Food Justice as God’s Justice
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Eating is so profound and all-encompassing because it takes us deeply and intimately into the world. I say “intimately” because with each bite we literally take the life and death of other beings into our bodies. This is both a wonderful and a terrifying thing. Eating brings us as near to another creature as is possible—so close that we become one flesh—while also bringing that creature’s life to an end. And it’s not just us. Everything that lives eats, which means that the whole world is a place of membership and intimacy, but also life and death. Which raises the question: How do we become worthy of receiving the life and death of the creatures that become our food? Or put a slightly different way, if eating is the embodied action of intimacy with other creatures, how do we stand before these creatures without shame? I ask this because one of the most helpful ways to talk about justice is to say that we are in just relation with others when we can stand before them without shame, knowing that in our action we have sought their well-being.