Food Fight

There’s a great interview over at Design Mind that addresses many of the concerns I have about communicating the food issues I have been studying and struggling with. Sam Martin interviews Jonathan Safran Foer about his new book, Eating Animals, which discusses the food issues we are becoming more aware of and most importantly, the decision to care or not care when weighing the options of ethics versus the natural desires to sustain ourselves.

At the heart of the issue:

I really do think that, if we had full access to what’s going on in factory farms, everyone would agree — and by agree, I don’t mean that we all become vegetarians — that factory farming is a broken system that doesn’t reflect our values.

We can look at the system and see that we need to do things better than we have in the past.

I like how the author frames a compromise:

Let’s give people the benefit of the doubt. They’re making a rational decision. They’re saying, “I know the process is not good, but I don’t care.” I would say, “Fine. Keep your barbecue on the Fourth of July, your Christmas ham, and your Thanksgiving turkey. But get rid of the meat that you don’t care about — the fast-food hamburger or the Chinese restaurant chicken.”

It’s the informed decisions that will help chip away at the restoration of the health of humans, animals, and the planet.