Mary Eberstadt with the Hoover Institution just published a paper called Is Food the New Sex? In it, she gives an example of Betty and Jennifer. Betty is from the 1950s and believes that sex outside of marriage is morally wrong. Betty also believes that what you eat is just a matter of personal taste. Jennifer is today in her 20s and believes that sex (who, when, how) is a matter of personal taste, not a moral judgement. However, Jennifer eats in a way she believes is morally correct. She eats pastured meat, free range eggs, local produce, and sustainably caught fish.

When opening Sea Rocket Bistro, Elena and I knew we wanted to serve as much local, small farm and fisherman direct food as possible. Everyone seemed to have a list of reasons about why local, small farm food was the right thing to do. Many of the reasons looked to me like moral judgements which I was uncomfortable with. In the article mentioned above, she talks about how the food choices people make are a sort of new religion. At least that's how I understood the article.

What is seen as the right thing to eat varies a lot from person to person. Some may see the right thing as not eating meat, others may see it as not eating non-industrial meats and foods, and others as eating organic foods because of environmental concerns. There are dozens of possible criteria and each of these criteria to me are personal preferences, not moral right or wrong. There are lots of good reasons for why to eat a certain way, but I don't believe we should make a semi-religion out of it and surround it with a moral code.

What resonates with me the most about why to search out local, small farm, fishermen direct food is how much more fun and fulfilling it is. There are many ways to make life fulfilling (doing something amazing, pushing yourself to the limit, spending time with wonderful people), and food is just another one of those things. In my opinion, what you eat won't make you morally better than anyone else, but it will make your life more fun and fulfilling than it would otherwise be.