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This article is from Relevant Magazine’s Weekly Advice Column, Nove. 11, 2015

I’ve been reading a lot lately about eating ethically, and I’ve been trying to be more conscious about it, but sometimes it just feels like a losing battle. I feel like I often just don’t have the time, energy or budget to make sure I know where my food is coming from. I feel kind of guilty when I don’t put forth the effort, but in some ways, I’m tempted to just give up on the whole idea and go back to not worrying so much about it. So my question is: how should I handle this? Is eating ethically really that big of a deal?

– Conflicted

Dear Conflicted,

Twenty years ago, preference and cost guided my grocery shopping. Provided an item was in my price range and I liked it, I bought it. I had little concern or awareness about the hidden cost of cheap or the American food industry’s unscrupulous practices.

That all changed when I became a mother. Suddenly, I found myself scanning ingredient lists for potentially harmful additives such as aspartame, BHA and red dye #3; learning how organic farming (or alternatively, IPM) benefits the earth as well as my health; and forging a relationship with a local farmer by joining a CSA.

If you sense that God is leading you into new territory, take sustainable steps and see where that leads.

Then I read Temple Grandin’s work about the deeply disturbing commercial meat industry, and we started buying grass-fed beef whenever possible. More recently, the growing evidence regarding child labor in the chocolate industry has me searching the aisles for fair trade candy.

Conviction is not cheap, which raises the question—is ethical eating worth the extra time, energy and money?

To read the remainder of the article, click this link to Relevant Magazine.

To read another article on stewardship, click this link.

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