories during Thanksgiving. This is much greater than a normal day, but makes sense because of our desire to overeat on this one day. It is past Thanksgiving now, but I hope you all had a wonderful holiday and remember all the things you should truly be thankful for. If you enjoyed any of these foods this past Thursday in celebration of the holiday, be thankful for farmers.