Well, the first article I wrote for this first blog (I have reposted it in this blog for reference) opened my eyes to an issue which has since started to play a major role in my life: how modern life has decontextualised our food choices and the serious ramifications this has for us all. Specifically I noted the psychological harm being caused to workers who work in the meat industry, which made me look again at what they are actually doing. I then started to realise that much of the debate about food ethics had itself become abstracted, with many of us able to use ideas about us and animals ("we only buy RSPCA monitored meat") to help us put the reality to one side and carry one living as we always have.
Reading about the measurable harm being caused by working in the meat industry caused me to reassess what we thought was an already very strict diet when it came to animal products (95% vegetarian, use of only hig standard organic produce and very occasional consumption of any meat), by forcing me to confront the consequences of my food choices: not just the suffering of animals, not just for our health or the environment in some distance future - as important as all of these are - but the immediate human impact caused by the killing of animals, potentially irrespective of how the animals were treated in life or how the killing is done.
This is what my forthcoming book "The Ethics of Mass Eating", will explore and I will post details and developments on this blog as things move forward. I will also continue to explore the ethics of how we eat, but always trying to re-contextualise the issues discussed to see if a little more certainty can be introduced into the debate.
