Dilemma!!!

Yesterday I faced a dilemma in the supermarket.

Initially I knew what I wanted and where to get it so I grabbed the first tomatoes I saw with little thought as to which ones they were since I trusted City Market's tomato selection. THEN, I realized that there were, in fact, two sections of tomatoes: conventional and organic. I had picked up the conventional ones. Whoops, I thought, of courrrrse I want the organic ones. But here is where the dilemma lies. As I read the label closer I noticed the organic ones were from Mexico and the conventional ones were from Maine. AHHHH! Either choice poses risks to the environment, my health, and the health of the farmers. However, after making a quick pros and cons list in my head I went with the conventional ones and thought that maybe this farm was one of those "basically organic" ones that doesn't want to get certified but follows organic practices? I don't know the whole story of the Maine tomatoes except that they are local and may or may not have had pesticides. Just because they are not labeled organic does not automatically mean that pesticides were used. However, I know for sure that those organic tomatoes from Mexico used a whole lot of gas to get to Vermont. I guess it was a lose-lose situation... I'll never really know.

Paying for my tomatoes the cashier asked "are these organic?" I felt totally embarrassed saying "no.." and kind of looked away and wished I could explain to him my dilemma and urge him to not judge me for buying what may be pesticide-ridden tomatoes. But why do I care so much what this random cashier thinks?? This just revealed how much I feel my food choices say about me...

Guest Speaker

Last week, the UVM vet came to speak to our class... I love having guest speakers because it mixes things up a bit and provides new perspectives on what we've been talking about in class. Most of the time, one would consider vets to be protective and loving of animals 100% of the time in all situations. But it was kind of refreshing to hear a new perspective from Ruth that doesn't completely go against animal testing. She mostly just provided us with the facts. I didn't know any of the legal stuff prior to this talk so I enjoyed learning about how politics fit into all of this. It seems like things have changed a lot over the years, but that there are still a lot of improvements to be made...

Slacking!!!

Ah... So I totally forgot to blog last week. This week I will do a whopping two whole entries, so here we go.

It's interesting how the topic of animal rights has been coming up in pretty much all my classes. It's making me think about how relevant it is to various things. Like, on Thursday we literally talked about hunting in THREE out of four of my classes. It was so weird! But so cool. It's alllll connected. I even found myself teaching my Honors Colloquim class about Peter Singer's views. Anyway, reflecting on what we talked about last week... Reading so many different views on eating animals and using them for testing has left me pretty confused on what I actually believe. I think this is good though, challenging my own beliefs as I learn more. Last week we read Cora Diamond's argument, which states that we should not eat animals not because they can suffer but because we are all mortal creatures and that binds us together. I like this argument because it brings in community and it's all very beautiful and warm-fuzzy, but I don't know how convincing it would be to someone who does not appeal to emotional arguments like this. Diamond simply believes we have an obligation to not eat animals because we are alive like them, but their suffering has nothing to do with anything. However, I feel like the fact that we want to respect their life means that we don't them to suffer - so it really is all connected.

Lalalalaa.... I will do another post tomorrow!

A rant about hunting....

Before reading the two articles we were assigned about hunting, I was super torn on the matter. Though I could never bring myself to kill an animal, I thought, it must be a good thing that people are killing animals in the wild rather than supporting mass meat production that one could easily find in a supermarket. However, after reading the two articles one expressing the negative side of hunting and one on Michael Pollon's personal account of hunting, I am pretty swayed toward the anti-hunting side.

I remember when I was younger my family would always go to my second cousins house around Christmas time for a big extended family dinner. My mom's cousins husband (not sure what he is in relation to me) would cook venison that he hunted, and every year and I was always uneasy about it. Even from when I was very young I didn't eat the venison, though everyone else did, simply because the idea of eating meat that had recently been killed by someone I knew just threw me off. Now that I think about it, it's pretty silly that I ate other meat when I was younger but not Elizeo's venison. Hunting added a new personal element, but maybe this personal element should be in all meat so that people get a clear picture of it.

The first article I read provided clear biological reasons for why hunting throws off an ecosystem. I found these really compelling because there is no denying the science behind how a deer populations reacts to hunting pressures. I hadn't realized that there was such a difference between a predator killing a deer and a hunter killing a deer! The aspect of hunting that makes me the most uncomfortable is the adrenaline aspect of it. After reading Pollon's account of hunting, my thoughts were proven true, that hunters get a sort of high from killing animals and get addicted to the sport. Pollon even related it to marijuana and to drinking, in the sense that you almost don't feel like yourself because your senses are so altered. Pollon experienced just about every emotion while and after killing the pig, but eventually ended up feeling pure remorse. I think that most hunters hold on to the rush they get after the kill and that is what keeps them going. If someone is hunting for survival - that's one thing - but if it is to fulfill a human desire of pride and domination over nature, that is pretty pathetic to me.

From a non-violence perspective I have always been uncomfortable with the idea of eradicating an invasive species. This idea was touched upon by "Without a Tear" and brought up a point I hadn't even thought of, that the cure may be worse than the disease. We often don't know the full picture when we eradicate a species. When I studied abroad in Zanzibar last semester, there was a crow eradication program going on. One girl in my group did her independent study project on this and I never fully understood the appeal. Though I understand that the crows were annoying and loud, who are we to just poison them when it was not their fault that they came here in the first place? Wiping out whole species, even if we think it is more beneficial, does not reflect well on humans as a species and merely promotes a dominant view over nature.

Whew, this was long and ranty... Basically I still don't know how I truly feel about hunting and invasive species because I can see both sides pretty well! I'm glad that these articles got me thinking a lot more about it because they provided me with a lot of information I needed.

HAPPY WEDNESDAY EVERYONE :)

Food Inc.

I have seen the documentary "Food Inc." more times than I can count on one hand, but I have to say it never ceases to amaze me. Each time, I leave with a new feeling of wanting to pay more attention to my food choices and think deeper about how it connects to everything else. One thing, or word, really, that the movie brought up that I have been thinking about a lot is "deliberate". The movie uses this word several times in relation to the "deliberate veil" in between us and where our food comes from. It's like there is this thing that has been purposefully placed in front of our eyes but we can remove it if we want to, we just usually choose not to. In the book, "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" which I am currently reading for another class, Barbara Kingsolver calls her food choices deliberate. She and her family decide to eat an only local food diet for a year and they often refer to this as deliberate eating. Additionally, Henry David Thoreou makes good use of the word "deliberately" in one of my favorite quotes from "Walden"...

"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived."

There is something so powerful about the use of the word "deliberate" in all of these cases. It is about doing something with a specific intention, with a purpose that is clear. Maybe living a deliberate life just means being aware of your actions and how they affect the greater system.