Ethical Palette - Why our food choices matter

A walk on the pavement across KFC is quite an event. One would literally be
seduced by the smell wafting out of the outlet. As if that isn’t enough, the
advertisement just lures you to just take a bite. The real intrigue is, how do
they serve at all the outlets with such consistency and uniformity, seldom
interrupted? They have achieved this by standardisation and
systematisation of production as a result of caging and force feeding chicks
and allegations of anti-biotics abuse. Similarly the milk and meat industry
is also rife with allegations of forced weaning and castration apart from
caging and anti-biotic abuse. The demand for exotic foods such as shark fin
soups, manta meat etc has led to indiscriminate and merciless killing and
maiming of animals to extinction. While most are unaware others choose to
continue licking fingers just because their palette seeks them. One has to
realize that by consuming such products, the cruel practices are being
promoted and rewarded.

We usually don’t think of what we eat as a matter of ethics. Stealing, lying,

hurting people happen to be relevant for our moral character. Today the
ethical consumerism movement is gaining traction. The underlying
philosophy is that when one consumes, it is not just the product he
consumes but also the process involved production. In essence by choosing
one particular product over another, one subscribes or tacitly approves the
values embodied in the process of manufacture of the products.

To think of ethics of what we eat as a new thing would be wrong. Many

indigenous hunter gatherers and tribes have elaborate codes which, both,
sanctions and prohibits which animals to kill and when. Some even have
rituals whereby they ask for forgiveness of the animals for killing them. This
has a reflection in major religions world over where food habits are strictly
regulated by moral codes.

Today with globalisation, transport revolution and modern technological

applications in food processing, access to all varieties of foods both
domestic and exotic in almost all seasons has led to empowering people with
the availability of choices in diet. Several ethical consumer movements have
led to change in the consumer pattern which in turn has made the
producers to change the process of production. We see an increasing trend
of people moving to vegetarianism and veganism due to both health and
ethical reasons. The increasing demand for GMO free foods, organic foods,
free range poultry and dairy products are cases in point.

In terms of impact on our planet, no other human activity comes even

remotely closer to agriculture. Apart from being consumers of food, we are
also affected by pollution associated with food production and consumption.
Food choices not just affect humans, but also billions of non-Homo sapiens
animal species. For many of those animals, our choices control almost every
aspect of their earthly existence -being born and reared in completely
artificial food factories, sexually deprived and then slaughtered mercilessly
en masse. All of this has been made possible because of our food choices.
Virtually anyone, irrespective of income, can make a positive contribution to
this ethical consumer movement. To make better food choices one doesn’t
have to spend hours reading labels or rigidly adhere to any particular diet.
With the world of information at our fingertips, it takes only few minutes of
surfing to dispel ignorance and make informed choices. Our choices, in all
certainty, would make this world a better place to live in.