Ethical Consumption

Large industry introduces many ethical / social issues with the things we need, issues that are in addition to the pollution and resource cost of producing things. This page details some of the issues I've been told about and also ways to get those necessities ethically to avoid supporting the injustices.

The Problems:

• Meat, dairy and eggs in grocery stores in Canada are typically produced in factory farms, where animals are treated very badly, for example kept in cages or enclosures their whole lives without being able to move.
• Dairy in NB is produced by separating calves from their mothers, and artificially impregnating them, in order to get them to produce enough milk to meet consumer demand. This is true for both family farms and factory farms due to the supply managed dairy system in NB. In nature the calf would drink its mother's milk and there wouldn't be much extra for humans.
• Some foods and other products are produced by workers in poor countries where working conditions are not what we in rich countries would consider acceptable and are more like slavery. This is tricky however because the ability to sell to people in rich countries might still make a farmer better off from their perspective. But I'd argue that practices like a corporation taking away people's land and then "offering" them a job on their old land for next to nothing, or withholding wages from them for a year, is still unjust. Those things happen with bananas and coffee in Guatemala according to people in Guatemala when I visited there. Other foods for which things like that happen are cashews, sugar, and chocolate.
• Palm oil is grown by taking away people's land and destroying nature, by being grown in a monoculture (i.e. growing only one type of food in a huge area).
• Many foods are grown with pesticides, which kill things and cause a loss of biodiversity. Often a single type of food (such as palm oil) will be the only type grown in a huge field, and a pesticide will be engineered to wipe out all life on the land other than the vegetable being grown.
• A lot of food is packaged in plastic packaging, which is very harmful to the environment and to our water supply.
• Fish is typically captured by large machines called bottom trawlers which do a lot of environmental damage to the ocean that it harvests the fish from and leaves a lot of plastic waste in the ocean.
• Some clothing and shoes are made in sweatshops, where there are some unjust labour practices (at least from our perspective in rich countries), including forcing children to work long hours.
• A lot of electronics are made from minerals that are mined unjustly, where a company will go to a poor country, set up a mine, and take the minerals from it, without compensating people in the country other than to "employ" them in the mine and treat said workers very badly.

The Solutions:

• Getting as much as you can from farmer's markets or farmers avoids a lot of these problems. Small farms generally give their animals space to roam, grow a variety of food, and often don't use pesticides. You can ask them about their practices.
• Buying certified fair trade products avoids a lot of the unjust labour practices (even though I personally am not a believer that goods have a "fair price", it's the unjust labour practices that I really care about, and fair trade avoids those).
• Buying certified organic food avoids pesticides, and for meat ensures a basic standard of living for animals. (Free range eggs in the case of eggs.) However, I think buying from small farmers is still best, and certification isn't that important in that case, asking them about their practices is sufficient for me.
• Buying used clothes, electronics, and other goods when possible can reduce the amount of new things that are produced, thus reducing these harms.
• Buying things made in your own country reduces the chance of unjust labour practices, especially if it's from a small business or market vendor.
• Honey or maple syrup can replace sugar.
• Olive oil or coconut oil can replace palm oil or margerine (which typically contains palm oil).
• Dairy-free milk alternatives such as soy milk reduce the consumer demand for milk and thereby the problems associated with it.
• This picture gives some ways to store food without plastic. Of course, a lot of plastic packaging is basically beyond the consumer's control and requires regulation.
• This document gives some info on finding ethical seafood.

What If People Offer You Things?

I'm not strict about avoiding the products in the above lists and I believe it's harmful to be strict about it. Refusing things that people have already produced and are giving away can cause waste. I'm not even strict in my purchasing, though maybe I should be, but sometimes ethical alternatives are many times more expensive and I don't believe it helps the cause to support excessively overpriced products.

Nevertheless, I take it on a case-by-case basis and sometimes believe that refusing food or gifts for ethical reasons is warranted. Accepting them can sometimes give people the idea that this is a product you like to consume so they will keep buying it for you when you visit, for example, and if I suspect that's happening then I might refuse something.

But I'm first and foremost a freegan, so I'll consume any of those products if they benefit me and it rescues them from otherwise being thrown out.

Other Thoughts

Sometimes people try to follow strict rules, perhaps trying to make everything from scratch or do everything themself. Other times I suspect people see the above list as a huge list of issues, are overwhelmed, and therefore give up and do nothing. I don't think this is a healthy way to look at it.

I think a mindset of consumption is the bigger culprit. Focusing on consuming things that are healthy or beneficial, avoiding waste, and being practical would, I think, minimize many of these issues. I frequently see people eating food that isn't beneficial, or chasing the latest fashions or fads. Buying certain ethical alternatives can be just a way to maintain this consumerist mindset by buying different products. You should first ask whether you need to buy a product at all.

Many people haven't learned how to cook, and that makes them dependent on food produced by corporations. This makes "ethical" consuming a matter of choosing one corporation's products over another's, and personally I find it understandable for someone in this situation to be skeptical of these issues. However, learning to make food from basic ingredients therefore becomes not only an important skill for the sake of one's health, but also an ethical duty.