My suite mate and I got in a bit of a tiff the other day while enjoying on-campus crepes from The Skinny Pancake. I ordered a crepe with ham in it (problem #1), because I like ham. The proportion size (problem #2), however, never allows for me to finish the damn thing, ham or not. When I told her I was full with scraps of food still on my plate, her vegetarian mouthpiece told me to finish the ham. I felt insulted (problem #3), probably because it felt like a personal attack on my participation of the problem nobody wants to take ownership for: Meat consumption at the cost of slaughtering animals and destroying our environment.
I explained how I was genuinely on her side—I didn’t agree with any of it, but my point was this: Whether or not I stopped eating meat would sadly not affect the amount being produced (problem #4). The ham was there before I craved it and it would’ve been bought and consumed by somebody else, if not me. She was pissed and, retrospectively, rightfully so.
I felt helpless when it comes to this. How can I, one individual, actually make an impact even if I wanted to? My mentality was that only if the whole university stopped supporting meat production, then I would be able to participate in making a difference. Until then, my tiny voice and rare indulgence in meat would not jam the wheel of worldwide want.
I was so wrong (sorry, girl). I was wrong because I didn’t place any value in purchasing power— the power to chose where I invest my money, but ultimately the ability to tell the world what I support and want to continue to see on the market. Purchasing power is something we all have access to and recognizing it is probably the absolute route of environmental havoc; I was naïve to think my consumption of a ham and cheese crepe did not impact the bigger picture.
Now, I am not advising anybody to become a vegetarian if they like eating meat. BUT I am asking us to be more aware of where our dollars go after we hand them over in order to cure our hangovers with a bacon, egg and cheese. They don’t just stop at the cash register that we painfully watch them go into and they don’t just go to the lovely people that work away in the kitchen. By purchasing anything, whether it is produced sustainably or not, we are telling this or that vendor that we agree with his/her products.
We all communicate with our dollars and problem number five is that we don’t recognize the impact that this has on the greater scheme of environmental damage. The guilt continues to be passed off—I didn’t have to feel guilty necessarily for ordering the ham because I would give up that stupid crepe if it meant I had the power to prevent that pig from being killed. Right then and there, my suitemate watched me hand the guilt over to somebody else. And yet, the producers don’t have to feel it either because consumer demand translates to “it’s not your problem because want this whether you give it to us or not.”
The dollar gives us the power to fight back and it’s not a silent transaction unless we let it be. We can use our money to have a voice and to make changes in the way the world values unsustainability. People need to start taking ownership for the fact that our spending leads to greater associations of mindless consumers (problem #6), even if we don’t want to believe that buying one crepe could put us there.
Granted, I am not perfect at realizing my purchasing power. I live in a world that is full of automatic transactions, which succeed in hiding everything underneath that makes them possible in the first place (problem #7). My ham and cheese crepe didn’t give me any visual of slaughter. I walk into the grocery store and see perfectly packaged meats, as if there was no resistance at all to its happening.
My suite mate was right and I realize now she was advocating for the recognition of our purchasing power; it is a necessary step towards making any changes we want to see. If we all work together to place more value in what seems to be a mere dollar, then we will eventually see that we already hold the reins of production.
