In one light, this is going to sound like a shameful thing to talk about – a very modern, first-world “problem.” In another light, it’s monumentally important.
In all of our bounty here in American life, I can be completely paralyzed in the aisles of the grocery store as I vex over what is morally right to buy. Because we have access to just about any and every kind of food item from around the globe, I’m concerned about how each one was acquired in order to provide for our every whim.
Dole used to kill Indigenous farmers to take their land for banana-growing. Cows, chickens, and pigs are kept in tiny stalls for their milk, eggs, and meat. Antibiotics and hormones are the norm in meat products. “Junk” bread is filled with synthetic additives. Tomatoes are irradiated rather than naturally ripened. Pesticides ensure beautiful, flawless produce that’s easy on the eyes. And meatless burgers are encased in more packaging than there is food inside.
Rather than stewarding the land and the animals, we’re using and abusing them for every last drop they can provide to serve our taste buds and cravings.
I’m not innocent of all of this. As much as I’d like to do the right thing when it comes to each product, I don’t because the resulting bill would be exorbitant. How I love the idea of grains, beans, and cacao from fair-trade farmers. Sausage from “happy” cows. Local veggies and apples picked at the farm down the road. But when I immerse myself in ethical consumerism, I pay through the nose. I walk away from a store or farmstand with a bag or two of food and $100 spent.
Then I feel sickened all over again but for a different reason.
Even if I do everything “right” (as if it were possible), the overarching problem still exists – relatively few people are doing it too. It just doesn’t matter on a global scale so far. People in general buy what’s cheap, what’s tasty, or what’s fashionable. Ethics don’t factor in much. Of the 8 billion humans on the planet, will my individual little changes make any difference? In college, they told us “Yes. Even if you can’t change others, at least you are doing what’s ethical, and that’s what matters.” I guess so, if God is weighing my food choices and judging me accordingly (which I don’t know anything about). But the living things of this Earth are suffering right now, and my singular choices aren’t going to lessen their suffering one iota if I can’t get everyone else on board.
I can’t say I have a lot of faith in getting everyone else on board. Our global culture is one of immediacy and instant gratification that outweighs any moral impediment to insatiable privilege. We’ve all been reared on it.
This food “problem” I have is something I struggle with all the time. I spend way too much time at the store deliberating. I’m hyper-aware that how we spend our money dictates what’s manufactured or grown. And I struggle to grow even one stalk of kale in my poor-soil, forest-covered garden.
I don’t want to harm, nor do I want to spend gobs of money when buying food. Stuck in that middle place, my choices then inevitably harm someone – farmers, animals, or the land they’re on – and do nothing to help at all.
I cringe at the idea of being born an animal on this earth. It’s already one of the riskiest things a human could do, much moreso a living being needing protection from human entitlement.
