It’s garlic season in Gilroy, California — America’s garlic capital — but what does it mean to anyone outside the industry?
As hundreds of garlic workers descend upon the fields to trim and collect the sun-dried garlic by hand, hundreds of thousands of grocery shoppers will toss a bulb into their baskets without a thought of how it grew.
WIth the series, How Does it Grow?, we want to change that — by using dynamic video storytelling to restore the connection between what we eat and how it grows. Why is this even important? Because we believe that this foundational knowledge about where our food comes from can inspire the harder questions that need to be discussed — was this food grown with concern for the environment? were the workers who picked it fairly paid? — and spark genuine interest in the future of our food systems and the impact food has on our bodies.
The newest How Does it Grow? episode takes viewers to Christopher Ranch, the largest garlic producer in the U.S., to tell the story of how garlic grows, from seed to harvest and on to processing. We trace garlic’s superfood status through history, from the construction sites of Ancient Egypt to the battlefields of World War II, and invite viewers to incorporate the nutrient-rich vegetable into their diets with a recipe for a quick and easy snack.
To watch more How Does it Grow? videos, go to howgrow.org.