I’ve had rants at a couple of people lately, all related to food. In particular, about what an environmentally friendly diet is. I’m basically a vegetarian (even though I occasionally eat lamb and fish if someone has prepared it for me) and I avoid eating too many vegetables or fruits that are out of season or might have been transported by plane. Whenever there’s the option, I buy organic and Fairtrade.
I had this period when I was 19-20 when I felt anguish every time I entered a grocery store, because I could not stop thinking about all the ways almost everything there was bad in one way or the other. Sometimes, the only thing I could make myself buy was Swedish organic potatoes. But then I got past that. Everyone has to eat. I might as well do it with a good conscience.
And I’ve really been thinking that I could, you know, eat at least. But for some reason, I’ve been confronted several times lately with that the choices I have made regarding food might not be very good either. That the increased demand for quinoa has led to poor people in the Andes not being able to afford to buy it anymore, which has led to their diet becoming much less nutritious. That the production of soy is making the Amazon rain forest shrink. That also milk cows release a lot of methane.
Well, I knew the thing about the soy already, and am still of the opinion that at least it’s better that I eat the organic soy protein that I occasionally buy, than that it is fed to factory cows and chickens. And I kind of feel like the issue about quinoa is not vegetarian’s fault, but the world economy’s. If the local farmers in Bolivia got the money from the increased global sales of quinoa, they would not be poor anymore and could buy whatever food they wanted. Right now, the middlemen make all the money in the global food market.
I’ve had rants, making these points to people. And it’s not fair, not at all, it’s not their fault that eating tofu is not wholly unproblematic. I feel bad afterwards. I just don’t know what to do. It is a frustrating situation, and with the globalized market looking as it does, it is so incredibly hard to control what it is that you’re actually supporting by buying certain goods. It’s making me exhausted. Utterly and completely exhausted.
What are we to do with the food?
Katja Malmborg 