Food is required, but here in the West we have far too much distance between the location it is grown and the location it is consumed. And this distance is not so much in just kilometers, as it is in processing steps. Of course this has developed over time, as the need for distribution grew, and the trip necessitated the addition of preservatives.
But it need not be: I remember my Mum preserving our local harvest by cooking it all, and then preserving it in glass preserving jars, so we could eat it later in the year. Nowadays this is done in factories, and gardening and growing your own crops has become a lost art almost.
I myself am "torn between two loves": on the one hand I want the cutting edge of technology, but at the same time I long to build my own home, and just live in a civilization that is closer to Nature, where the lines of distribution are shorter.