Sunday’s Super Bowl garnered $7.6 billion in gambling activity.

Name any problem and the weak link is not resources, money, or knowledge. The weak link is failure to imagine and then act. When we see a figure like $7.6 billion, we read it like any other statistic and go on about our day as if all is right in the world.

For fun, I decided to put physical ramifications to $7.6 billion. That’s $1 million for 7,600 farmers.

What do you reckon 7,600 farmers could do with an additional $1 million in sales?

It’s 380 million chickens at $20 each. On a farm like ours, 10,000 pastured chickens can provide one full-time salary. At that rate, $7.6 billion would be enough to support 38,000 full-time pastured poultry farmers. Pretty impressive, huh?

It’s 2.5 million beef animals at $3,000 apiece, retail value. If a full-time salary requires at least 100 beef animals a year, that’s enough for 25,000 full-time salad bar beef operations.

It’s 6.3 million hogs at $1,200 each, retail value. If a full-time salary requires at least 300 of these per year, that’s enough for 21,000 full-time pastured pork operations.

It’s 1.5 billion dozen eggs at $5 per dozen. If a full-time salary requires about 80,000 dozen per year, that’s enough to support 18,750 full-time pastured egg producers. That production would require about 90 million laying hens. Wouldn’t that be cool to see spread out over the pastures of the U.S.?

I’ll be bold today. Shame on you, anyone, who gambled a penny on the Super Bowl. That money would have been much more appropriately spent supporting authentic food. Period.

What would you have liked to see $7.6 billion spent on?