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Comment by mc32 | Hacker News Reader

I would hesitate to call food consumption “consumerism” —save perhaps gluttony and fancy restaurants.

Now, perhaps they mean that they productize something which is unachievable by most people at home (few would attempt to make homemade beyondmeat protein for food) and so they are facilitating the consumption of something that otherwise would not get consumed...

Ethical excess clothes, unneeded cosmetics, frivolous throwaway home items, etc., yes sure, I’m sure there are ethical alternatives just as there are “organic” poisons too.

A possible key alternative source of proteins I don’t think merits the label/adjective “consumerist”

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Hey HN: I’d like to read a compelling counter to the above versus seeing it turn grey without any meaningful discussion via drive by downvoting.

That said, mc32, with regards to food and consumption as you’ve put it, and in this specific context-I wonder if “post-consumerism” is a turn of phrase that you would consider apt? Rather than being against the machinations of excess known to be associated with industrial meat production, it seems to be moved beyond, and dispassionate towards “fixing” these machinations in favor of entirely different ethical choices.

Curious to hear your thoughts.

Post-consumer(ist) would reframe it such that we evaluate it as something existing after transcending consumerism. We may get there, some day.

I’m against calling something that’s basic to human sustenance “consumerist”. We might disagree with peoples choices of food or the source of those foods or whether it’s a small farmer or BigAg.

I remain opposed to calling basic foods (contrasted with luxury foods) part of consumerism. Meats and such have been part of human nutrition for quite some time. Unlike clothing (and other things) you don’t typically buy unnecessary excess for the sake of it or to fulfill some non essential need that’s already been met.

As I admit we can reproach people for unwise choices in food but I can’t consider it consumerism (I would allow some narrow exceptions).

I admit the tone is heavy, which makes introspection (reflecting about self consumerist tendencies) unpleasant. But as I understand it, consumerism is a spectrum, just like veganism.

The term "ethical consumerism" is unfortunate, because it contains the word "consumerism", whose meaning has gained negative connotations. A frequent alternate term for the concept is "ethical consumption", which sidesteps the unintended value judgments that some people hear in the other term.

That works for me. “Consumerism” is unfortunate in that it carries baggage, intended and maybe unintended because it’s used to describe people’s attitude towards their buying habits in a negative light. Often this is rightly pointed out —cheap disposable things which can have upstream and downstream impacts that often offer poor long-term value to the buyer.

I like “ethical consumption” for the reasons given, had not yet been exposed to this particular framing. Thank you.

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