Think for Ourselves

"A common thread in many subsequent historical studies is that
food protests, disturbances, and other forms of collective action around food
are often motivated by ideas of social justice within moral economies, rather
than more pragmatic concerns such as hunger or scarcity" -Leitch The Politiks of Pork Fat

This article was about the Slow Food Movement and its political and cultural importance. As i was reading about the lardo and quarry workers, i kept making the connection between vegans and their dietary lifestyle. Rather than eating foods because they are available, they are making the conscious political choice to attach what they don't eat to a specific message of morality and the mechanization of animal production. Rather than not eating milk because they are allergic, they are shaping their decision around personal values. What we eat, or rather don't eat, is attached to our values, memories, culture, which is why the whole idea of 'we being made for our food' is so disturbing to me. I know many people who make the argument that they buy fast food because they need it to be fast because they have places to go, things to do, but what I argue back is that maybe food sped up so that you would. I know that in many parts of the world, the two hour lunch period, or siesta, is being fazed out due to the increasing demand of consumers. However, I doubt that very many people really want that break to be gone, but rather, the world around them is imposing it. I don't really want to grab a quick sandwich, guzzling it down mid step, but that's what I need now that school fills the mid section of my day. So while everything around us is speeding up, the one thing we can control is what value we place on this speed and our actions within its context. This is why I appreciate the vegan culture, to some degree it is deprivation, but also it is deprivation that has become a symbol for the entire unjust system of over-consumption. It is the intent behind the purchases we make that create the symbolic, and political statements.

"The growth of consumerist forms of identity-production in liberal democratic societies thus coincides with the development of new possibilities for consumer politics in which culture
has become a favoured idiom of political mobilization" - The politiks of pork fat by Lietch

While it may seem petty to think that our decisions at Trader Joe's affect the global market, they do indeed have cultural and systemic potential for creating a resistance to the machine within the machine. That is why it is called a machine, because it reacts to our influence. It doesn't think for itself. We think for ourselves. 

So my argument is, instead of consuming like a machine, stop and think for yourself about what it is you value, who you identify this meaning with, how this is representative in what you eat. 

Maybe if we stopped for a second, we will see that before eating machines, we are memories, traditions, and morals that have taken centuries to culminate, cultivate, and create the person we are today. 

*Image courtesy of ourworld.compuserv.com