It seems to have become a fashion to apply a label declaring oneself vegan, vegetarian, carnivore, omnivore, etc… Yet discussing these issues should not even be necessary except to exchange recipes. Instead, it is more and more frequent to hear everyone pontificating about their food beliefs, using this or that adjective to qualify or qualify themselves, everyone convinced that their choice is more respectful, ‘better’, healthier or more ethical than another.
There are those who are convinced that a certain style of eating will prolong their life, claiming it perhaps from a city pavement amidst mephitic effluents of all kinds.
There are also those who eat organic and are also avid smokers. Many talk about food without even knowing, except by hearsay, the production and processing processes of what then becomes ‘their’ food, which, in the vast majority of cases, is ‘a choice among predetermined choices made by others’.
Safeguarding nature in general or even just a part of it (and everyone has their favourite) is a recurring, but very vague and often instrumental and confusing theme. There are those who move from one position to another and vice versa, driven by the most diverse convictions or conditioning that come to them from within and without.
Everyone, whatever their dietary orientation, claims to make responsible and conscious choices … and there is something for everyone and everyone has some reason to support. This is why dialectics and rhetoric rule the day and allow attention to be shifted, this way or that, to those who govern them best, regardless of whether one does so from the height of one’s culture or from the depths of one’s ignorance. But is there a universal food reason or ethic? We are not aware of it. Those who talk about it, in essence, do so either by virtue of their own studies, or of their always limited knowledge, of a creed, of gustatory experiences, to adhere to a common feeling, out of tradition, or simply out of a vague and legitimate sense of disregard for aspects that for others are instead decisive. Who can say what is more correct in a very relative context like that of food choice? Conventions, traditions and emotions certainly do not help us.
To try to end it on a ‘level playing field’, we could venture to say that whatever food we choose is always about something dead, but we would be doing an injustice to the infinitely small and ever-living population, which, being microscopic, we cannot consider worthy of some form of pity that we reserve for the ‘visible’ animal genus and, in a different way, for the plant genus.
We live in constant conflict between the need to feed ourselves in order to live and the attention we pay to plants and animals, selfishly discriminating against them according to the different well-being they provide. We thus register pets and baking animals, decoration plants and soup plants, leather bags and bamboo baskets. We talk about life, but we make it a subjective matter. It just depends on how we think about it, which in turn comes from our culture.
If we were really fully aware of what nourishment entails, we might be struck by immobility. Plant or animal worlds are ultimately just definitions, useful for distinguishing, exchanging and sharing signals and opinions with other humans. But accustomed as we are to categorising things by similarities and differences, we could also be wrong: it may make an impression on us to see the skeleton of an animal or a roast chicken breast, but aren’t a small wooden table and the rafters of a roof also part of the framework of a plant? And doesn’t a pan-fried squash blossom represent a broken path, just as much as a barbecued chicken quarter?
Eating this or that depends on the organism one has and the environment one is in. What we decide to eat is a personal choice, which makes us neither better nor worse than those who make different choices from us. We have to eat to live and some of us even have the privilege and opportunity to choose how. And when we take any stance on these issues, let us remember those who breed or cultivate, who simply make life easier for their fellow human beings because they are entrusted ‘by us’ to manage for food forms of life necessary for our nourishment. Let us think about this, even when we take any position on these issues, because it is also a duty to choose to document ourselves from reliable sources to avoid ‘feeding’ only media terror.
Enjoy your meal!
The editorial staff of M.A.C.
