Why and How "Ethical"?

When I started this blog as project with a colleague, I had in mind a place to put discussions about food and cooking that contributed to the active discussions about food ethics.  This was over two years ago, and this blog has been sitting around, sending me "updates" on its status every week; every week I deleted the email thinking, "I should really do something about this blog..."

Well, since leaving the Big Evil Social Media site, I decided to use this as a repository of my food-related activities and musings as a way for friends and other potentially interested readers to keep abreast (and athigh, awing, etc) of my adventures with food.  While I enjoy cooking at home, I also love to eat local specialties on my travels, and so discussions of those will also be included, as I expect to travel quite a bit from here on out.

But back to the main questions:

1) WHY "ethical cook"?

2) HOW will you decide what is "ethical"?

These are both good philosophical questions, and as I not only love me some philosophy, but specialize in ethical flavors of philosophical thinking, I want both of these questions to become provocations and challenges for myself and readers.  As to the "why": at the time I set this up, there was a plan in the ether to set up a network of activities around eating better, choosing more sustainable and/or healthy foods, and encouraging people to find ways to make their lives better through better use of food.  These all speak to different sides of ethics: virtue, consequentialist, deontological, pragmatic.  I do believe, however, that "ethical" is not an end-point any more than "enlightenment" is an end-point for some practitioners of Buddhism; it is the journey and the self-reflection that in itself has value.  Yet I did not want to say "more ethical," because that implies I am comparing myself to others in being "more ethical than thou."  So I'm sticking with this phrase as a reminder to myself that when I choose foods and preparations, I am making choices with ethical results.

This leads to the second question: how do I decide what is ethical?  Since the act of eating in itself does cause the death (and sometimes suffering) of other living things (unless you are a plant person who can photosynthesize), I don't subscribe to the "don't eat things with faces" creed, although I respect those who take the mindful step to act by that standard and avoid feeding foods to them that would offend.  Much of ethics is about being more aware of the needs of oneself and of others.  I have several friends and family who have allergies or other types of food restrictions that mean that if I cook for them, I need to exercise consideration and caution by finding appropriate substitutions and avoiding cross-contamination.  Things that I take for granted, like my preference for peanut oil as my "all-purpose frying oil", can cause great harm to others. "Ethical" is not just about avoiding harm, but also about choosing appropriate actions to one's situation.  Thus, if my body does not do well with certain foods (carbs tend to bother me in excess, especially highly processed ones), then it is ethical for me to find ways to reduce my consumption of those foods or to find other versions that do not bother me so much. 


Since I have not gone to culinary school, there is more trial-and-error involved for me in certain efforts, like baking.  Baking is the big religious mystery where you devotedly follow all the steps, place your offering into the oven-temple, and pray that it will all turn out well in the end.  You cannot keep checking on it, you cannot poke it, and the simple act of questioning its existence by opening the door could "kill" your baked good.  Thus, I cannot do a last-minute rescue of a coffeecake if it's not working well with whole wheat flour the way I can save a saute or curry or even stir fry.  So if I find a successful substitution, I want to document it. 

I also have been turning to processing of more whole foods: roasting fresh tomatoes for later use in sauces, de-boning/de-skinning chicken thighs to save money and reduce factory contamination, making my own stocks from scratch.  These are also ethical changes for me because they save money, allow more control over what I consume, and force me to take some time for my own well-being.  Those activities will also be documented, along with some tricks I have learned as a single person cooking for only one or two. 

And so with that, I bid you, "Allaz Cuisine!"