My thoughts on ethical consumerism

Kate Budd talks about our consumerist appetites and what questions we should ask before buying

food miles are creeping up along with our apetites for exotic foods during all seasons If we keep dumping at the current rate, landfill space is set to run out in under ten year's time

Eating is the epitome of consumerism, and with obesity on the rise there’s no doubt that in our society we are quite literally consuming too much, with a negative impact not only on our health, but also on the environment. The sheer quantity of our food consumption isn’t the only problem, however, but also the nature of what we’re buying. The most convenient foods on the shelves come wrapped in a plastic tray, coated with cellophane, and placed in a glossy cardboard sleeve with a pretty picture on the front. A little excessive you might argue, but once the pre-packed habit forms it can be difficult to break. If you think about it honestly, can you really remember the last time you made an entire meal completely from scratch and free from pre-packaged plastic-wrapped ingredients? Soon, you begin to wonder how you ever made food before just-add-milk sauces and microwaves.

‘Wait!’, I hear you cry. ‘We recycle!’. As recycling is being made increasingly easier and we become more conscious about actually doing it, doesn’t this work to counteract our guzzling consumer appetites? Maybe, but most plastic containers can still not be recycled and according to recent figures the UK still dumps more household waste into landfill than any other European country. If we keep dumping at the current rate, landfill space is set to run out in under ten year’s time, and yet most of us probably still spend more time complaining about indigestion.

The way we buy our food is worrying, but that’s not to mention how far that perfectly packaged display of fine beans has travelled to make its way onto your dinner plate. Food miles creep up along with our appetites for exotic foods during all seasons, and with Christmas over, many of us won’t have spared a thought for the distance that clementine travelled to get to the bottom of our stocking, or how many borders our coffee granules crossed before reaching our cups.

We’re all guilty of it, but who can blame consumers for picking out their well-travelled goods if they’re so easily available at low prices? Expanding supermarkets mean it’s cheap and easy to satisfy even the most exotic of tastes in the middle of winter. Even those of us on a student budget don’t need to splash out too much if we fancy some blueberries on our bran flakes, and they’re probably easier to get hold of than a bag of potatoes grown in our own county. Action needs to be taken to make local foods cheaper, more desirable and more readily available. There is not much point in people avoiding flying for a holiday abroad to reduce carbon emissions if their papayas have already left them with a shamefully large carbon footprint.

We do all have the power to make ethical choices in consuming, however, and we could all do more by thinking about some key questions before proceeding to the checkout; where has this come from? Is it recyclable? How much do I really need it in the first place? By looking at where your food has come from, making a point of buying a few more local products, taking a stance against the ridiculous excesses of supermaket packaging and by cutting out the masses of carrier bags we collect every time we go shopping, we can collectively make a real difference. After all, there is only so much more we can cram into the cupboards.