The Complexity of Dietary Choices

America is experiencing a food crisis. It is, of course, of different nature than those more common throughout human history; food is plentiful. Food can be purchased conveniently and inexpensively. We even do a satisfactory job of providing for the impoverished and mendicant. Rather, our food crisis is less a survival crisis and more a philosophical issue. Most pundits and experts aren’t asking “how do we provide for the majority” but rather “how do we eat ethically,” “how do our eating habits affect the environment,” “and, most interestingly, “what the hell is food exactly?”

These are contentious questions and finding answers is arduous. An answer to one question has heavy implications and sets limits on how the other questions can be answered. For instance, eating beef is more ethical than eating poultry (because 1 cow can yield much more meat than 1 chicken) yet a cow’s impact on the environment is more noxious. But worst of all, these relatively abstract questions compete with our supreme carnal urge: eating. Before shelter, before clothing, and even before procreating, we must eat and drink. It is our most important element of survival, so certainly there is a lot of inertia experienced by conscious eaters with even the greatest of wills, hence why vegetarians lapsing into a steak dinner speak of it as if they were rehabilitated drug abusers picking up heroin again.

Oh, the conflict! Typically I scold those who ignore difficult questions and maintain the status quo, but in this case, I have more sympathy for the typical, nonquestioning devourer of victual. It must be questioned if it is worth the time untangling this web of dietary considerations. Rather than ruminating on such issues, isn’t one’s time better spent more actively? Perhaps, but the beauty of having a coherent, philosophically-substantiated diet is that food is an essential element of our lifestyle thus after one constructs his/her ideal eating habits, they become just that, habits. No more pondering, just eating, and we are, hopefully, impacting the world in personally-satisfying manner by doing what we would be doing anyways. Stated with more sophistication, the relative cost is minimal. Stated as a cliché, once we have reached the summit, the way down is much easier.

Unfortunately, I don’t have the answer. In fact, I don’t think anyone does because the question of what is the ideal diet is a very personal question. There is no right diet. There is the ethical diet, the environmentally-conscious diet, the healthy diet, and the orgasmically delicious diet. They, of course, all compete, so searching for the ideal diet strictly in the philosophical realm is probably not the way to go because our diets, pragmatically speaking, need to work for us.

The manner in which I have been developing my personal diet (and this is, of course, only one of a myriad ways to go about doing so) is to start with a vague idea of what I want to accomplish and see how it works. My objective a month ago was to “cut down” on meat. Four meat meals a week is what I set out to accomplish. I thought this was an amount that would be personally satisfying yet be a large enough decrease to make a small ethical and environmental impact. What I have discovered already is that the degree of impact greatly depends on where I cut down. For instance, I bought 1.1 pounds of chicken from Jewel yesterday. It was enough to make chicken salads sandwiches for my girlfriend and me with some left over for dinner. My girlfriend suggested adding the leftover chicken to the macaroni and cheese dish we planned to make that evening, but I contested that I would be “using up” two of my four meat meals in one day. Then I pondered what impact this would have made, and the conclusion was none. The chicken had already been purchased. Whether I ate the entire 1.1 pounds or promptly disposed of the package after purchasing it made no difference to Jewel. Either option, to eat it or not, made no difference.

Thus another variable was added to my dietary considerations: it not only matters how much I cut down but also where and how I choose to use up my meat options. I can choose to use up all of my meat meals when I dine out or I can use then at work (I work for a caterer) when the kitchen puts out the leftover chicken kabobs and meatballs for lunch. The health considerations are about equal, but I will make a greater impact in the ethical and environmental realm if I choose to use my meat options at work because, quite simply, even if I choose not to eat the meat, it will get thrown out because they are just leftovers. That would mean that I would have to choose vegetarian options when I dine out which means, when numbers of people choose to do the same, demand for meat decreases and consequently, restaurants order less meat and provide more vegetarian options or they lose business to other restaurants that do. Thai restaurants benefit while burger havens lose business. Yet, I’m less satisfied because a burger from Paradise Pup (my favorite burger establishment in the Chicagoland area) is more satisfying than the Parmesan meatballs that have been sitting out for an hour at work. This is, perhaps, the point in which vegetarians will exclaim “get over it!” but the less satisfied I and others are with their choices, the less likely they will be to continue making similar choices. Thus, we have the vegetarian that falters and indulges in a 48 ounce porterhouse and trades in the vegetarian diet for the carnivorous diet and eats meat more ravenously than when they began their vegetarian diet, but this time, with the added guilt caused by their perceived failure (so “getting over it” isn’t a prudent solution to such a dilemma). Finding a personally-satisfying balance is crucial because Kant’s categorical imperative doesn’t work in the realm of dietary considerations.

And I’m concluding here because, again, I don’t have the answer to what my or anyone else’s ideal diet is. What is certain is that choosing the ideal diet, if one chooses to do so, is complex and the reformation of one’s diet is very difficult which is why those who have experienced multiple heart attacks still don’t permanently trade in the Big Mac for the grilled chicken sandwich, my grandmother will never heed to her doctor’s pleading to stop adding salt to food, and I won’t order vegetable risotto at a restaurant famous for Kona-crusted, dry-aged, bone-in Delmonico.