Food Ethics

[Editor's note: This podcast was originally published in error under the title "Livestock Lost." For that series, please see last week's podcast, "Local Meat? Not in My Backyard," and the previous week's podcast, "Slaughterhouse Rules."]

This broadcast will address the question of responsibility: should it be you and me who feel personally responsible for ensuring a socially and environmentally responsible food system, or should it be the corporations that have had such a heavy hand in creating the dominant food system of today.

In November 2006, Princeton University hosted the conference "Food, Ethics and the Environment." The sessions were made up of some of the most well known names in the world of food activism. A number of the speakers were critical of the dominant food system, including author Eric Schlosser, who raised the topic of personal versus corporate responsibility to address the damage our global food system has had on our health and the planet.

On the following day of the conference, an executive from McDonald's Corporation presented his company's approach to corporate responsibility. This broadcast will further explore the issues raised by these two speakers.

Speakers

Eric Schlosser, author, Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal (Calif.) -- Schlosser started his career as a journalist with the The Atlantic Monthly in Boston, Massachusetts. He quickly gained recognition for his investigative journalism at the magazine, earning two awards within two years of joining; he won the National Magazine Award for reporting for this two-part series "Reefer Madness" and "Marijuana and the Law," and he won the Sidney Hillman Foundation award for his article "In the Strawberry Fields." Aside from The Atlantic Monthly, Schlosser's work has appeared in Rolling Stone, Vanity Fair, The Nation and The New Yorker.

Bob Langert, vice-president corporate social responsibility, McDonald's Corporation (Oak Brook, Ill.) -- On Jan. 19, Langert posted the first entry on the company blog Open for Discussion. Langert wrote, "The purpose of this blog" is "to open our doors to corporate social responsibility (CSR) at McDonald's -- to share what we're doing and learn what you think." His second post highlights McDonald's long-standing "partnership with Conservation International."

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