How many of us has ever picked up some nicely packaged food item, looked at it with a curious face, turned it 30 degrees or so this way and that, and checked out the nutritional information? We know our calcium content, our potassium and bicarbonate riboflavin number 34 magic color additive vitamin C daily caloric intake and, just this once, I'll ignore the sodium and sugars that are 3400% more than my daily need because potassium and vitamin K are so boring, not sexy like those saturated fats and the ambiguous yet tantalizing artificial flavors. Yeah, we heft that product in our hand with a knowing look. We make informed decisions, saturated and unsaturated decisions, all with a twist of the wrist and a twinkle in our eye. And the price tag helps too.
Consequently, we are accustomed to the Analysis. Some might say we worship the analysis--covertly of course. We pride ourselves on making the best decision there is to make because we do know best. We analyze the price and compare with other prices compared to the relative amounts we have in our pockets or bank or whatever our credit limit might be. We analyze quality, texture, packaging, presentation. Please please me shiny plastics! Tickle my aesthetic! And some even go so far as to know those crazy flavors manufactured along the Jersey Turnpike to wow our taste buds and perplex our vocabulary. I admit, I purposely overlook them sometimes.
And knowing that we are discerning consumers, appropriately sophisticated and justifiably thrifty, I offer an opportunity to further the Analysis, to deepen that moment of consideration where the item in our hand teeters on the brink of our basket and a new home or a return to that long and dusty shelf full of others just like him. I make a call for a second Information Panel on the packaging of not only food, but everything we buy, from tires to new shiny phones to cigarettes to you name it.
This informational panel will detail the human cost, the environmental cost, the social cost. Naturally, I am open for more suggestions.
You see, I want to be able to glance at the cell phone packaging and know how many people have died in the DRC over control of the resources that allow my phone to be able to ring La Vida Loca or Bad to the Bone. Only 30 dead for this thing! That's a deal! I want to fill up my vehicle (chosen after lengthy consideration of its environmental Information Panel, of course) with gas from the gas station which suits my tastes: Oil from Sudan? That's twenty years of civil and intertribal and interethnic warfare compared to only a little less than a decade from this Middle Eastern oil. I'll pick up some grapes at the store but only if they've been picked by underpaid migrant workers who have fled their own country because conditions there are so horrible, they had no choice but to leave their families in order to make some money. Eggs for breakfast, but only from Happy Chickens. Buy this Argentinian Beef because it's the best and boy oh boy, does it really benefit from that transcontinental journey to my store here. The frozen storage cost alone is enough to make me buy it! And I do enjoy my smokes, hand picked by eight year old's in Nicaragua who use that super strong pesticide (illegal in the States) without any gloves or mask. That's flavor, my friend! Imported gigantic enormous big screen all the way from Japan? How much CO2 did you say? I'm sold!
So you see the possibilities. With these nifty Informational Panels, we can see how many people have died, how many trees have been mowed down, how many barrels of oil have been used, how many children exploited, how many politicians have been enriched, how many wars continue, how many families are torn apart, oh man, the list goes on and on. We can see, truly see, how our choices as consumers impact the world around us. The moment we walk into a store, we can affect the world.
Yes, the moment we consider our role in this global age, we can affect the world.
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