Decisions, decisions

Young people especially are more savvy these days. They find animal rights attractive and convincing, and are drawn to adopt ethical attitudes towards food. Alongside this they don’t want to be poisoned; healthier eating, high energy foods and foods for low body weight are attractive to the young. But for many in this ‘gentler generation’ it’s animal cruelty that really hits home. It’s the clincher. The horror of finding out what happens on today’s animal farms is connected to what food and clothing we are buying, and then where necessary to boycotting unethical products.
Thinks …would I deliberately eat second rate food? Thinks …would I deliberately hurt animals? Thinks …would I want to support a whole industry that is dedicated to hurting animals and pumping out junk? But this is an intellectual position. It’s not necessarily connected to what we end up doing, buying and eating. Our food and clothing choices are largely a private affair. Food choice is almost sacrosanct - to be defended from outside interference at all costs.
Where food is concerned we want to forget where it comes from, if it has animal origins. Food is closely connected to habit, and habits connect with stability. We like foods that are more-ish. We’re attracted to rich, tasty ingredients. In the traditional Western diet, with about 70% of our food items containing animal ingredients, it means there would have to be a lot of boycotting. And that makes life difficult. Such a broad boycott requires conviction. It’s easier to give in to our weaker side even when we know we’re helping to hurt animals when we do.
So this sensitive subject of animals and the eating of them sets off explosions in the conscience. Either we don’t give a stuff about animals (and continue buying whatever we feel like) or we care about them and boycott the lot.
Knowing about intensive farming, as most of us do these days, makes us react to information – we either decide to act or we don’t. Core values, learnt from childhood, about rights and wrongs either move us or they don’t. Do we consider our habits, test our food addictions and start to avoid certain things? When we can’t find suitable replacements do we also consider doing without? It’s quite a test!