We have reached a point in American history where the farming has become so unethical that knowledge on the process would give most consumers a hard time eating. Yet, it has also become so mysterious that it's almost as if there was a magic blanket completely covering the entire food industry so that it remains almost non-existent to the American people. Our food choices affect much more than ourselves, whether we know it or not. They force millions of animals to unnecessary cruelty, they destroy our environment, they create numerous dangers to the American people, and they can even take away the life of those who are close and dear to us (Food Inc.). Yet many consumers continue to be irresponsible with their decisions and continue to create these injustices. Every day, Americans shop unethically considering only their gastronomic preferences, the financial convenience, and the time it takes to do so.
It is evident that most people do not consider ethical impact when at their local supermarket. In University of California Riverside (UCR), the majority of the students' attention goes into price and taste. When students were asked to choose their top three criteria when purchasing food, price and taste showed up 97% of the time while the next most abundant answer, convenience, showed up 56% of the time – showing the enormous effect that these factors have on consumers. On the other hand, 'ethical concern' was only chosen 6% of the time, making visible the significant lack of concern about the ethical impact of everyday food choices. (Food Choice at UCR) Although most student consumers declared that price, taste, and time convenience influenced their food decisions more than their ethical concern, it is not enough to say that those three factors create the lack of concern - so we asked what did. Most of the time, UCR students indicated that they were too busy to invest any attention to the ethical effects of their consumption.
