Ethical Eating
I practice, what I call Ethical Eating. My blog, IWITW, takes a position on Ethical Eating that simply means that a person be informed about the food they eat and make a conscious decision to purchase, eat, and support the source from which that food comes.
It is a positive movement I am platforming. It is inclusionary, not restrictive. The premise of the movement is to embrace eating, educate yourself about the sources of your food, and feel good about any steps you take to make informed choices.
In my middle 20s, I became a vegetarian and then a pescatarian. In my late 20s, I morphed into an ethical omnivore after reading, researching, and learning a LOT about the subject of food, where it comes from, what it means, and how we can make a difference in the choices we make.
Some questions for you:
- Is the seafood you eat coming from sustainable fish populations or are the fish populations crashing from over-fishing?
- Is the meat you eat coming from feed lots and factory farms or is it coming from small-scale local farms?
- Is the milk you drink coming from cows injected with bovine growth hormone (to increase milk production) or coming from cows that aren’t subjected to this artificial practice?
- How far are your fruits and veggies traveling to reach your table? What is the carbon footprint of this travel?
And so on…
These are ways in which the IWITW household practices Ethical Eating:
- all meat comes from local, organic, free range farms OR if bought in the store, meets all those criteria except being local, such as Applegate Farms products
- all seafood is from sustainably managed fisheries and is on the Best Choices list here
- all eggs, milk, and butter are Organic Valley brand that ensures free range, cage free hens and happy cows that are humanely cared for
- most dairy is organic, including yogurts (Stonyfield Farms) and milk
- most cheese is purchased from small farmers that specialize in goats milk cheese, etc
- we shop at local farmers markets for produce and meat
- we also shop at the grocery store, and focus our produce purchases on local fruits and vegs, or organic ones if not local
- We do not shop at Costco, Sam’s Club, or BJs
- I haven’t eaten at a fast food chain like McDonalds, Burger King, etc since 2004
I have a FT real job, a FT blogging job (self imposed), a husband, a dog, and an hour commute to work. And I still find time and energy to make the effort to follow thru with these choices. Oh yeah, and I’m 30. 
If you’re so inspired and are looking for information and further reading on these subjects, I suggest my book collection post or just keep checking back for further info. You CAN do it if you want to. It’s just about making some shifts in the way you look at what you eat and grasp where it comes from.
And please know that Ethical Eating is not about being perfect or judgmental! It’s about embracing the knowledge on issues that are important to YOU, in terms of what and how you eat, and translating that knowledge into food choices you make.
————————————————————————————————————————–
Chicken and Antibiotics.
TJs Organic Free Range Chicken tenders are sustainably farmed and raised without antibiotics. This is an indicator that the chickens are, in fact, free range. Antibiotics are administered, preemptively to birds to ward off the horrid diseases they can contract from massive over crowding in wire battery cages in a traditional chicken processing plant. Free range birds, not subject to overcrowding (and the horrific treatment that goes along with that….crowded birds become mean to each other and I will let you envision the rest), don’t need antibiotics to be healthy. Also, don’t be fooled by labels that say “raised without hormones, or hormone free.” The use of hormones in raising chickens has been banned since the 1950s. But these producers are smart and know that this phrase makes people feel “good” about the chicken they’re buying. Don’t fall for it!
———————————————————————————————
Some thoughts on organics…
Gill Fine, the director of dietary health of the Food Standards Agency (which commissioned the research) stated…
“This study does not mean we should not eat organic food. What it shows is that there is little, if any, nutritional difference between organic and conventionally-produced food and that there is no evidence of additional health benefits from eating organic food.”
It’s looking like the media is quickly turning to Stonyfield Farm CE-YO, Gary Hirshberg to be the relevant voice on all things organic. He has written a rebuttal article in response to the UK Study, that is worth reading. His main points are in line with those of The Organic Center’s (TOC) which allege that the UK study actually downplayed the positive findings which favored organic food and did not measure important nutrients such as antioxidants. But the point he makes, that I find most important, in terms of Ethical Eating, is the following:
“Of greater concern to me is the fact the FSA ignores the environmental and related health benefits of an organic farming system that avoids the use of millions of pounds of toxic persistent pesticides, herbicides, fertilizer and other chemicals that leach into soil, water and air.
The man leading the FSA review actually stated the differences in nutrient content found between organic and conventionally produced food were “unlikely to be of any public health relevance.” Tell that to the people who suffer a variety of health issues shown to be linked to pesticide use. Public health is exactly what’s at stake here.
People choose organic foods not only for their well-documented nutritional superiority, but also because those foods come from a system of sustainable agriculture that avoids the use of toxic, persistent pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers that pollute our soil, water and air, as well as our food.
According to USDA organic standards, no artificial hormones or antibiotics are allowed for use on organic dairy farms. Organic regulations also prohibit the use of toxic and persistent chemicals for growing and maintaining pasture and in the production of grain and forage-based feeds. Energy intensive synthetic chemical nitrogen fertilizer is also prohibited in organic farming.
There are about 120,000 milking cows on organic dairy farms in the US, and these farms avoid the use of an estimated 40 million pounds of fertilizer and 758,000 pounds of pesticides on the 761,000 acres of farmland now used to grow organic feed or organic pasture.
That means millions of pounds of chemicals NOT leaching into our soil, air and water. Chemicals that have been linked in study after study to health concerns ranging from premature births to the onset of Parkinson’s Disease.
I believe that consumers are savvy enough now to be taking in all of this information as they are making informed, educated decisions about their own health, their family’s health, and the health of the planet.
These UK findings will be challenged by consumers who more than ever are educating themselves on how food is grown and processed.”
You can read Gary’s entire article here, at the Huffington Post. And read the comments at the end of the article. An interesting cross-section of posters!
———————————————————————————————
Read my post on The Real Cost of Real Food here.
Erin
