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Comment by ptrincr | Hacker News Reader

I get this exact same feeling, a thousand fold when I'm in a supermarket. To think of the amount of effort it has taken to design, manufacture, package, market and transport all those products (edible or not) is a little overwhelming.

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Prior to eating a meal I occasionally give thanks a la grace style to someone in that chain.

Random things like thanking the person who fitted the alternator belt on the tractor that ploughed the soil the carrots were grown in.

Have you read "Religion for Atheists", by any chance?

I haven't. Sounds like the kind of thing that might appeal to me, will look it up.

This is why food waste killllls me. A field was sown, carrots grown, weeds picked, carrot harvested, inspected, washed, shipped, stored, sold, aaaand... it rots in my fridge and goes straight into the trash can off to the landfill. Ugh.

Or my favorite: life forms that have spent millions of years decomposing and transforming into oil are drilled out of the ground, refined, hauled somewhere, turned into plastic, hauled somewhere else to be formed into a spoon shape, hauled halfway across the globe to reach your table/store/restaurant... just to be thrown out without being used.

The fact that one can go to any US municipality over ~5,000 and have access to more or less the same supermarket experience...this is what people mean when the West is in the top X% of the world.

Thank you for thinking of us. -- A Carrot Seed grower and breeder

I'm always amazed that one can tip over a soft drink (with the lid on) and then the thing will explode everywhere when you try to open it, yet it was transported possibly thousands of miles over all sorts of rough terrain, jostled about, mishandled, loaded and unloaded quickly by forklifts, then stacked on shelves by hand, and the only thing it does when you open it then is just make a noise.

i think more about economic side of the things, how can be profitable for all parties (producer, transport company and supermarket chain is bare minimum) to sell me 2l bottle of soda for 0.19€, it's taking quite a lot space weighing 2kg, producer is about 150km away, yet all three parties make profit on this product? the letter itself (flavored soda) has probably lower value than packaging is packaging, transportation and storing in supermarket taking space of other products.

is there product which would take more space and weight more while being extremely cheap as soda drink? i can't think of anything as large and cheap as bottle of soda

Possibly bleach, and in some countries, gasoline/petrol (taxes are quite variable).

https://flowingdata.com/2011/03/22/gallons-of-stuff-that-cos...

i doubt that chart, gallon (6l) of Pepsi you can get here in promotion around 2 USD (.59€ for 2l bottle), gallon of drinks i buy cost .56€ so roughly around 60 dollar cents, no way bleach is that cheap

even 1l petrol cost with zero taxes way more than my 2l bottle for 19 eurocents

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