Grace (Spencer Mottley)

     Grace by Gary Sayder first discusses how the principle of doing no harm/minimizing harm is a core 

principle of many religions and philosophies worldwide. This exact principle is one of the main reasons

people become so complicated over the foods they choose to eat, and served as a kind of a prerequisite to

the emergence of vegetarianism/veganism and ideas of ethical consumption in general. A contradiction

arises, however, when one relizes that regardless of what we eat, some sort of death is inevitable. "and

there is no death that is not somebody's food, no life that is not somebody's death (Gary)." This is to say 

someone must die to feed someone, but without someone dying, no life (at least animal life) can be

sustained. The author goes on to explain how the realization of this reality can lead to a sort of disgust for 

the brutality of life on our planet, but one must consider that eating things is simply a necessary evil on

Planet Earth, therefore, the principle of harm reduction must apply to all aspects of life and not just the act

of eating alone. One action we can take to be more ethical people is to say grace before every meal to

symbolize gratitude for the food we consume, and to honor the sacrifice of life needed to create that food. 

"Christ's blood and body become clear: The bread blesses you, as you bless it (Gary)." Another action we

can take to be more ethical is to eat food that was produced in an environmentally and ethically sound way

since most of the food we eat as Americans is a product of ethical atrocities and or intensive

environmental degradation. After reading this article, I was left with a question and an answer to that

question. Would eating fruits be considered taking a life?  If fruits can be harvested without killing the

parent plant, and the fruits themselves are not living organisms. In response to this question, I would say

Yes, because even though fruits aren't organisms in their own right, there are still microbes living on

fruits that are possibly being killed when consumed. 

 

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