It’s expensive. Hundreds of people were involved in getting you that simple bowl of rice. It involved countless gallons of water, hours of labor, gallons of fuel. A complex supply chain that ensured you got what you needed, in perfect condition, just as you were ready for it.
And it’s cheap. The amount of time the typical person needs to work to earn enough to buy a bowl of rice is lower than it has ever been in history.
It’s tempting to make the rice just a bit cheaper, just a tad more convenient. To pay even less attention so we can get back to whatever it is we were doing.
But it’s useful to realize that we can make the rice far better, and just a little less convenient.
I can make a bowl of rice using brown Nagano Milky-Queen rice from Japan. I can prepare it in a Cuckoo pressurized rice cooker. And I can serve it in a handmade ceramic bowl. All in, perhaps this bowl of rice costs me an extra twenty cents and takes a few minutes longer. And when I eat this bowl of rice, I can pause for a minute and think of all the resources and all the labor that went into bringing it to me.
Better is possible.