Ethical=Organic. Hang on a second, please!
Here’s a trend that really worries me. That’s the growing number of writers, chefs, and journalists who take it for granted that ethical food is organic food.
As an example, consider this quote from Monica Eng (though she is simply one of many one could quote). Earlier I posted her provocative piece on watching the killing.
I skid to a screaming halt when I run across this in her article.
“Ethical meat options have expanded faster than you can say “ex-vegetarian.” Between 2002 and 2007 U.S. organic meat sales grew tenfold (from $33 million to $364 million), according to Chicago-based Mintel research group.
This doesn’t even count the sales growth in meats that are free-range, grass-fed and natural—less restrictive standards than organic, in which livestock is required by the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture to have been fed organic feed and be free of hormones and antibiotics.”
So if I eat non-organic meat (or less restrictively meat that is not free-range, grass-fed and natural), I’m not ethical (or moral as I’d rather say)?
This seems to me not only ridiculous but positively dangerous. Consider the two definitions of organic we talked about a few posts back.
1. Having no chemical inputs. I could say in response that it is not ethical to deny animals the medicines we ourselves use.
2. Being small, local etc. Well, this is not a guarantee of virtuous meat. I live where cattle scrounge on bare hillsides, authentically small and local, but not a good life for the cows nor for the diner.
The latter point needs more consideration. But for the moment, please, stop. Ethical is not equivalent to organic.
