responsibility

[owlsie]

I just had a conversation with one of my friends, in which we decided that fast food chains have a moral obligation to educate their customers on slaughterhouse practices. Especially given that they market their food to children, they should be honest about what happens to the animals, what chemicals they are fed, that there is feces in the meat,

Comments

[mangiati_vivi]

IMHO, consumers of *any* product are obligated to do as much as possible to educate *themselves* about said product before buying/using/consuming it. The idea that they're not responsible for something as simple as knowing what they're supporting/consuming is ridiculous to me.

Of course, I think that a company should stand by and be responsible for the products or services they produce, and should strive to produce those products in the most sustainable, ethically and environmentally responsible way. Ultimately, though, I think it's up to the consumer to educate themselves regardless of the company's actions.

[owlsie]

of course, everybody is responsible for what they eat, and what they feed to their kids. given that people are ignorant and brainwashed, though, often by fast food chains themselves, should they not pick up the slack and be honest about what they do?

[mangiati_vivi]

As I mentioned above, of course they should. But I believe that in the end, it's our responsibility to make the final decision, brainwashing or not. People are only brainwashed because they want to be. When I was an omni, I knew what was involved in my food - I just didn't care enough to do anything about it. It's the same with stuff like fast food and wal-mart - people know that shit is evil and bad for them, they're just too damn apathetic to save themselves from it. So yeah, social conditioning has a lot to do with it, but the information and solutions are out there should people want to use it.

[owlsie]

that's true, people are only brainwashed because they want to be.
what made you start caring, out of curiosity?
I used to be one of those occasional meat-sneaking 'vegetarians', until i finally became disgusted enough with my hypocrisy, and started valuing my own health and the lives of animals as much as i said i did.

[mangiati_vivi]

A few things made me start caring.

First of all, my fiancee became vegetarian, and then vegan. I'm also in culinary school, and the process of becoming more directly involved with food really made me understand that as a cook/chef, I have the obligation to source the highest-quality foods possible for my products. My fiancee would also pass along articles she got from PETA or Farm Sanctuary or wherever - that made me decide that I'd stop supporting factory farms, and only eat small-farm, organic meats. That only lasted a little while though because it occurred to me that in the end, something still had to die in order for me to eat meat, and the more I thought about it a happy, carefree life ended suddenly is almost more cruel than one where all the animal knew was pain and suffering.

From there, it was simply a matter of getting rid of old habits. Took me a little while to finally, 100% give up meat (mostly in the form of chinese dumplings, lol) but I have, and I'm glad I was able to.