Sunday, January 3, 2010

Vegetarian Turned Humanitarian

If vegetarians eat vegetables, what do humanitarians eat?

That's a question I've been thinking about, and the answer is not humans.

At Urbana, Intervarsity's student missions conference, I was challenged to live justly. I have to admit, justice was a lofty concept that I didn't quite know how to do. To me, it is taking care of the refugee, widow and orphans, the oppressed in society, because that's part of how God defines justice. However, that's a hard thing to do daily as a student. The business track challenged me with a concept called ethical consumption.

Ethical consumption is the application of our moral values and ethical standards to our consumer habits.
- Everyday Justice by Julie Clawson

The things we buy, the food we eat, the beverages we drink and the clothes we wear can be linked to human trafficking and/or modern day slavery without us knowing. I want to be an intentional consumer. Granted, I still have much to learn and research, such as which products are produced ethically and justly. But this is the beginning of my adventure. Thankfully, being a vegetarian for half a year has helped me with being aware of what I eat.

Shift demand, don't boycott. I realize that being a vegetarian, or humanitarian, or whatever can't work if it is just one person. There needs to be a large enough of a population to shift demand to ethically made products. Will you join me in living justly?

4 comments:

  1. Remember those bananas, tomatoes, and sugar!

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  2. shifting demand as a large group also doesn't make that much difference unless the people you are trying to change are told that the shift is being done in order to force them to change.

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  3. mm, that is true. as a marketing major, businesses will know by observing the market trends and through research, where they will find the opinions of customers who feel a need to change.

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  4. I agree with Jerry and your point. The reason lots of companies went green is not only the government kickbacks and goodwill placed upon the companies, but because it also saved money in the long run (save the R&D costs).

    If you can find a selling point that caters to the financial aspect of things (ethical is already covered), I'm sure that it'll be well received.

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