Ethical Eating

By Chris Jones

 

Eating food ethically is challenging for some, and an unknown concept to many others. My belief about eating ethically starts with knowing where it came from, before it lands on your plate. Once you’re informed of that, it’s a matter of how you extend your moral ground to whatever it is you’re eating. Eating food is something everyone does everyday, and there’s a lot of suffering that is happening because of the demand for meat. The society we live in has meat integrated everywhere. From grocery stores and restaurants, to cafeterias and our homes. Meat is ingrained in our culture as Americans.  I encountered the term “ecocentrism” in my environmental issues class. According to Wikipedia, “The idea of ecocentrism is a term used in ecological political philosophy to stand for a nature centered versus a human centered system of values”  I believe this is the basis for eating ethically, how your personal system of morals connects, and reaches out to things in nature, like animals and the environment. Eating ethically directly contradicts how the industrial food system goes about business. From treatment of animals, to the environmental impact of meat, the industrial food system has many negative repercussions on us and our planet. These are the two ethical questions relating to the Industrial food system, animal cruelty and the environmental impact it has on the earth. The first animal cruelty, involves placing animals in confined spaces and the act of severing body parts. The second is environmental impact, from the massive consumption of oil, to the addition of greenhouse gases. Both of these issues are ingrained in our present day society. Real life problems, with real life consequences. The Industrial food system shows no responsibility towards these issues. Below are critiques of the industrial food system, by people widely educated on food and it’s process. Barbara Kingsolver an American novelist and Michael Pollan an American author present their critiques of the Industrial food system. Kingsolver explains, “each food item in a typical US meal has traveled an average of 1500 miles”(pg 5). This is one of the biggest reasons why agriculture is one of the largest contributors to greenhouse gas emissions. With all the variety of food displayed in every grocery store, gas station and cafeteria, this creates the demand for this product in all locations. The great interest with meat in our country creates a broad market for it to be distributed and sold. Animal cruelty is inherent in the industrial food system. For example the idea of treatment of pigs is also at the heart of Michael Pollan argument of ethical eating. Michael Pollan, author of “The Omnivore’s Dilemma”, declares that “farmers dock, or snip off, the tails at birth, a practice that makes a certain twisted sense if you follow the logic of industrial efficiency on a hog farm”(pg 218). From sawing off chickens beaks, to keeping animals in small spaces, These relate to one of the most compelling ethical questions in need of discussion, animal cruelty. A monoculture farm is where they raise one type of animal in enormous amounts. In order to operate monoculture farms, farmers must employ some unethical practices. This idea shows industrial food system puts efficiency and money before the well being of its animals. In the hog industry for example as Michael Pollan shows, these pigs are living in concentrated animal feeding operations, CAFO. Pollan believes “pigs in these CAFOs are weaned (accustom young mammal to food other than its mother’s milk) from their mothers ten days after birth, (compared to 13 weeks in nature,) because they gain weight faster on their drug fortified feed than on sow’s milk, but this premature weaning leaves the pigs with a lifelong craving to suck and chew, a need they gratify in confinement by biting the tail of the animal in front of them” (pg 218). The industrial size farms cut of the tails of pigs at birth as a result. Money is why there is animal suffering. If farmers let pigs live the way they should, in mud, with lots of area to play in, and being fed by their mothers milk (sow), they’d make less money. Because the pigs wouldn’t grow as fast, and it would take them longer to slaughter. Which opens up the culture to the efficiency of the industrial food system. Efficiency equals more money.

 

The practices of the Industrial food system directly contradicts Joel Salatin and his Polyface farm management. Polyface farm does resolve many of the ethical questions industrial farming raises. One of Polyface core values is individuality physiological distinctiveness, As Salatin claims it “reinforces the cowness of the cow”. Animals are happier when put in their natural state, because in the nature setting, chickens don’t poke each other to death with their beaks, and pigs don’t bite each other tails off, like they do in the Industrial food system. Another foundation of Polyface farm is the idea of not doing the work to maintain the animals, but having the animals do that themselves. The organic symbiosis between nature and animals on this distinct farm is explained further in relation to a quote from the Spiritual leader of the Tibetan people Dalai Lama. As the Dalai Lama asserts “At heart the issue is the relationship between our knowledge and power on the one hand, and our responsibility on the other” He speaks a deeper meaning of scientific breakthroughs and the advancement of our world as a whole. For example how scientists are experimenting with tomatoes that are injected with spider genes so they are more pest resistant, to keep tomatoes from being infested/wasted, so the farmer can sell more, to make more money (Dalai Lama pg 187)  Joel Salatin exemplifies the relationship of power and responsibility. Mr. Salatin has power over his animals, as any farmer does, but he takes a ethical responsibility towards them. He thinks in the best interest of the animals, and everything comes second behind that. For example when chickens on polyface farm defecate, it fertilizes the grass below, making the farm self sufficient in terms of nitrogen then these chickens eat insect larvae and parasites which breaks down cycle of disease, and the chickens also pick up the manure of the cows, and that in turn fertilizes the grass, so the cows can eat the grass over and over. Then Mr. Salatin uses his cows manure to give the chickens protein themselves, which helps the chickens stay healthy. The act of sanitizing a pasture by chickens. This is the cycle that Polyface has set up, animals helping other animals. This facet makes polyface farm the standard for ethical and environmental farming. The Dalai Lama claims that it’s impossible for ethical thinking to keep pace with technology, which is where the industrial food system comes into play, their ethics has gone out the window and their advancement in technology allows them to do just that. At polyface Farm their culture is Natures template, which means the animals get the same diet as they get in the wild. In the industrial food system, animals are fed corn, soybean, and chicken feed for one purpose only, to gain more weight, so they can sell for more, all to make more money. Animal cruelty is inherent in the industrial food system.  For example this idea of killing extremely large amount of animals is at the heart of the Mark Bittman argument of “What’s Wrong with the Way we Eat”. This quote perpetuates my claim of animal welfare. As Mark Bittman argues “I like animals and I don’t think it’s fine to to industrialize their production and to churn them out like they were wrenches, but there no way to treat animals well when you’re killing 10 billion of them a year”(5:45). The U.S. accumulated  meat consumption are in the billions of pounds. The average american consumes 270 lbs of meat a year (npr, nation of meat eaters), this is the biggest statistic that shows our want for meat as a nation. The most beneficial way to revamp our food production system to work more like Polyface Farm is to treat the animals with an ecocentric system of living. Letting farm animals roam about without being contained in cages, feeding animals real food instead of the mass amounts of corn and soybean. Overall entitling animals to grass and sunshine, as all animals should be. Paying yourself back in your soul is the most prominent way to raise animals ethically, because when you farm with ethics your eating with morals.

 

Some of the factors that have shaped my own eating habits are economical and structural. I live on a college campus, which means that the vast majority of my diet will be provided by the school. I eat what the school cafeteria offers me, regardless of how the meat I consume, got to my plate, I need to eat it. An economical factor that plays a role in my eating is the price of having a meal in the commons. A meal swipe is just over 5 dollars. For the amount of food I eat and for the amount I pay, it’s overwhelmingly in my favor. Especially in the United states, where the cheapest food, being considered fast food, is expensive in comparison with my school cafeteria. The most popular burger in America, The “Big Mac” is over 5 dollars just by itself. There’s much incentive to eat where I do, in terms of convenience and money. A cultural factor that influences my diet is also my peers. The one time during the day that my teammates and I sit down and talk is when were eating together, if I were to outsource my food in order to eat more ethically I would miss out on this daily activity that I enjoy from a social standpoint. An alternative to the way I eat my food now, would be living in an apartment/house where I personally go out and pick the foods I choose to eat. Then I would be able to selectively pick the kind of food to cook. A popular dilemma at the grocery store, for someone trying to eat ethically would be to buy or not to buy (genetically modified organisms) GMO foods. This is a common choice many families must make, this goes back to the topic of eating ethically. The trade offs of eating ethically would be for example, eating 100% grass fed beef. This would be spending more monetary value, versus eating factory made meat but for a cheaper price. This is the best way, in my opinion to eat meat morally.  The cost benefit analysis is whether I connect my ethics to my food. The question that arises is whether I Am willing to spend more money in order to eat with morals. Americans use fad diets to decide what to eat, it’s in our advertised crazed world, to try something new in hopes of a better, healthier lifestyle. If we can all realize what’s going on with our food before it gets to our plate we can start to care. You can’t care about something when your unaware of it. It’s about educating people on it, I believe this should start in schools. What better way to get people aware of the problems in the food industry than to introduce this into kids. With many years of development, this is the best way to make changes for the better of our planet, and the animals that inhabit it. The other best way to eat food ethically is to grow it yourself. When you experience the process of planting a seed, continued nurturement with sun and water you feel a certain responsibility. When you feel responsible, you take ownership of it. This makes you consciously aware of the organic food your putting in your body. When we can all learn to extend our moral beliefs to our foods, then we can improve the life of animals, and progress to a healthier lifestyles, and the development of our surrounding environment.

 

Literature Cited

 

Rowe, Stan J. (1994).“Ecocentrism: the Chord that Harmonizes Humans and Earth.” The Trumpeter 11(2): 106-107.

 

Barclay, Eliza June 27, (2012), NPR: A nation of meat eaters (7:47)

 

Pollan, Michael (2006) “The Omnivore’s Dilemma- A Natural History of Four meals”

 

Bittman, Mark (2007) “What’s Wrong with the Way we Eat”

 

Kingsolver, Barbara (2007) “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life”

 

Lama, Dalai (2007) “Ethics and the new genetics”