A Thinking Reed

"Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature, but he is a thinking reed" – Blaise Pascal

Looking beyond the labels

James McWilliams, author of the forthcoming Just Food: Where Locavores Get It Wrong and How We Can Truly Eat Responsibly, looks at the lives of free-range pigs. While emphasizing that they’re far better off than their factory-farmed counterparts, McWilliams finds some serious ethical problems with the practice.

McWilliams’ conclusion is a measured one:

As responsible consumers, it’s easy to decide to avoid factory-farmed pork. The hard part is what to make of the most acceptable alternative. Does free-range farming justify the mutilation that’s often required to keep pigs outdoors? As an ethical matter, the question is open to endless debate. What the conscientious meat eater can take away from it is not so much a concrete answer as a more nuanced way to think about our food choices. In this age of deeply convincing attacks on factory farms, consumers must be careful not to immediately assume that every alternative to factory farming is as “all natural” or humane as its advocates will inevitably declare. The alternatives might require still more alternatives.

This call to look beyond the labels is important across the “food issue” spectrum. Pollan and others have made a similar point with the “organic” label: there are big farms that are technically organic but are a far cry from the small bucolic family farms that the term may conjure up. Which isn’t to say they’re necessarily bad either. A world of small bucolic family farms may not even be a possibility at this point, in which case, big organic might be a very desirable alternative. What I take McWilliams to be saying here (and elsewhere and, I presume, in his forthcoming book) is that there’s no silver bullet solution to eating sustainably that can be captured in a handy slogan (e.g., buy organic, buy local). This argument has also been made by Peter Singer and Jim Mason in The Ethics of What We Eat, which tries to go beyond simplistic labeling and trace the origins of different kinds of meals and their attendant costs in terms of animal welfare, human well-being, and environmental sustainability. In their reckoning, “local” and “organic” don’t always come out ahead.

What the situation seems to call for is more nuanced discussion, more informed consumers, and more truth in advertising, along with reform at the level of the food system as a whole.

(Link via Erik Marcus)

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2 responses to “Looking beyond the labels”

  1. Christopher

    I live in one of the hotbeds of all things animals and food. I have some rather self-righteous friends on these matters and frankly they’re as obnoxious as fundamentalist Christians.

    What I continue to take away is that the way these matters are generally posed will not change the minds or habits of most people.

    First, many of these arguments rest on a sense that no matter what we do it’s never enough and it’s often coupled with someone taking the moral high hill in relation to everyone else. That sort of approach freezes up rather than sets free. I haven’t read this book, but already, it’s call for doing even more may be more than most can do all at once or even afford to do. This quote reads as yet another eco-guilt trip. Most folks will just shut down or tune out or tell him to go f— himself. I’m reminded that eating junk in this country costs less than eating well and wholesome and healthy and earth-friendly.

    Second, ethics alone does not move, especially when coupled with generalized calls to do more that are never enough.

    My partner asked me how I would respond ethically to my friends who declare to any and all and to us in rather damning self-sense, “I don’t eat animals.” I said, “I wouldn’t.” Respond ethically that is. I would respond practicably and practically from a Benedictine stance with “moderation” as the watch word. “Moderation” is a process rather than an all-or-nothing. Moving to sustainability requires unlearning and relearning, that is conversion understood in more catholic shifts rather than Evangelical fervours. This takes time, steps, increments.

    For example, over the course of this year, we’ve: moved to purchasing our produce from the local farmers’ markets buying sustainable and organic as we can afford; reduced our eating of animals to two main meals a week,; moved to buying meats that are free-range. That is a huge shift that happened in increments over the course of a year. Step by step. Learning and unlearning. To turn and tell all who have made that much of a shift, you might as well be doing nothing (which is how this reads) will not serve sustainability or care for animals.

    Third, I don’t think that putting things in the terms of these movements will convince the unconvinced, who are the vast majority. It speaks to a very small crowd that tends to want all to go vegan “now!” Not all can afford to. And eating animals is a part of most human cultures. Rather, emphasizing moderation as reduction for a series of reasons of sustainability is a likelier bet.

    Providing ways to move toward moderation and doing so in terms of Christian (religious) practice is more likely to move more people, rather than within these frameworks that full of evidence and ethics have too little to say about what practicably and practically we can do, or when they do, then turn around and say, “not good enough.” It’s attuned to an activist mentality when most of us are not activists.

    We need catholic (long-term conversion) rather than Evangelical (presto-chango conversion) approaches to these matters if we hope to convince large peoples along to something approaching care for fellow creatures and sustainability.

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  2. Lee

    I agree with everything you’re saying here, but my take on McWilliams is a little different. What I see him criticizing is the tendency to take a self-satisfied refuge in buying “organic” or “local” food without looking deeper and seeing what the reality under the label is. It can become a form of feel-good “green” consumerism, and a substitute for making the kind of incremental changes you (rightly) point out we need.

    Also, I think your point about how difficult it can be for people to eat healthy/sustainably is an important one. That’s why I think collective action and systemic change are just as important as personal lifestyle changes.

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