food for thought

anyone who knows me knows i have a lot of opinions, particularly when it comes to food. i advocate for local food and food suppliers (i.e. the farmer's market over Stupidstore), organic whenever possible (although i choose uncertified local over certified shipped-from-west-coast-united-states), veg over meat (but i have more respect for responsible omnivores than vegans who eat processed GMO-soy products), seasonal over imported (even though i love mangos, avocados, bananas, coconut...), healthy over processed (despite cravings...). i guess what i'm saying is, food is complicated. even if you ignore more complex issues like obesity, anorexia, bulimia, "i'm just not hungry these days", "i'm on a detox/diet/my doctor told me", choosing what to eat is not as simple as "i want to eat this, therefore i'll eat it." anyone who says otherwise is either deluding themself or doesn't understand the many ways our everyday nutritional choices impact the world we live in.

i just finished reading "Eating Animals" by Jonathan Safran Foer. he also happens to be the author of my all-time favourite book, "Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close" (which has apparently been made into a movie...i'm undecided as to whether i'll see it or not). foer is a jewish-american who lives in brooklyn. he is also now a father, and his son's birth is what pushed him and his wife to total vegetarianism, after years of kinda-sorta-most-of-the-time. foer started looking into the meat industry in order to decide whether he could justify feeding his new child meat. the current western society doesn't exactly advocate veg diets for newborns. however, as he kept meeting with resistance from the industry to be able to see for himself the animals he would potentially be feeding to his son, foer started digging deeper. the result is a beautifully and intelligently written expose into the meat industry, in both his words, the words of animal rights advocates, and the words of meat industry workers. he talks to small-scale farmers, factory farm workers (who always remain anonymous), auditors, PETA members, vegans who build slaughterhouses, vegetarians who run ranches, and the only certified heritage poultry farmer whose turkeys can still fly.

foer makes a lot of good points in his book, backed by piles of facts, that would lead a lot of people to the conclusion that going veg is the only option to avoid unnecessary cruelty towards livestock. it's not an argument for vegetarianism though, and that's the beauty of foer's argument. if you know 100% where your animal products and by-products are coming from, how the animals are treated throughout their lives and throughout their slaughter and processing, and can still justify eating them, then do it. i'm lucky in that regard with where i currently live - we have a vibrant agricultural community, with farmers whose locations you can travel to (easily if you have a car, not so easily if you travel by foot as i do, semi-easily if you bike on the highway) and who are willing to speak openly to people about their animals. the cheese man at the market was honest when he told me that in order to make his gouda, he needed rennet, and the only option was to kill a calf. it meant losing me as a customer, but i appreciate that he was open about it, and i can easily visit his farm and see the cheese-making process at any time should i desire it. we also have a lot of legumes easily grown in the region, and a local supplier makes their own tofu from organic soybeans.

where do i stand when it comes to food? i think that, so long as you do your homework and understand what your decisions mean in terms of local and global impact, you have the right to be an omnivore, vegetarian, vegan, or whatever else you decide. if you're going to stop eating meat but source your protein from processed products that decimate the Amazon with GMO-soybean crops, i'm probably going to ream you out the next time you attack someone buying a buffalo steak from the local farmer.

why does this matter? because eventually i hope to open a cafe, and the food we serve there may have an impact on you, should you choose to eat there. what we choose to serve can open up a world of discussion and reflection, and possibly change the way a person eats. so will the cafe be vegan, veg, offer meat, choose local or organic, offer cheesecake or "cheese"cake? the decision will have to be made via consensus, as it will be a co-op, but from my perspective, meat itself probably won't be served. it's expensive, and at this point too difficult to track to ensure the entire process is cruelty-free 100% of the time. what about eggs, dairy, goat milk? it will have to depend on where we are and what kind of local farming is around us, but i think that if we co-op members can't see, with our own eyes, the process from animal to shelf, we won't serve it. i'm not willing to risk the standard of a chicken's life for eggs when all my baking is currently vegan anyway. and i'm certainly not about to use antibiotic-laced milk from a suffering cow when i can get hemp milk from a field two hours away. it's a question of morals, and sharing food means potentially having to explain those morals. if i can't stomach the way something was processed, how can i expect customers to stomach my fare?