In a hyper-connected world, our food also brings us together more than it used to.  Food production has morphed over time from a local agrarian system to a global corporate one replete with imports, exports, and shipments big enough to cross oceans and continents every day.

Here in the U.K., a collection of islands, that’s been great news. The country, like many others, once produced all of its food domestically. But as tastes evolved and shipping became cheaper, more food started to come from abroad. Now people from England, Wales, Northern Ireland, and Scotland import 38 percent of all food they eat.

That number isn’t exorbitant (at least not compared to Hawaii, which imports 92 percent), although it does get at the