Ethical Eating and the Concerns Why it is Necessary to Observe it

Ethical Eating (Name)
Ethical eating involves taking into consideration the needs of human beings, animals, and the environment in food choices. Our current food system is broken as it is characterized by adulteration and contamination. According to Coxall, the nutritional safety and quality of our food have been on the decline for the past seven decades. As a result, diet-related illnesses such as heart disease, obesity, cancers, and strokes are at their epidemic levels. The agricultural environment is also declining with the deterioration of diet. Also, we throw away a third of our food despite it being enough to feed the nearly a billion hungry people in the world (Coxall). The rise of ethical consumption in the last few decades, however, aims to change the pattern.
Contents
1 Definitions
2 Concerns
1 Abuse of animals
2 Abuse of human rights
3 Environment
4 Human health
5 Food waste
6 Policy
3 Practices that promote ethical eating
7 Eating what is in season locally
8 Eating real food and avoiding processed ones
9 Organic buying and eating
4 See also
5 References
6 Further reading
7 External links
Definitions
Felix defines ethical eating as buying and consuming food produced without abuse to the environment, animals, and humans (11).
The Unitarian Universalist Association defines ethical eating as the application of the principles of health, compassion, and sustainability to food choices.
According to Jung, Klein, and Caldwell “ethical foods” refer to those foods that convey and symbolize particular value systems, which are often presented regarding justness and rightness (7).
Concerns
The following are concerns that make it necessary for human beings to observe ethical eating.
Abuse of animals
Most of the processes involved in the production of animal products are neither ethical nor sustainable. According to Felix, over 99% of chickens in the US are raised on factory farms and as such, they do not see grass or the sun (7). The huge sheds in which they live in are usually tightly packed with many other chickens such that they cannot spread their wings. Also, the chickens may wade in waste that is not regularly cleaned. When the waste is flushed out, it pollutes groundwater as well as nearby rivers. The same applies to waste from cows that are raised to make hamburgers (Felix 8). Therefore, such unethical farming methods that abuse animals characterize the food production processes.
Abuse of human rights
A key concern in food ethics is the abuse of human rights. According to Felix, given that most of the imported foods come from large corporations, small farmers can be negatively affected (9). Large corporations can easily force small-scale farmers to sell their produce at low prices. These corporations, in turn, raise prices as they seek to make more money.
In most cases, the profits made from the sale of farm products are not shared with their workers. Also, some of these corporations go to the extent of using slaves to grow foods (Felix 9). The food industry is thus characterized to some extent with the abuse of human rights.
Environment
The food production processes also impact the environment negatively. The foods ...