Food Justice

I've become more and more interested in issues of food justice and sustainability over this last year. The effects that my grocery shopping and restaurant choices have on the environment, on labor rights, on poverty, and on my health are all becoming increasingly important to me. Diamante and I eat less meat now than we used to (I still like meat too much to become vegetarian, but for daily consumption it's not worth the environmental and health consequences for me). We sometimes buy our veggies and fruits at a farmer's market and we buy cage-free eggs at Trader Joe's. For my morning at-home cup of coffee ritual I purchase only fair trade coffee, I am beginning to buy more local, and we are starting to read the ingredients in packaged food more closely (I had NO IDEA high fructose corn syrup was in everything under the sun!). Yet it feels like just the tip of the iceberg. There's still so far to go, but baby steps will keep us going in the right direction. Besides, I love food and cooking too much to let it be spoiled with the bad taste of deliberately knowing my food choices are creating massive environmental degradation or contributing to the oppression of other people's lives.

From BBC: [there are] "a number of criteria that consumers should consider when buying food: how much energy and water are used to produce each calorie of food; what is the impact of the food item on climate, biodiversity, and the labour-force of the country it was grown in, and what are the health and financial costs of food."

If you are also interested in this topic, check out The Omnivore's Dilemma, Fast Food Nation, this Newsweek article on beef, and this BBC article on the eco-costs of food. And let me know in return of any other good resources on the topic that I should check out!