November 24, 2007

Not Made in China and Vegetarian Thanksgiving

This Thanksgiving I agonized a bit over whether or not to eat turkey. I don't choose to eat meat when it means that animal had to die to feed me.

However, when I'm served meat, I'll eat it. The meat has already been slaughtered. Refusing meat that has been offered to me in good faith doesn't save the animal or show my appreciation for the effort my host went through to feed me.

But Thanksgiving wasn't as straight forward. I had the choice not to eat the turkey, because it wasn't been served to me. We were the hosts. Yet, my choice not to eat it wouldn't save the turkey. In fact, much of the turkey meat will be thrown out because we had way too much. And I like the taste of turkey.

So I had turkey. And I enjoyed it. It wasn't an easy decision. But once I made the decision, I went with it and didn't look back. It was also a relief not to have to explain why I don't eat meat and when.

The next thing I struggle with is "Made in China". Most of the toys the kids want were made in china. (Except the #1 one thing on my son's list. It was made in Italy. Yay!) But when everything is made in China...and we're on a budget...it sure is hard to shop for presents without buying into China's cheap crap industry.

What can I do to keep from buying from China? Is buying from China as bad as its made out to be? I'm so confused! I want to do the "right" thing. The thing that harms the world the least.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

that's a tough one isn't it. in general i avoid products made in china for a couple of reasons. there are loads of japanese corps in china because they can hire cheap laborers. that can't be a good situation for the worker...ever. and i just get so annoyed with the chinese government and military over the occupation of tibet. i don't care what they say, they are not doing the tibetans a favor. and who do they think they are anyway demanding other world leaders steer clear of HH the Dalai Lama. that one really gets me going. so...nothing made in china for me.