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Food Ethics--21st Century Style

Food ethics is becoming more complex than it used to be. With the recent crisis in China over baby formula, the slow food movement, the debates over locally grown food, organic food, cloned cattle, trans fats, the obesity crisis and more--food ethics is no longer limited to Leon Kass' The Hungry Soul.

Of course, there's Peter Singer talking about the ethics of eating and the moral responsibility to eat locally, and those in rural sociology who became concerned with responsible agriculture and modern food production, and then GM.

Still there are a number of issues that those food ethicists and those in related fields have left unaddressed.

In this day and age, whether you decide to labor over a hot stove or drive thru is a political decision about not only food itself but about society and culture. And soon going to the grocery store won't only provide you with choices of buying lean or ultra-lean beef, but instead grass-fed, regular, or cloned beef. Not only can you get your vegetables organic or in a can, but also you can get them GMO-style grown with nutriceuticals to give you extra calcium in your potatoes or omega-3s in your green beans.

But even when this is possible, what will it mean for us ethically? Does the choice not to buy these engineered meats and vegetables mean that we are abdicating our responsibility to be healthy? If these foods are reasonably priced and are available, everyone should eat them. There is no difference between eating these foods and taking a daily multivitamin and arguably one can forget to take a vitamin whereas you aren't likely to forget to eat.

Another part of these new food ethics culture is the responsibility to know what you are eating. If cloned beef or new foods can have the staying power to be shipped half way around the world, you have a responsibility to know so. In a new global food market, it will be the moral responsibility of the consumer to be aware of agricultural practices in China or Brazil and if you don't want to eat those foods, then don't.

The last, and perhaps most important part of food ethics for the 21st century, will be taming the obesity beast. This epidemic is the moral responsibility of everyone to help get waistlines, portion sizes and caloric intakes under control. Perhaps newly engineered foods will be the ticket, like the fat-burning waffles I wrote about a few weeks ago, but that can only be a part. Food ethics will have to change restaurant chains, groceries, and most importantly, the minds of consumers, if we are ever to change the trend of ever increasing weight.

This is a practical, real food ethics for the 21st century.The kind of food ethics I am proposing is not the ethics of the sustainable agriculture crowd or those who oppose GM. Nor can food ethics be just the morality of eating anymore. It's about places, ways, and things we eat and why, but more than that. Food ethics is about where our food comes from, who makes it, why it's made and to what end. The answers to these questions are what food ethics demands of us for a better, healthier, more fruitful nation.

Summer Johnson, PhD