Everybody (mostly) wants to eat right, but how easy is it to eat ethically at home? Ethical eating generally is defined as eating in a way that leaves a minimal effect on the environment, encourages animal welfare and supports local business.
Local experts say it just takes a little education and planning to overcome the barriers to eating locally. Here is their advice for leaping the hurdles and maximizing the benefits.
HURDLE
‘It’s too hard to find’
While many may believe it’s harder to find ethical foods, that’s not really true, locals say. You just have to look for it.
“You really have to take the time to look at the labels,” said private chef Ty Kotz, who sources ethical food for his cooking, during a recent visit to a big box grocer.
He said to avoid plastic-wrapped produce, even though many greens hold up better in plastic clamshells.
“Many things pre-wrapped in plastic have come from far away and they’ve been treated or genetically designed to hold up better for shipping, not for their taste or quality. I also never get the cut-up fruit or vegetables in plastic since cut vegetables are high in moisture and susceptible to cross-contamination and foodborne illness.”
Most important, Kotz said, was to educate yourself on what’s in season locally.
“For us in the winter, it’s root vegetables, potatoes, greens. Some things are hydroponic and grow in the winter. Citrus from Florida is in season, and if it comes from farther away, you have to think about how it got here and whether it has additives to travel well.”
Mount Pleasant functional nutritional counselor Shannon Converse said, “If something isn’t in season here, you can get it frozen. Bags of frozen fruit or vegetables with no sauce are picked at their peak ripeness and processed immediately. … you’re going to get more nutrients and usually a better taste out of properly frozen things from far away versus fresh things from far away. Plus they tend to be cheaper.”
Kotz said to look at labels for wild-caught fish and to stay away from fish from other countries that might not have U.S. standards. Like produce, fish has seasons, and he said getting to know a local fishmonger and shopping for fish in season is the best bet. Kotz said that local fish include flounder, some snapper, grouper, mahi-mahi, some tuna, wreckfish, tilefish, shrimp, crabs, clam, oysters, and Spanish and King mackerel.
For meat, Kotz said to try and find locally-raised beef without added chemicals or antibiotics. With chicken, labeling can be deceptive, he said. Tyson’s, for example, has some “cage-free” chicken, but Kotz said many places cram thousands of chickens into a barn-like structure and call that cage-free.
“A lot of the proteins will say they are sustainably-raised, but if you look at the QR code on the package, or go to the website, you learn that what they mean isn’t necessarily what we think of as sustainable. It’s a hassle, but you only have to do it once and you know which products to avoid,” Kotz said.
HURDLE
‘It’s too expensive’
Eating ethically costs more — sometimes double — because it costs more to raise animals grazing on more land, or raise produce without chemicals that artificially keep them alive.
Kotz acknowledged in the grocery store visit that it was impossible to find anything organic or unprocessed that didn’t cost significantly more than its big company counterpart.
Fortunately, in Charleston, ethical food supplies abound. Low-income residents have access to ethical food. The Lowcountry Street Grocery (LSG) pulls its colorful school bus into neighborhoods considered food deserts. The bus sells produce from local farmers and accepts the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) cards, earning extra benefits when they spend on healthy produce.
“If people sign up for this and buy from us every week, they’re getting a lot of free produce every month,” said Lindsey Barrow, LSG’s CEO. “It’s baby steps, but if we can extend their SNAP budget and people start to understand the local food system and how it works best for them, they are getting incentivized to improve their choices and buy things like local chicken.”
HURDLE
‘It takes too much time’
Even if you eat only seasonal, local vegetables, it can be difficult to figure out what to do with a knobby Jerusalem artichoke, or a spiky prickly pear. Or maybe you just don’t have the time to cook.
Olivia Myers is founder and director of LSG’s Grocery Rx, a program that teaches a class to low-income, low-food access residents. She says the organization puts recipes on their bags of produce so that those getting home delivery know how to prepare the odd stuff, and Grocery Rx pairs produce delivery with nutritional classes.
Converse said she sympathizes with both the money and the convenience argument, although she said that long-term health benefits outweigh those concerns.
“It’s common that when you are in a lower income bracket, you’re more likely to have more than one job or work more hours,” Converse said. “Convenience foods become more important, but in a way, you’re paying the same amount of money because of the high cost of packaging.”
BENEFIT
‘It keeps money local’
“People need to know that local cabbage is going to have a blueish hue, that it has lots of internal leaves and it’s not going to be cleaned up and shaved down like the things they find in the grocery store,” Barrow said. “We’re educating folks that this is what it looks like when it comes from the ground, this is when it grows, this is the season. If you’re getting it for 50 cents a pound at the grocery store, something is wrong.”
Myers added, “You have to think about the true cost of getting that food to someone’s plate. It’s a lot more than the 50 cents for a pound of cabbage. It’s also the labor practices that went into harvesting the cabbage, the environmental impact.”
Barrow said it’s important to support local, even when it seems like buying organic at the grocery store is a good option.
“People can get organic, but from where? Peru? If so, it’s sitting on a truck for two weeks, and then in a warehouse for a week,” Barrow said. “And it does nothing for the local economy. An example? This week, we’re focusing on the items farms are going to lose in the upcoming freeze: citrus, cabbage, collard greens. Those are the things that need to get out there.”
BENEFIT
‘It helps the environment’
Even with the best intentions, buying only organic and humanely-raised products, buying ethically means buying local as well because it helps the environment.
“Food miles are really just how far your food travels to get to you,” Myers said. “Nutrient density changes as food travels longer distances. Vitamin C decreases by up to 70% within a week of harvesting. At LSG, almost all of our products we get every day, and they were harvested that morning or the day before.”
BENEFIT
‘It’s healthier’
“When things are going to be distributed locally, they can be left on the vine or in the ground longer until they’re at prime ripeness, so the nutrients are at prime also,” Converse said. “While it’s nice to be able to get ripe strawberries in the winter, they’re from South America, they’re picked early, sprayed with something to stay shelf-stable.
“We actually need seasonal things. When you live somewhere colder, where the only things that grow are tuberous or more starchy things, your body actually needs those things to store energy to maintain your body temperature.”
She added that processed foods are making us an unhealthy society because they involve additives, artificial colors and flavors, preservatives, thickeners, emulsifiers or artificial sweeteners to lengthen shelf stability or enhance texture or taste.
“Splenda was 10 times sweeter than regular sugar,” Converse said. “So, when we got used to drinking things with artificial sugar, our taste buds changed and we developed a tolerance so that something with natural sugars doesn’t taste sweet anymore.”
Food experts say the best bet to be an ethical eater is to do your homework — check out the labels, find out where the food was grown and cut through the misinformation with education.
“It does require you to put in more work, but the payoff for your body, for the environment, for the economy and for your neighbors pays dividends in the long run,” Barrow said.
Eating ethically at the CW+F Festival
You can eat ethically even when you’re out. Many chefs in restaurants throughout Charleston pride themselves on using local purveyors, and the Charleston Wine & Food Festival (CW+F) promotes sustainability.
“We give chefs an ingredient per diem and a list of preferred providers to encourage them to buy local,” said CW+F Executive Director Alyssa Maute Smith.
In addition, this year the festival is working with the South Carolina Shrimp Association to hold “a massive Lowcountry shrimp boil,” Maute Smith said to highlight the use of local shrimp.
CW+F is now through March 10. Visit charlestonwineandfood.com for more information.
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