Unethical Diet?
June 11, 2009Have you ever considered that what you are eating for your daily consumptions could significantly contribute to the killing of the poor people?
This question sounds like a far stretch of the facts. However, this video is exactly trying to tell us how our Western lifestyle such as eating more of meat and dairy products and using cars that are run on biofuels is unethical and therefore, warrants our cautious attentions.
In my post called “My Reflection on the World Hunger 1″ in the News Related Category, I have specified how the soaring food prices become more pressing issues especially for the poorest countries. This video shows how a shortage of food in poor countries compounded with a surge food price causes severe tension and riots. Based on their frustrated statements, getting bread becomes a “daily ordeal.”
Then, how does our eating meat aggravate global hunger for the poor?
Inefficient usase of grain. Video tells us that more grain is consumed to feed the livestock than to feed the hungry. It goes on to say that more of grazing land could have been used to produce grain for human consumption. Thus, an animal business becomes not only an unsustainable agribusiness but also an unethical and inconsiderate business for struggling people in poor countries.
UN’s food and agriculture organization expresses its concern about riots and protest against the soaring food prices. Higher food price hurts the poorest in the cruelist way. People are dying in the developing countries due to a lack of grain; whereas, people in developed countries struggle with illnesses associated with affluence. Now, I could imagine why the poor would view this situation as frustrating and unfair.
If my consumption of meat could be used instead to save people, I believe that saving people should come first than my luxury diet. But I think it is sometimes too hard to make people including myself realize what we take for granted is actually causing severe hardship to the other, powerless people. More education and knowledge training is needed to make us realize how our actions could lead to more satisfaction and peace to our global neighbor.
I think this is a prime example of how changing the world requires changes from everyone, including changing our lifestyles! And giving up meat is definitely a hard thing to do for a lot of us, myself included.
But the questions I always ask is, how sustainable is our current lifestyle – is it even possible for everyone in the world achieve it? if not, then we need to make some sacrifices and lifestyle changes.
Changing the lifestyle to create a difference is like changing our values, preferences, beliefs, cultural norms or upbringing and so on.
Since these things have always defined or contributed to who we were in the past years, it becomes more difficult to change our lifestyle when we are already fully mature. It is because this is equivalent to changing ourselves, which is not easy thing to do. However, we could gradually make some changes or would even feel like making changes at some point in our lives if we are well-informed about how our current lifestyle adversely impacts the people with little authority and strengths to fight against the poverty.
Thus, I hope that, in a long-run, a sustainable lifestyle would be possible to achieve, when we truly realize some part of our lives is seriously threatening the life of people who are entitled to the most basic needs as we are.