Choosing to Eat Meat. Ethically.

 

 

 

 

After I posted about my pet peeve eating label (the flexitarian), Cynthia emailed me to say that:

 

“I just sometimes feel that people look down on me because I still eat meat.  I think that’s why occasionally I’ve used flexitarian.”

 

I’ve felt the same way myself before. Not in my non-internet life, where not many people I know are vegetarian, but as a healthy living blogger, where many bloggers of this genre are vegetarian or vegan. As a meat-eater, even a conscious, ethical meat-eater, it does sometimes feel like maybe, we aren’t doing enough. Maybe there are non-meat-eaters judging us.

 

In my opinion, it comes down to one question: are you ok with eating meat?

 

It is a personal choice. And depending on the answer to that, there are two paths you could follow as an educated, aware, and conscious consumer. If you have a problem with the actual eating of meat, vegetarianism might be the path for you (which is a choice I entirely respect. And, as someone who enjoys vegetarian meals, I enjoy reading vegetarian blogs too!)

 

However, if you are ok with eating meat, but are concerned about how the animals are raised, what they eat and where they live (which have not just implications on the animal’s life, but your health and the environment as well), you can be both a meat-eater, and an aware, conscious consumer.

 

To find out more about the conventional food system, I highly recommend reading The Omnivore’s Dilemma, or watching Food Inc.

 

I was watching Oprah this afternoon, Do You Know Where Your Food Really Comes From?, and while discussing Alicia Silverstone’s new book, The Kind Diet, Oprah was essentially asking – so what if you don’t want to be a vegan, and give up cheese or eggs? Not everyone will want to do that. What if the chickens or cows were treated well?

 

Is there something else we can do?

 

Yes.

 

With every purchase you make, you can make a choice. Local or Not. Organic or Not. Humanely Treated or Not.

 

It’s a choice based on ethics, health, environment, finance, time and knowledge.

 

It’s not a matter of cutting things out. You don’t have to give up anything. But you can include more things. Local, Organic Whole Grains and Fruit and Vegetables. Local, Organic, Humanely Raised Meat, Eggs, and Dairy, if you choose.

 

 

You can Eat Food. Mostly Plants. Not Too Much.

 

It can be mostly, not all plants, and still be a ethical choice. If you choose to eat meat, you are not confined to the factory farming system. There are always other options. You can choose to purchase animal products from local sources, where the animal was raised outside (weather permitting!), given the foods it was evolved to eat, enough space to comfortably eat and sleep, and not packed full of antibiotics to prevent sickness, or growth hormones to grow unnaturally quickly.

 

Next week, I’m going to be starting a new series at Eat Clean Live Green: Shopping With a Conscience!  I’ve discussed before the reasons I try to buy local, organic foods as much as possible, and why I consider Ethical Eating so important, but I realize that it can be a difficult thing to jump in head first – for your wallet, your schedule and even depending on what you have locally available!

 

Each week, I’m going to discuss one item – whether it’s worth the money for organic or not, if there are other substitutes you could use, and if there are any nutritional benefits to buying each item ethically.

 

If you choose to buy the conscious consumer item of the week each week, the price difference to your overall grocery bill will be small (and sometimes it might even go down!). As you change your shopping practices, these small changes will start to make a big difference!

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe for updates!

Tagged as: conscious consumer, organic, real food