Food ethics

[aroraborealis]

The first time I considered becoming a vegetarian was in high school, but I was loathe to give up my favorite dishes at the local Chinese restaurant, which was the height of cuisine in NW Wyoming. No shredded pork in garlic sauce? I don't think this will work for me.

Since then, I've toyed with the idea a couple of times a year, but the truth is, I don't want to be a vegetarian. I like meat, and I don't have a problem with animals dying for me to eat. When I was little, we raised chickens and pigs, so I learned pretty early on where meat came from and what it was about.

What I do have a problem with, and have for years, is the meat INDUSTRY. The massive scale of meat- (and egg- and milk-) raising operations leads to a perversion of what I think of as a natural system, and this has been the biggest prod for me to consider vegetarianism for a long time.

But I still don't want to be a vegetarian. I still like meat, and it's important to me not to limit myself, both from an enjoyment point of view and from a social one. I certainly don't mind accomodating others' food needs, but it's important to me to keep my particularities very limited, especially because I plan to live in cultures where not eating meat would force me to do the unthinkable and turn down hospitality, which I'm utterly unwilling to do.

Additionally, it feels right to me to eat meat. We coevolved with all the animals we've domesticated (for food and otherwise), which means that we have a symbiotic evolutionary relationship, at least in overarching terms, though not, obviously, in individual ones.

Reading The Omnivore's Dilemma, which I haven't quite finished, has reraised a lot of my thinking about this, though, and that, paired with the thinking I've been doing since the permaculture institute last spring has really clarified for me where I'd like to be on this front.

One of my highest values, on which I've come to clarity recently, is understanding and being conscious of my place in natural systems. It's easy for us to make the distinction between "natural" and "man-made", as though we were somehow outside of the natural world. We certainly do a lot that removes us from natural systems, but to think that "we" and "they" are unconnected is a dangerous conceit.

One of the ways that we're most tightly tied to natural systems, whether we're conscious of it or not, is in the food we eat. Our food comes out of the ground, or eats something that comes out of the ground, and that's all there is to it. So when we put filth into the ground where we're growing food, guess where it ends up?

But this isn't really a rant about organic vs. nonorganic, because I don't actually think that's a very interesting discussion anymore. Organic agriculture is certainly preferable in terms of sustainability and the healthfulness of foods, but it's so vastly incomplete, and what Michael Pollan calls "industrial organic" isn't really that great in terms of natural systems.

So, in my ethics, monocultures are bad. Functioning sustainable systems are good. Part of functioning sustainable systems are animals. Okay, good.

The problem, of course, is that eating within my ethical system could very well turn into a full-time endeavor, and one that makes it more difficult for me to accept people's hospitality than simple vegetarianism. And it's just not realistic for me to say that I'm going to opt out of the unsustainable food chain, because, well, I'm just not that fanatical, much as I might like to be.

I can, however, work in that direction. This will be an ongoing project for me, but I'm planning to try to find a local polyculture farm where I can buy goods, especially meat, milk and eggs. I don't think I have the time to put up a lot of local produce this fall, but I can take advantage of small local farms having done so, too.

I sure hope that over the years, this becomes increasingly easy to do, and not the reverse.

Comments

[catya.livejournal.com]

This has been on my mind as well, lately.

One of the 'projects' I have been considering is just knowing more about my food - what does the plant look like, where does it grow, how is it harvested. Or what does the animal look like, etc etc.

I'm vegetarian for personal health reasons, but it's been really interesting to see how that has changed my way of looking at food, ethics of consumption, etc. (And how it hasn't!)

[cutieperson]

i would be happy to do some canning for you for the cost of supplies (which is just jars and lids; i have a pot & rack) in exchange for keeping a small share of the canned goods. cause, you know, i have plenty of time :)

[destabee.livejournal.com]

Your words do a great job capturing where I am at with regard to thinking about food. I recently started trying to compile resources in one place where I can find them. Squidoo.com seemed like as good a place as any to that. You might find some of the links at http://www.squidoo.com/foodforspirit/ useful for tracking down both information and actual places to get food.

If you haven't read Coming Home To Eat by Paul Nabhan you might find it interesting.

[dancingwolfgrrl.livejournal.com]

Two places: do you know about Crescent Ridge Dairy? They get their milk (which is rBST-free) from a farm in VT. They actually deliver (like milk-truck deliver!) in the area, although it looks like maybe not in Somerville? But you can buy their milk at least in several farm stands in the area as well as Whole Foods.

Also, I have friends on the other side of the state who raise chickens and sell the eggs. I buy them when I'm out there, and am happy to bring you some if you don't have luck with a local source.

[heinleinfan.livejournal.com]

I'm right there with you on this.

I so don't want to give up my meat. Just don't. But I hate the thought of how animals are treated to give me my meat.

The thing that makes me so outrageosly angry is that it's expensive and inconvenient to change one's eating habits. I hate the fact that we live in a society that is so completely centered around greed and avarice. But that's another rant...the only other thing I'll say about is that now that David and I are a little more financially solvent, I'm *ecstatic* that we can now start to base our buying decisions on our ideals and not our budget.

Anywho...I grew up in a hunting family and we were part of a hunting club (not the fancy schmancy kind, this was the good-ole-boys kind). Every kill was shared, so we almost always had meat in the freezer. And we knew exactly where that meat had come from, how it had died, how it was prepped...hell, we usually had seen pictures of it and the person who'd shot it. And we used it all...the butcher would keep the parts he could use for sausage or whatnot, hunting dogs got bones, one man in the camp was a taxidermist so he used parts for his livelihood (because some people will, I'm not kidding, buy stuffed animals they didn't kill... *shakes head*) and even the urine was used for further hunting. I mean, we *used every bit* of that deer and the same for other animals.

I took it for granted and I regret it. It was so easy to take that lifestyle for granted...

...in the community I grew up in, it was pretty much a given that there were gardens and hunting and about half your food came from that. Vension wasn't some "delicacy," beef steaks were. And usually for a BBQ everyone prefered a smoked deer tenderloin to a beef steak anyway. You didn't have cucumbers in January unless they were pickles, because nobody who grew their own would think of buying them from the store. You reached into your freezer or pantry for vegetables, you didn't reach for the can opener.

It was easy, living in the rural south, to have a lifestyle that was not wasteful or cruel because, well, everyone around you did too and the land was populated with food and fertile for growing and the laws let you hunt that food and people knew how to deal with the killed food and people shared their bounty, both hunted and grown. It wasn't some fad or thing you did once on a trip somewhere, a hunting and farming lifestyle was just normal.

I certainly don't *miss* being dirt poor in rural Mississippi, jeez. But I miss how easy it was to know where your food came from and to know who you were supporting when you did have to buy things in stores.

David and I hope to one day life a sustainable life. Even if it's just two little people that get off the grid, that's something.

And see, once we're living that life, you can come enjoy our hospitality with no moral qualms at all!!

[hammercock.livejournal.com]

And to bring this in line with the current spinach-based E. coli outbreak, it's scary to know that a problem with ONE farm can cause illness all over the country via almost 3 dozen brands. Consolidation of food suppliers has vast potential for spreading dangerous illness in both meat and produce. Another good argument for buying local!

It's just food

[sarahshevett.livejournal.com]

Well I know a little bit about this.

Why is the line drawn at meat? Soy farming is a huge monoculture farming operation. And spinach isn't making too good of a showing these days either..
Or why is the line drawn at food? Petroleum, fiber production for clothes, electricity, all of these have systems.

Organic pretty much means diddly. Actually, as far as milk, organic can often be a much worse situation for the dairy animals. YOu won't catch me buying organic dairy unless I know where it comes from.

Filth?

I do not believe we are separate from the natural systems, we are a part of it. You may not like it, but pollution and construction is what we do. It is natural.

A recent discussion on my lists is about milking and animal rights. I brought up the aphids and the ants. Did you know that ants raise, nurter and milk aphids? They even corral them to keep them contained. Is this not natural? How about the Ants for the Ethical Treatment of Aphids? Sounds absurd doesn't it.

It's all just food. I don't eat mushrooms. I don't worry all the time if I am going to be somewhere where I might have to eat mushrooms.

Beef ( for example) can come from a wide variety of management systems. Ranchers here raise calves to app 700 lbs, then they go to a feed lot. I agree the feedlot is a nasty place.

I raise lambs for butcher that go directly to the store. They are never grained or confined raised. I do use antibiotics.

I worked at a chicken/ egg farm one year. It's a horrible nasty place. I try to avoid buying farm raised eggs ( free range/ and cage free also means diddly) and buy roadside or neighbors eggs whenever I can, but it's not my life concern.

The Omnivores Dilemma is one guys opinion.

I might be able to give up meat ( never thought about it, I don't draw the line there) but I definitely could never give up butter and milk.
And with butter and milk comes all of those calves that have to go somewhere...

[snowy-owlet.livejournal.com]

Thank you for this. I have gotten ill every time I've tried to go vegetarian, but I agree with you that it's important to know.

Speaking of knowing, is there a list anywhere of polyculture farms in the US?

[destabee.livejournal.com]

Not a list of polyculture farms exactly but some places you might start are:

http://www.eatwild.com/

http://www.newdream.org/consumer/farmers.html

[snowy-owlet.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

[sarahshevett.livejournal.com]

One other thought.
Much of what you think you know, opinions, information about food, where it comes from, what is "safe" etc is trendy and manipulated ny special interest groups.
Ted, Josh and I are all in the food business, so we know a LOT about this subject, from sea or pasture to table.

I mean what do you know about farmed salmon vs wild salmon? It's a surprisingly complex subject, and public opinion follows trends and the latest gossip propaganda news.

[tamidon.livejournal.com]

Organic agriculture is certainly preferable in terms of sustainability and the healthfulness of foods

That's not actually true. My old buddy from CIA wrote a good book on this,The Ethical Gourmet (http://www.amazon.com/Ethical-Gourmet-Jay-Weinstein/dp/0767918347/sr=8-1/qid=1158860375/ref=pd_bbs_1/104-5672511-1564728?ie=UTF8&s=books) gets into this a bit. The toxins from the trains shipping organic produce negates any enviromental benefits, and veggies more than 3 days old lose most of their added health benefits, so organic veg from far away is arguably less beneficial than local grown with possible pesticide exposure.
This book is great, getting into alot of the arguments I have with folks. There isn't really any one ethical way to eat. People are proud they don't eat veal, but they eat daiy, and veal is a byproduct of the dairy industry,and they eat other meat, that isn't treated much better than veal, at least veal doesn't live long like that. They complain about foie gras methods, but eat chicken which is treated much worse than foie gras geese, but chicken is a staple, and foie gras eaters more easily vilified for monetary class reasons.I'm glad I've been able to buy much of my meat from farmers I know,even slaughtered some myself, and my kids have met most of their meat.

[signsoflife.livejournal.com]

Does it get into actual numbers in re. the costs of shipping versus the benefits of production? One of the things I found frustrating about OD was that he made similar assertions, but didn't back them up numerically at all. (and in some places, I thought he applied the argument where it clearly made no sense, e.g., many seperate cars driving to a polyculture farm to pick up freshly-killed chickens is *not* more trip-efficient than having them distributed to local groceries.)

[tamidon.livejournal.com]

One of the things I found frustrating about OD was that he made similar assertions, but didn't back them up numerically at all.

OD?

[signsoflife.livejournal.com]

The Omnivore's Dilemna.

[tamidon.livejournal.com]

sorry, just noted it. I don't know OD so I don't know if his numbers are better, but Ethical Gourmet is more about not kidding yourself that there is one twoo way and to think about what you're eating as opposed to just finding a slogan and nothing more.

[sarahshevett.livejournal.com]

Excellent post. I completely am with you on many of these points.
Organic labelling is only for consumer satisfaction with very little basis in actual science.
Just another label to sell to the "trend" population

[psongster.livejournal.com]

I'm quite interested in these issues too. Indeed, I had a dozen or so friends over to dicuss Omnivore's Dilemma and then (a second evening) our own food choices, resources, etc.

One of my concerns is the petroleum-inefficiency of people driving all over the place to get this, that, or the other food item ... it all gets so complicated ...

Do you know about Codman Farms in Lincoln? Apparently they sell eggs from happy chickens.

I also have a neighbor who has a grass-based organic dairy farm in Vermont. They sell (from their home in Arlington) stewing beef and ground beef from cows that get too old to produce dairy well. It isn't a polyculture farm -- and I'd love to hear about it if you find one locally -- but it is trying to use the land well. Let me know if you are interested in contact info.

[signsoflife.livejournal.com]

I originally became ovo-lacto vegetarian because I felt I heard so much and really knew so little about industrial animal farming, and I wanted to opt-out of the whole system. I've discovered that a lot of people seem to struggle with the idea that non-transparency itself is an ill. Unfortunately, the more I learn about the production of those ova and lacates, the less I like my fingers-in-the-ears attitidue about non-flesh production. But the problem I have, I think, is similar to yours -- a complex source-based set of food choices is very hard to communicate quickly to other people, and makes eating away from home difficult. I already use the best products I can find (though I'm even kind of lazy about that) at home, but I'm currently unwilling to eat vegan everywhere else.

It's strange to think that I have essentially no objections to eating humanely raised polyculture pasture fed etc. beef, and, yet, even if I thought I still physically *could*, I still can't imagine ever doing so. One of the things I thought was absent from OD was an interview with an actual long-term vegetarian, and how that changes ones perceptions of food. Over time (at least among most Americans and Commonwealth dwellers I know,) the social restriction starts to fall away; you learn how to deal with the friction gracefully and people are mostly willing to follow your lead. The awkwardness of the new vegetarian is not necessarily inherent to the state. And the urge to eat meat has pretty much disappeared; my brain no longer codes it as "food".