alt Hacker NewsEven if you reduce it to that, you still endorse (or at least accept) the side effects of the production of what you eat.
If you eat meat, you are okay with the effects it has on climate change, and that’s political. If you do the opposite and don’t eat meat, that’s also political.
If you consume food from non-organic agriculture, you are okay with species extinction, especially insects.
If you buy the cheapest foods, you are okay with the working conditions and low pay necessary to reach the price. If you buy a more expensive option, who in the value chain benefits from the increased price and who doesn’t?
Almost everything that you do is political in some way.
That's disregarding that the people in power routinely make it as difficult as possible to have a choice. If you buy the cheapest foods, maybe it's because you want to eat and pay rent, and spending any more than that would render you homeless. Becoming homeless will not save the poor in another country, even if your purchases to avoid becoming homeless would have contributed a vanishingly tiny, indirect amount to their plight.
I agree that everything is political, and it's good to make choices as ethically as you can, but sometimes it simply isn't possible to be perfect. You can't even know about all the problems without studying them like a full time job. Ain't got time for that. Gotta eat.
The "agonize over every purchase and vote with your dollar" paradigm gives the most votes to billionaires.
Should people think about ethics when buying stuff: yes.
Does failing to recycle a bottle properly, or buying a cheap chocolate bar that may have involved underpaid or even slave labor somewhere in its supply chain, mean someone is evil? Nope.
I wish people would spend less time agonizing or moralizing over what individuals do (even though an individual is easier to influence quickly) and more time going after the broken systems, stupid laws, and malignant CEOs that actually lie at the root of the problems.