Ethical Consumption- Does it exist??

A principled man, my dad has always insisted on using his money to make a statement. He would look at me with disappointment if I suggested Domino’s for our family pizza night, and instead call the local pizza shop. He wouldn’t be caught dead in a Chik-fil-A after their CEO made remarks about gay marriage and suffered lemonade withdrawals for weeks.

If we turn away from chain restaurants, as many people are urging us to do, that leaves us to patronize local restaurants and entrepreneurs. In Baltimore, a city full of life, culture, and diversity, this opens up an exciting new culinary world. However, this city also bears the scars of decades of underdevelopment and poor leadership. Entire blocks are abandoned, schools are left without heat in the winter, and McDonalds outnumber local restaurants 2 to 1.

By supporting a local entrepreneur, your dollar can make sure a family has dinner on the table. According to my dad, that is the definition of ethical consumption; when your money makes a “net positive change in the world.”

Ethical consumption can be defined differently depending who you ask. Kyla Fair, a college student in Baltimore, says that ethical consumption for her means supporting Black-owned restaurants when possible. “It’s up to all of us to support people in our community,” she says, “I would rather see my money go to a Black restaurant where it could actually help someone out.”

Kyla, who is recently vegan, has been exploring Baltimore’s Black-owned plant-based restaurants, such as Land of Kush and Refocused Vegan. These restaurants offer healthy and delicious soul food to Baltimoreans, though their location in the predominantly white, central part of the city make their food inaccessible to low-income residents.

Social media activists have drawn the connection between poverty and poor eating, and many tote veganism as a healthy, accessible, and affordable movement for the Black community. Keyara Broom of vegan&adorable says that her blog helps people “feel empowered, uplifted, and educated about living a healthy lifestyle.” She targets Black, queer communities because “healthy living is strategically placed,” and “poverty, controlled redlining, and food shortage play a huge part in accessibility” to healthy eating in impoverished communities.

Eliminating animal products from your diet has been shown to help reduce the likelihood of developing chronic illnesses like diabetes and high blood pressure- illnesses that disproportionately plague the Black community in the US. Refocused Vegan is “on a mission to save the world one delicious plant-based meal at a time.” But are they serving those meals the people who would benefit the most from them?

The issue of accessibility does not fall on a few restaurants; in Baltimore, a quarter of the city’s residents live in food desserts. Contrary to what the name may imply, food desserts are not areas lacking food, instead they are areas where there is an imbalance between healthy and unhealthy foods and residents are unlikely to do their shopping elsewhere because of poor transportation options.

Black vegan restaurants, though inaccessible to some, may feel like the culmination of ethical consumption. Consumers like my father can feel good about the fact that their money is supporting local Black entrepreneurs. Additionally, the plant-based meal is free from the environmental detriment associated with meat and dairy, which are responsible for 14.5 percent of the world’s greenhouse gases each year, according to the New York Times.

However, turning away from meat and dairy products creates a demand for new crops, some of which come with their own set of ethical challenges. Staple plant-based foods like quinoa, almond milk, and even asparagus have unintended environmental or human rights consequences. The Guardian warns ethical consumers that “poor Bolivians can no longer afford their staple grain [quinoa], due to western demand raising prices.”

There are two sides to every coin, and consequences for every action. Seemingly ethical choices, like veganism or supporting black owned restaurants, come with their own set of hidden consequences. Consumption is one of the biggest challenges under capitalism because the demand for products encourages the prioritization of profit to secure those good. The demand for quinoa caused the market to boom, and corporations to maximize profit, even if it leaves local people without their staple crop.

When I present these moral qualms to my dad, he chuckles, and reminds me of the familiar troupe “There is no ethical consumption under capitalism.” Living in America, and unwilling to completely uproot his lifestyle, my dad has always known that moral choices are a balancing act- do what you can; forgive yourself for what you can’t.