Posted on November 30, 2008 by zoeweil

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Widening Our Criteria for MOGO Food Choices

Posted on July 15, 2009 by zoeweil

Food is in the news, and many people are considering what’s MOGO (Most Good) when they make their food choices. But making MOGO food choices can be complicated. Taking into consideration what’s best for people, animals, the environment, and oneself in a system that is extremely complex isn’t easy.

Periodically, a food movement will emerge that seems to answer the question, “What’s the MOGO diet?” For about two decades the vegan movement has grown substantially because it has made connections between the protection of individual health, world hunger, ecological protection, and animal rights. The organic food movement has also grown considerably, too, buttressing the vegan movement with another lens through which to make MOGO food choices.

Recently, the locavore movement has emerged, and its proponents argue that eating locally, including eating animal-based foods and choosing local over organic when local organic is unavailable, is MOGO, because local foods require less energy to transport and help communities create food security in unreliable energy times.

But then there are studies that show that eating foods considered local (within 150 miles) that are transported by small farmers in small trucks is actually less energy-efficient than eating foods grown further away but trucked in a single large vehicle, and still other studies show that local meat still contributes more global warming gasses than non-local non-animal foods. Such studies don’t diminish the positive effects of truly local food (within 20 miles for example), and the food security that can happen through sustainable, local agriculture, but they point out that local shouldn’t be the only lens for MOGO food.

I believe that when we grab onto a food concept, like vegan or local or organic and make all our choices through this single lens, we limit our capacity to make truly MOGO food choices. It’s much easier to choose foods through a single lens, and I understand the desire to do so to simplify such complicated choices, but instead, we can consider several lenses when choosing food.

My criteria for MOGO food, which I describe at greater length in my book, Most Good, Least Harm, are these:

As often as possible, choose foods that are:

  • Locally and organically produced.
  • Plant-based.
  • In season.
  • Produced through fair trade practices.
  • Whole and unprocessed.
  • Not overly-packaged, and if packaged, only in recycled and recyclable materials.
  • Low in saturated fats and cholesterol.
  • Produced without refined sugars and without hydrogenated vegetable oils.
  • Produced without abuse towards and exploitation of animals.
  • Not genetically engineered.

Bon appetit,

~ Zoe

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How Do We Change?

Posted on July 13, 2009 by zoeweil

Note: Zoe’s on vacation this week, so this is a repost that was originally posted 6/30/08.

Artist and changemaker Chris Jordan asks several questions in his fascinating presentation at the TED conference. Through his powerful photographs of human behavior and mass consumption, Jordan attempts to make our unconscious societal choices conscious so that we can change destructive and unhealthy behaviors and systems. Jordan’s captivating wall-sized photographs depict, in a compelling and often visually stunning manner, such mundane realities as the number of plastic cups we use on airplane flights in the U.S. each day or the number of people who die from smoking cigarettes every year. By making our societal choices accessible in this way, he invites viewers to reflect upon their own individual contributions (presumably both positive and negative) to the world. I consider Jordan’s work to be a spectacular example of humane education through art.

But what I found most compelling about this particular presentation was his question to the audience. How do we change?

It’s an old question with a long pedigree of distinguished and not-so-distinguished answers. Psychologists, philosophers, anthropologists, preachers, and advertisers alike have all sought to understand the forces that mold us, and then to mold us toward their own aims.

This is true for humane educators as well. The primary goal of humane education is to provide people with the knowledge, tools, and motivation to create a peaceful and humane world. Note that humane education seeks to do more than provide relevant information and skills; it must also instill desire to create a good world and motivate its recipients to be engaged changemakers. We humane educators are in the influence business, attempting to answer the question “How do we change?” so that we can help our students change themselves and the world for the better.

From my perspective as a humane educator, I believe that we change:

  • By emulating those who inspire us most (so humane educators must model a positive message as fully as possible)
  • Through daily practice and a commitment to live with integrity (so humane educators must provide maps for such a practice)
  • When the choices before us include convenient, healthy, and positive options (so humane educators must offer these and work toward their development)
  • When we are part of healthy systems and live in healthy situations (so humane educators must help create such systems and situations for our students)
  • With support from others who also strive to change for the better (so humane educators must provide such support)
  • By pursuing lifelong learning and wisdom (so humane educators must inspire others so that they are passionate about learning)
  • When we have hope (so humane educators must offer painful truths about current realities in ways that do not create despair but rather engender enthusiasm for new possibilities)

Our task as humane educators is to create change, and so we must seek to answer Jordan’s question so that our work has the greatest impact. I would love to hear your thoughts and ideas for answering this perennial question.

~ Zoe

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The Low-Carbon Diet

Posted on July 10, 2009 by zoeweil

“Full disclosure: I love to eat meat. I was born in Memphis, the barbecue capital of the Milky Way Galaxy. I worship slow-cooked, hickory-smoked pig meat served on a bun with extra sauce and coleslaw spooned on top.

“My carnivore’s lust goes beyond the DNA level. It’s in my soul. Even the cruelty of factory farming doesn’t temper my desire, I’ll admit. Like most Americans, I can somehow keep at bay all thoughts of what happened to the meat prior to the plate.

“So why in the world am I a dedicated vegetarian? Why is meat, including sumptuous pork, a complete stranger to my fork at home and away? The answer is simple: I have an 11-year-old son whose future—like yours and mine—is rapidly unraveling due to global warming. And what we put on our plates can directly accelerate or decelerate the heating trend.”

So begins Mark Tidwell’s essay, “The Low-Carbon Diet,” in Audubon Magazine.

This thought-provoking and well-researched essay makes the argument that for the sake of the planet, we should all dramatically reduce our consumption of meat, dairy and eggs, even if they are produced locally.

Here’s another excerpt:

“Indeed, accounting for all factors, livestock production worldwide is responsible for a whopping 18 percent of the world’s total greenhouse gases, reports the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization. That’s more than the emissions of all the world’s cars, buses, planes, and trains combined. “So why do we so rarely talk about meat consumption when discussing global warming in America? Compact fluorescent bulbs? Biking to work? Buying wind power? We hear it nonstop. But even the super-liberal, Prius-driving, Green Party activist in America typically eats chicken wings and morning bacon like everyone else. While the climate impacts of meat consumption might be new to many people, the knowledge of meat’s general ecological harm is not at all novel.”

You can read the whole essay here.

~ Zoe

Image courtesy of PlayfulLibrarian via Creative Commons.

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Educating the Heart: We Must Create Schools of Conscience

Posted on July 8, 2009 by zoeweil

Since I’ve been writing a lot about what education is for (such as here and here), here’s another perspective, published in May in Educational Leadership.

Author Charles Haynes argues that education’s highest aim should be to “create moral and civic habits of the heart,” and his essay is compelling. Here are some excerpts:

“At a time when the United States faces unprecedented challenges at home and abroad, public schools must do far more to prepare young people to be engaged, ethical advocates of ‘liberty and justice for all.’ Yes, reading and math are important. But what matters most is what kinds of human beings are reading the books and doing the math.

“After all, the character of a nation is determined by the character of its people. ‘Is there no virtue among us?’ asked James Madison. ‘If there be not, we are in a wretched situation. … To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people, is a chimerical idea’ (Padover, 1953, p. 48).

“That’s why, as a lifelong advocate of social justice and First Amendment rights, I vigorously support character education and civic learning as high priorities in public education.”

Haynes goes on to recount a powerful story that illustrates his point that we need to educate the heart:

“A story I heard during a trip to Israel in August 2008 gave me a deeper appreciation for how much is at stake. I was standing in the Garden of the Righteous at Yad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem. Our guide was relating stories of the Righteous—non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews—as we looked at the trees planted in their honor. During a pause in the narrative, one of our group, Richard Foltin of the American Jewish Committee, said almost inaudibly, ‘Not all of them are named.’ I turned and asked what he meant. He replied, ‘I am standing here now because of a man whose name I do not know.’ When pressed to explain, he told this story:

‘My parents are Holocaust survivors. When my father arrived at Auschwitz, they were separating those who would be killed immediately from those who would be put to work. A guard called out, “Is anyone here a welder?” and my father shouted, “I am,” although he actually knew nothing about welding.

‘They sent my father and a few others to the welding shop and told them to make a sample of their work for inspection. My father stood there looking at the equipment, despairing over what to do. Then, almost imperceptibly , the German foreman in charge of the shop slipped a finished piece of work in front of my father. My father picked it up and took it to the guards, and he passed inspection.

‘Throughout the rest of his time in the camp, the foreman continued to secretly help my father—to cover for him when necessary. And my father survived. They didn’t speak. We don’t even know his name.’

When Richard ended his story, I could not help but wonder, why did that nameless German risk his life for a Jew he did not know? More broadly, why did any of the thousands now called the Righteous respond with compassion and courage when so many others were either complicit or indifferent?

Haynes’ answer lies in education for character.

~ Zoe

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Telling the Ecological and Economic Truth

Posted on July 6, 2009 by zoeweil

In an interview in this month’s issue of Ode Magazine, Lester Brown, founder of the WorldWatch Institute refers to Oystein Dahle, a former vice-president of Exxon in Norway, to whom he attributes this quote:

“Socialism collapsed because it did not allow the market to tell the economic truth and capitalism may collapse because it does not allow the market to tell the ecological truth.”

Robert Shetterly (activist and artist who has created the Americans Who Tell the Truth portrait series) and I gave a talk recently on the purpose of education. During the presentation I asked the audience to analyze a fast food cheeseburger to determine its effects — both positive and negative — on ourselves, other people, animals and the environment. After this analysis, I asked the audience what systems are in place that perpetuate this kind of food, and we explored agribusiness, politicians funded by lobbyists and industry, the school lunch program, advertising, and so on.

One woman said capitalism was the system to blame for the cheeseburger, and I asked her to say more. On the one hand it appears that capitalism perpetuates such unhealthy food systems because the market supports their success, but the truth is that we don’t have a capitalist system when it comes to food production, and fast food isn’t really a result of free market capitalism.

Without the massive subsidies, paid for with tax dollars, for water, grazing land, and dairy production; without the subsidies for escalating health care as people become obese and succumb to diabetes, heart disease, cancers, and other illnesses related to unhealthy diets; without the cheap labor of illegal immigrants in our slaughterhouses and on our farms; without the tax-payer-funded costs of our military protection of oil sources which are necessary for such food production, and much more, those fast food cheeseburgers would be prohibitively expensive. It is because we’ve socialized many of our systems that we don’t actually pay the true costs of a fast food cheeseburger at the register.

Socialism, in this case, tells neither the economic nor the ecological truth.

There are economists, activists, thinkers and solutionaries who are working to develop and promulgate systems that do tell the truth. Peter Barnes, for example, author of Capitalism 3.0, puts forth a system that protects the commons while maintaining the healthy and positive aspects of capitalist economies.

Rob’s and my presentation addressed the purpose of education. We believe that education should engage youth in the restoration and success of democracy and produce citizens who pursue the truth so that they may become solutionaries themselves.

~ Zoe

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Education Must Be the Key to Creating a Better World

Posted on July 3, 2009 by zoeweil

Recently, I’ve been writing essays and speaking about this question: What is education for?. I’ve just read an essay, published almost two years ago, by British educator Susan Bassnett. It seems Britain, like the U.S., faces the same current challenges in schooling, and at least some are questioning the direction and approach of reform.

Bassnett writes:

“Education is about teaching children to grow up into adults who will take some responsibility for the world they inhabit, and who therefore will understand why they cast their votes in elections; why concern about climate change is essential; why preventivehealthcare matters; why history remains relevant in modern society; why it is important to learn about how other cultures operate in a globalised, computer-driven, but also divided world.

“Perhaps above all, education is about teaching people how to think and how to question what they see and hear. The Burmese monks willing to risk death to challenge a repressive government are educated enough to understand that collective action combined with courage can bring about change. The Taliban hardliners who throw acid on women teachers in Afghanistan because women should not have the right to be educated are the antithesis of those Burmese martyrs.

“Children in British schools need to hear about both those worldviews, need to be able to weigh them up, understand how they came to exist, debate the rights and wrongs of each and so discover the value of freedom of speech and the right of human beings of all sexes, races, religions and classes to dignity and to education. In short, they need to be educated to live fully in the world, not merely trained to perform a set of limited and limiting tasks.”

The debate is on. What should education be for? We must all participate in this conversation, as it holds the key to creating a better world for all. If we are neither parents nor students, we may not concern ourselves with this question, tackling instead what we consider to be more pressing issues. But education is perhaps the most pressing issue, as it offers a path toward creatively addressing everything else. It may not be sexy; it may not seem like the most important debate to have, but if we fail to address the purpose of schooling, we may fail at averting the mounting catastrophes that loom across the globe.

~ Zoe

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Humane Education Fits, Whatever the Subject

Posted on July 1, 2009 by zoeweil

I write and speak often about how humane education can infuse all core subjects in school. Most of the time I talk about social studies, math and science. In this article about efforts at a Costa Rican university to bring humane issues into the foreign language program (in this case, English), we see a wonderful example of how what at first glance might appear to be a subject thatdoesn ’t lend itself to humane education (learning a foreign language), can in fact become a vehicle for improving language skills, doing good, and connecting language acquisition to several other relevant and meaningful skills and contributions.

~ Zoe

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Profits Follow Good Ethics

Posted on June 29, 2009 by zoeweil

In the world of business, profit is everything, so when a study reveals that doing good is more profitable, all of us who are trying to make a difference in the world should cheer.

From the recent article, “Sustainable Success”:

“But here’s a lesson many executives have yet to learn: A commitment to improving social and environmental conditions in the developing countries where a company operates is the key to maximizing the profits and growth of those operations. That’s the conclusion we drew after studying more than 200 companies. As a group, the companies most engaged in social and environmental sustainability are also the most profitable.”

You can read the whole article here.

~ Zoe

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Teaching Our Children Common Sense Should Be…Common Sense

Posted on June 26, 2009 by zoeweil

After running up our local mountain, my husband suggested we stop at our co-op to get some cereal. Since I didn’t know when we’d be back in town, I decided to stock up on other things as well, including two bottles of wine. The cashier was eighteen and legally can’t ring up wine so she called another employee to okay the purchase. I jokingly said I’d be happy to be carded since that would make me feel like I still looked young(ish). She turned to my husband instead and asked if he had an ID. He didn’t, because I was the one who was driving, so he hadn’t brought his wallet for our morning run; but he wasn’t buying the wine anyway. I was. So I pulled out my ID to show her (not that she asked me, mind you, but the whole thing seemed pretty funny, and I wanted to comply and feel younger at the same time — which could be the topic of another blog post). Just so you know I’m about to turn 48 and my husband is 51. Now he’s a very young looking 51, but there’s no way to mistake him for a twenty-year-old. The woman became somewhat agitated. She said that she was required to check his ID if we were together. This seemed crazy to us, given that I can buy wine when my 15-year-old son is with me, but she was pretty insistent. The cashier tried to be the voice of reason and suggested that they could use their common sense, but the woman was still uneasy and uncomfortable about me buying the wine. She did allow it, but reluctantly, and with the comment that she shouldn’t let me buy it, but she would this time. Our exchange about carding a middle-aged woman had suddenly turned surreal.

I later clarified the policy at our co-op and researched the Maine laws on carding, and while it’s within the rights of an employee to card people who are with someone who’s purchasing alcohol (let’s say you have a bunch of young looking people hanging around the beer cooler handing the buyer six packs – you can ask to see everyone’s ID in the group), it’s not a law that you must card people who are with the purchaser. You can exercise your judgment.

Which leads me to common sense. Rob Shetterly’s commencement speech was a clarion call for common sense. It is common sense not to despoil the ecosystems that support your own life (or it should be). It is common sense to seek nonviolent resolutions to conflict before going to war (or it should be). It is common sense not to use up limited resources (or it should be). It is common sense not to spend money you don’t have and can’t be confident you’ll acquire (or it should be).

I think that our common sense, while innate, is curiously diminished in school. We are asked to memorize names and dates of battles and fill in circles on standardized tests to demonstrate that we’ve followed these rules, yet commonsense might suggest that such learning and acquisition of facts isn’t really useful and that our time could be better spent. It is common sense to finish a thought, a paragraph, a sentence or a discussion, but when the bell rings in school, students are taught to respond like robots rather than learners and immediately get up and move to the next class. It is common sense to eat healthy, tasty and nutritious foods, but our school cafeterias by and large serve foods that are anything but. It is commonsense to allow children to move their energetic bodies, but our schools confine them in hard chairs the vast majority of their days and are taking away or lessening the time for recess.

After years of learning to suppress their common sense, is it any wonder that we have learned not to trust ourselves and our good minds? Common sense tells us we should foster our children’s common sense as they grow up, and cultivate their capacity to think clearly and act wisely (or it should be).

~ Zoe

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Hostility Toward Good: Don’t Criticize a Good Deed — Go Do One

Posted on June 24, 2009 by zoeweil

David Ashby, a 14-year-old boy from Orlando, Florida, is walking from his home to Washington, D.C. to raise awareness about homeless children. You can read about this remarkable young man here. Then read the comments. They begin with such venom and vitriol, it’s hard to imagine that the authors of these criticisms read the same article I did — about a boy who cares enough to dedicate his summer to walking 1,100 (southern!) miles, without knowing where he’ll sleep or what he’ll eat each day. When I read such comments I always feel so sad and frustrated, but I am not surprised by them. Unfortunately, finding fault with good deeds is all too common. People who work to protect animals are often criticized by others for “not caring about people” or “wasting time on animals.” People who give money, rather than food, to those who are homeless are criticized for aiding and abetting their potential cigarette, alcohol or drug habits. Recently, brilliant and inspiring humane educator Christopher Greenslate , who has changed the lives of his high school students and helped them to become effective and engaged change agents, was criticized for sending his students a ‘bad message’ because of his tattoos and piercings.

Sometimes our critiques are important, as in the case with the well thought-out commentary on cause marketing I mentioned in a previous post. They help us make wiser, more efficacious choices about how to make a difference. But too often they are just mean-spirited, as in these few comments about David Ashby. One of the criticisms of David is that he could do more for homeless children by getting a summer job and donating his earnings directly to them. But I don’t believe this is true. Were he to work all summer and donate his earnings to the homeless he would do something good, certainly, but the contribution would be minor compared to what might ensue from his walk. Gaining media attention for the travesty of child homelessness in the richest nation on earth has the potential to do so much more than a summer job ever could. It has the potential to influence changes in systems that perpetuate homelessness among children. Thank goodness for kids like David. Thank goodness that they think of creative ways to draw attention to pervasive problems so that we can solve them at their roots.

How much easier to criticize others than to plunge into good work ourselves. If ever you find yourself ready to criticize a good deed, go do a good deed instead. Take that energy and make a positive difference.

~ Zoe

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