Food, consumerism, and guilt

"Be the change you wish to see in the world." -- Gandhi (I think).


How to implement this? :-)

Much of the food, electronics, electricity, water, gas and clothing I consume comes with a price, that I am often ignorant of.   Dairy products come at the expense of the suffering of some poor dairy cow in an industrial feedlot somewhere.  The titanium in my cell phone comes at the expense of some poor miner's health.  Etc.

There's a lot to feel guilty about, and guilt is sometimes good and sometimes bad.

No human is perfect, and I don't aim to be.  Self-indulgence should never be the root of moral actions or systems of morality.

But fellow humans and animals are a good motivating factor for treading more lightly while here on Earth.

That being said, there are extremes either way - I could be an ascetic, consume nothing, and fast unto death.  That sounds unappealing.

I could also be a complete hedonist (in the colloquial sense), and consume everything whenever and where-ever I want, with total disregard to all others. That sounds unappealing too. 

There's some path in the middle that is right for me, that I'm in the process of finding or traveling.

I've done pretty well cutting out dairy from my life (with exception of some really tasty coffee ice cream that a friend brought us that will be the death of my conscience and the love of my tastebuds...).

I recently started volunteering with a group called Food Not Bombs.  This group is like a local secular langar - we makes tons of vegetarian food, serve it, and eat it.  This group also happens to get most of its food from co-ops.  I hope to learn more about co-ops and how to get food from there.  Might as well, right?