"The Ethics of Eating"
An Interview with Barbara Kingsolver

 

 

            In “The Ethics of Eating”, on the Speaking of Faith online radio program, Krista Tippett interviews Barbara Kingsolver on her new book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life.  This book is about a year Kingsolver’s family spent eating primarily what they could grow or raise themselves.  Her family starts out the book living in Tucson, Arizona, but after three years of successive droughts, they moved across the country to a farm in southern Appalachia, where the land could feed them.  As they lived here they embarked on a journey of planning, planting, cooking, storing, freezing, and harvesting both plants and animals.

 

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            After living on the farm for some time, Barbara becomes aware that when she lived in Arizona, every unit of food that people consumed there had to be imported from some place else.  Even the water had to be moved in from somewhere else.  She realizes that, even though we aren’t doing it on purpose, we are turning our backs on the farmers who may be struggling to survive in our own region to import food great distances and use up enormous amounts of fossil fuels.

 

            She goes on to say that after living on the farm for quite a while, she was surprised because she didn’t really miss anything.  She started to adapt to the regional changes in food and after some reflection, came up with the idea that “we generally lack strong regional traditions of food that tie us to our place and our people.”  She even goes on to say that “the ethical choice of supporting your local farmer also tastes better.” 

 

            We, as Americans, don’t always want to work to produce our own food and put our own effort into growing or buying fresh produce.  Kingsolver believes that if we look at it as a family time, entertainment, as spiritually enlightening, or “as a destination rather than a rock in the road,” we, as a country, would do more of it.

 

            Food is more complex than just something we eat.  It can very well be linked to the thought of sin.  Tippett said “you raised chickens and the killed them” and Kingsolver told her that she responded oddly when she heard her say this.  She explains herself by saying that the way we use it is as if it is murder, a homicide.  This relates directly to sin.  Harvesting can be used instead of killing and it allows the animal to achieve its final glory.

 

            People often say that if you don’t eat all of your food you are wasting it, but even if you do eat all of your food, there are still things being wasted or harmed if it is imported: the fuel to bring it over here, the people who had to harvest it for a low wage, maybe the people who grew it, and the people who had to breathe pesticides to harvest it.  We look at our food as a product rather than work.  These are all moral situations.

 

            Krista Tippett lets us, the listener, in on how this interview changed her perspective.  She admits to going frequently to the farmer’s market more during the summer and planting a vegetable garden and making her own foods from it.  If we could all modify our life schedules or routines to do one of these two things, just think about how our world would change.