The Philosopher and the Entrepreneur

Check out these videos from “Next Earth: Teaching Climate Change Across the Disciplines,” an online conference hosted by UCSB. Sherrilyn Billger has two videos up called “Take it Outside: Eating for the Ecosystem” and “The Philosopher and the Entrepreneur: The Pedagogical Significance of a Symbiotic Relationship.”  Find out what respect, consent, trust, and empathy have to do with plants and our relationships with them!

 

What we eat matters

What we already know

The majority of food available to us is heavily processed and shipped long distances. Conventional produce has often been sprayed with chemicals that may cause cancer. We know that diets high in fresh produce are healthier, and many consumers demand organic options. Locally-produced food is generally fresher, and prevents large transportation costs, including the pollution that transportation generates. CSAs are growing, farmers’ markets are booming, and community gardens are popping up all over the city. We’re moving (slowly) in the right direction.

We know climate change is real. We know monoculture crops are particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change. And we know that the political climate directly affects environmental regulations and therefore the quality of our air, water, soil, and food. Now is the time to take action. Now is the time for every single one of us to improve the way we eat.

But why should I grow my own food?

Growing your own food is a patriotic and revolutionary act. When you grow your own food, you have greater control over what ends up on your dinner plate. You can pick the varieties you like best, you can use organic methods, you can eat the veggies at their peak ripeness. Nothing tastes better than a freshly picked vine-ripened (in my opinion Brandywine) tomato.

If you are a CSA member or buy produce at a farm stand, growing a few of your own edibles is a great complement. The CSA and farm are indeed local—which is great!—but nothing’s more local than your back door. And maybe they don’t grow your favorite hot pepper. At the height of the harvest, vegetables like snap peas and string beans should be picked every few days. You can claim your bounty at its absolute peak.

When’s the last time you bought a head of lettuce with a few brown leaves? How about a strawberry with a mushy spot? An oddly shaped tomato? We demand visual perfection from the produce we buy, and as a result, we waste a lot of perfectly good food. You are probably more forgiving with edibles you grow yourself. You’re likely to pull off (and compost) the brown lettuce leaves, cut out the mushy strawberry spot, and use the tomato anyway. Let’s embrace imperfection and reduce waste!

You can make our ecosystem healthier

By growing more of your own food, you add more green to our city, which not only looks nice, but also helps improve air quality. Adding new garden beds and containers chips away at the ubiquitous concrete surfaces that perpetuate our ongoing runoff problem. Your garden can enhance biodiversity, feed pollinators, and improve your own connection to the natural world that surrounds us. And fresh produce is just plain yummy.

Why “eating for the ecosystem”?

I started Eating for the Ecosystem because I am determined to change what we grow and how we grow it. I know we can choose plants and designs that strengthen our ecosystem, while looking beautiful and providing food.

The company name arose from discussions with my husband about his second book, A Critique of the Moral Defense of Vegetarianism. One of his points matches one of my long-held beliefs: that “[h]ow plants are treated in the process of cultivating and gathering them for food matters morally” (p. 31). To me, plants are people too.

We both consider what we consume to be a moral decision, and we constantly re-examine our choices. We believe that the best metric for weighing these choices is the effect we have on our ecosystem. “[T]he world is full of people, only some of whom are human. Plants and other-than-human animals may be people, too. Moreover, we maintain a special bond with, and specifiable obligations to see to the needs and interests of, our landbase and all the people who live on it and in it” (p. 8). We have a bond with, and obligations to, our ecosystem.

Myriad factors can drive a person’s food choices, whether health effects, genetic modification, price, availability, treatment of animals, synthetic chemical use, sentience, or environmental impact. I frankly don’t care whether other people have the same diet I have. I do care whether people think about what they eat and how their food choices impact their ecosystem. And I want to make it easier for anyone to make consumption choices that match their values.

I want to encourage eating for the ecosystem: growing more food in urban settings, selecting diverse plants that support local animals and insects, turning lawns into woodlands or gardens, and using integrated pest management rather than reaching for a chemical solution. We need to do more to enhance food safety and food security for ourselves and future generations.

What is a conscious consumer?

I’m guessing you’ve heard the phrase “vote with your dollars.” Every time you spend money on a product or service, you support the employees and the owners of the company. Every time you buy a box of crackers at the local supermarket, you support the jobs of the cashier, the managers, the stockers, the truck drivers, the cracker plant workers, the grain farmers, and the company that produced the seed. And some of your dollars pay for herbicides, fertilizers, gasoline, coal-powered electricity, and product packaging. All for two dollars and fifty-six cents. Seems like quite a bargain, doesn’t it?

Do you believe that $2.56 is distributed fairly among everyone responsible for bringing that cracker box to you? Do you think the truck driver earns overtime pay? How much does the packaging cost? Do you think the factory workers have good health insurance? Do the grain farmers use synthetic chemicals on their fields? Who receives the bulk of that $2.56?

Our industrialized food system is complex, and it’s nearly impossible to trace the complete production path of the food we buy in bodegas and grocery stores. How do you feel about that fact? Are you curious about labor conditions and environmental impact? Do you care about where your food comes from?

Conscious consumers seek information about the companies they patronize. Conscious consumers know what their own values are, and they try to support causes and companies that match their values.

This doesn’t mean that you have to be (your own idea of) perfect in order to be a conscious consumer. But it does mean that you care about all of the costs associated with your purchases. That sort of information isn’t easy to gather, but you do not turn a blind eye. Instead, you take off your blinders and notice what’s in the periphery.

Here’s an example from my own life. I really like monarch butterflies and I am saddened by their decline. So I did some research and discovered that their host plant (i.e., where they lay their eggs) is milkweed. I bought some red milkweed seeds, and have been growing milkweed ever since. Every time I see a monarch caterpillar or butterfly on my plants, I smile (and pat myself on the back once or twice). It feels good to do good.

But if I really care about monarchs, I won’t stop there. I’ll do more research and learn about why they are declining. I’ll learn about habitat loss and the effect of synthetic chemicals used in the production of some of my favorite processed foods. And I’ll ask myself the tough question: is my eating pleasure worth supporting the institutions that are killing the monarchs?

I want to remember that I vote with my dollars and I always want my voting to match my values.

It’s a journey and I’m no paragon of perfect purchasing. But I care and I want to keep moving toward better alignment.

Want to join me? I really enjoy research (and dare I say I am quite good at it). If there’s a plant, animal, habitat, or food you’d like me to look into, please let me know. Who’s in?

Resources:

Food Prices and Spending
Farm Bill
Food Packaging Forum