Trying to be an ethical consumer

January 2

By Alice Shopland, founder of Angel Food

I’m marking Veganuary 2025 by publishing a blog post a day.

In 2004 I realised I was living a lie. I was a 38-year-old mother of two, concerned about the environment and wanting to make ethical choices. But there was a huge gap in my awareness of my impact.

I had recently bought a house in the central Auckland suburb of Grey Lynn and was doing my best to make the house and the garden environmentally friendly. I had bought a push mower rather than a petrol one, built compost bins and created a huge vegetable garden.

At the supermarket, I took my own bags and asked that those be used for my groceries. It seems weird now that back then we were given flimsy new bags every time we shopped, often with only a few items in each bag. Some checkout assistants would make it clear they didn’t appreciate the interruption to their routine. But some would say “Good for you!” and that always made me feel great. Even though it is standard now to bring your own bags, I still rejoice a little every time I see it in action, because it is a shining example of how good change can happen.

As an ethical consumer, I preferred to buy free-range eggs, and I patted myself on the back for this compassionate choice – but if for some reason I needed a lot of eggs (like making quiche for a crowd) then I would default back to the cheaper option, and I don’t remember feeling bad about it. I bought nitrate-free bacon and preferred to buy free-range meat and dairy when I could. I had an inkling about the environmental impact of meat, but it never occurred to me that my beloved cheese could be a problem.

I had been vegetarian or semi-vegetarian from my late teens, more because I didn’t like the taste or texture of meat rather than for the animals or the environment. I returned to my omnivorous ways in my mid-20s because I wanted to fit in with friends. But now, a decade on, I was starting to get squeamish about handling meat. I particularly remember preparing a whole chicken for roasting, basting it and seasoning it – and having the unwelcome thought that this naked fleshy little body was very similar in size and shape to a newborn human.

A return to vegetarianism felt inevitable, but I resisted it. I visited an eco-community and had a choice of vegetarian or meat lasagne; I felt I ought to choose the vegetarian option but resented the “ought to” feeling so I opted for the meat.

As I got closer to deciding to be vegetarian, I held on to the excuse that it wouldn’t be fair to impose my dietary choice on my sons. (My perspective now is that whatever food you provide for your kids, you are imposing your dietary choice on them.)

Then in April 2004 I met Billy, recently arrived from the USA and vegan for 30 years. (If you think it’s challenging to be vegan in the 2020s, imagine what it must have been like in the 1970s.) He was the first vegan I’d had an in-depth chat with. Up to this point, if you’d asked me what I thought of vegans, I probably would have said they were annoying, attention-seeking extremists. Billy didn’t lecture me, but he was very clear about living his life in a way that minimised his impact on the environment and on non-human animals. I admired his moral consistency very much.