I am continuously making changes to reduce my impact on the climate and be a better steward of the earth, but food changes are one I have put off. I garden, can, dehydrate, and freeze food. I compost and vermicompost to deal with food waste. I’ve also gotten a lot better about eating leftovers. But as it pertains to meat, dairy, and seafood, I hadn’t done much. I knew I needed to but was overwhelmed by the thought of it. A lot of us tend to avoid learning more about this area because what we eat and how we were raised (especially mid-western farm kids) food can be our identity. Examples are Friday night fish fries, Wisconsin cheese, brats, fried cheese curds, and Angus beef. So, to help reach my climate commitment on food, I realized I needed to educate myself, and that the more I knew and learned, the more likely I would make more responsible decisions. The Ethics of What We Eat – Why Our Food Choices Matter by Peter Singer and Jim Mason is older being published in 2007, but I found this to be such a valuable resource. I also watched Cowspiracy (2014) and Seaspiracy (2021) on Netflix and this also gave me more information and more resources to look up. I was mostly focused on meat and dairy when I initially started this journey, but commercial fishing is detrimental to the environment, more so than I could have ever imagined. Seaspiracy inspired my final paper and presentation in my MBA class – Ethical Leadership for Dynamic Organizations. Seaspiracy gave me areas that I could research more thoroughly, for example, inaccurate food labeling in the commercial fishing industry. Have you ever eaten Chilean Sea Bass? Neither have I, as that isn’t even a fish. It’s actually known as the Patagonian toothfish. Some marketing genius decided to change its name, and it increased its popularity so much that it faces commercial extinction. Why? Well, toothfish can live up to 45 years, and they don’t reach sexual maturity until at least 10 years of age. Another example is labeling Salmon wild versus farmed. Farmed salmon is higher in toxins, double the calories, and saturated fat, and lacks the nutrients (i.e. omega 3) than wild. Did you know that there are 200,000 plus slaves in the fishing industry in Thailand alone, and they export a lot of seafood to the states? I didn’t either. This is just a melted water droplet of the tip-top of an iceberg. After working to educate myself without making any food changes to start, I’ve already noticed how my food decisions are changing, and it’s not only about the environment and the climate. It’s an interesting, emotional, sometimes overwhelming journey that I am currently on but an important one.
—Leah