Much as I love the ease, I am convinced my wheeled suitcase is the devil’s work. Capacious and accommodating, it entices me to make use of all that empty space—and so I do. I pile in clothes I know I won’t need, shoes I know I won’t wear, and books I know I won’t read on my trip. But why not—there’s plenty of room in there! And since I have to check a bag, I might as well fill it.
By the time the void is filled, I can barely lift the suitcase. It’s below the weight limit for extra fees, though not in any meaningful way. Thence springs our love-hate relationship: those little wheels mean I don’t have to carry it, so I am free to abandon the idea of traveling light. Those little wheels mean I can give in to the American way of excess without consequence, despite my best intentions.
Sit in any airport terminal for five minutes, and you’ll see this submission is nearly universal—the relentless clack of small plastic wheels against floor tiles marks our collective embrace of convenience. In itself that isn’t evil, but the intense desire to avoid anything requiring effort is another story.
Our unwillingness to exert ourselves, even in a small thing like carrying our own suitcases, does not suggest openness to solving problems that may call for sacrifice and self-restraint along with inconvenience. Climate change and the obesity epidemic come to mind, perhaps because I’m watching the American parade while waiting for a flight.
Next time I travel, I promise myself, I will pack only what I can carry under my own steam—and so restrict myself to what is truly needed. Will that solve the planet’s woes? Of course not; it won’t even solve mine. But it will make me feel more self-reliant, and less slothful. As for the suitcase, it may feel rejected, but that weight I can easily shrug off.
Don’t get me started on obesity! We stopped yesterday in a conveniently located fast food place to use their restroom after not finding one at the farmer’s market where we stopped and bought delicious local veggies. In that fast food place were a number of families eating–most bordering on obesity and their round little children sat there lapping up those fried chicken bits and french fries slathered in red stuff pretending to be tomato sauce. Oh my, oh my! What is the future of all that?
The future of that will soon be here: children and young adults going blind, losing limbs, having strokes and heart attacks, and suffering other sequelae of obesity’s accompaniments: diabetes and hypertension. Another risk not often recognized: obesity raises the risk of many different cancers. Already, this generation is predicted to have a shorter lifespan than their parents–for the first time in our country’s history. And these problems will cause healthcare costs to rise even more.
Meanwhile we love convenience, and junk food is fast and easy–and cheap compared to real food. Many cannot afford fresh produce; many have no access to it based on where they live (so-called ‘food deserts‘).
We love fat, salt, and sugar, because we evolved in times when food was not nutrient- (or calorie-) dense and those nutrients were critical. Food companies manipulate their products much like tobacco companies do, to entice and addict us. It’s no accident that we love french fries and premium (super high fat) ice cream–rather, it is a deliberately engineered collision between evolution and commerce.
We are exercising less, in part due to making things too easy for ourselves (my suitcase), and so metabolic rates decline. And food is ever more highly-processed and refined, making it ever more calorie-dense (high fructose corn syrup to name just one ingredient). That’s a recipe for rampant obesity.
Subsidies for commodity corn and soybeans instead of organic produce drive our food system. The major food producers employ lobbyists to ensure that the farm bill doesn’t change in any meaningful way.
Food producers and processors have been allowed to externalize most of the real costs of their products–you can buy a fast-food cheeseburger for $1 because the farmer who grows commodity corn is subsidized, so he can sell that corn for less than his production cost to the CAFO operator, who fattens the cows on food they are maladapted to consume. The CAFO in turn sells cows cheaply to the meat-packing company, who sells to the food processors like McDonald’s and can process meat cheaply by hiring desperate workers with no other options and treating them like crap. No one in this chain–from farmer to consumer–pays directly to deal with the damage caused by pesticides, destructive farming practices that deplete the soil, mass quantities of animal waste and the pollution it generates, food-borne illnesses like E. Coli, antibiotic resistance, and other health problems (including obesity) caused by eating the typical American diet. Of course we all pay, indirectly, and we all suffer. The unimaginable cruelty inflicted on food animals isn’t even in this equation but is equally worthy of discussion.
Those of us who can afford to do so are obligated to vote with our food dollars in support of sustainable, real food. Question the source of your food, read labels, don’t buy or eat anything whose ingredients you can’t pronounce or define. Eat less meat–or, better, none at all. If you do eat meat or eggs, make sure the animals were treated humanely. Most important, educate yourself, your family, and your friends.
Suggested reading (just a start; there are many more):
Peter Singer: the Ethics of What we Eat
Michael Pollan: the Omnivore’s Dilemma
Eric Schlosser: Fast Food Nation
Michael Jacobson: 6 Arguments for a Greener Diet
Jonathan Safran Foer: Eating Animals
Michael Faber: Under the Skin (fiction)