The Unkindness of Silk

I was surprised to read in this description of silk farming in Cambodia that the silkworms are killed in the process - "You have to kill the silkworms before they hatch; otherwise, they'll bust the single continuous fiber, many meters long, that makes one strand of silk. So you boil them alive, or dry them on a hot metal sheet in the sun. Then you carefully unwind that single strand, and bundle it together with 40-50 other strands to make a single silk thread." It's not so much that I would have assumed that silk farming would be any kind of humane industry, especially in a phenomenally poor country, but I had never considered what was involved in making silk.

Considering that silk is much more expensive and less strong/durable than manmade fiber substitutes, I have not purchased silk clothing for myself. Reading about the cruelty aspect of silk production now gives me the opportunity to define my no-silk lifestyle as an act of moral rectitude rather than cheap-ass-hood. Of course, given that I have nearly zero credibility in the anti-animal-cruelty arena (aside from ridiculously catering to my own pet bunny's comfort, which doesn't really count), I cannot quite manage to view my pragmatic decision in that way. However, the killing silkworm angle does give yet another reason to avoid silk when cruelty-free alternatives are so easily available.

I am sufficiently concerned about animal cruelty that I wish I had the wherewithal to be a vegetarian. I'm not saying that it would be impossible for me, if I valued it more highly, but given my current state of concern about cruelty vs. the cost, inconvenience, and day-to-day health requirements, I have not done so. I don't mean that vegetarianism is unhealthy, though I think it can be harder to maintain a healthy vegetarian diet than one in which lean meat is used as a primary protein source; I just have not personally had good luck blending vegetarianism with eating adequate protein to keep my blood sugar steady. I have managed to go about two days on a vegetarian diet before crashing, and eating enough plant-based protein to keep that from happening requires a caloric intake level that guarantees weight gain, which I definitely do not need. (According to nutritiondata.com, the calories per g of protein for some common foods are: chicken breast - 5.2; tofu - 7.5; egg - 10.0; black beans - 18.5; peanut butter - 23.6.)

The issue of cost is more relevant for buying cruelty-free meat and to date, I have not made it a financial priority to do that. (Though I admit that Buddy's chicken, for example, tastes really good.) One problem for me as a consumer is that meat that is sold as cruelty-free is also touted as "natural" since it is produced without antibiotics and hormones or the use of genetically modified foods (which I either do not care about or view as sort of actively silly to be concerned about), making the product much more expensive; this means that I have to pay a premium for something I don't value. (This article, example, states that the cost of organic cattle feed is up to 30% more than genetically modified feed.)

Also, though I recognize that the costs of keeping animals in more comfortable environments than your typical factory situation are legitimately higher, I suspect that the final product sells at a price that more than offsets the true costs. It is known that "fair trade" coffee, for example, is purchased from producers by a few extra cents and then sold to consumers at much more inflated prices because buying fair trade coffee sends "two messages" to the retailer (in the words of economist Tim Harford from his book The Undercover Economist): "One message interested them very little - 'I think fair trade coffee is a product that should be supported.' The second message is the one that they were straining to hear - 'I don't really mind paying a bit extra.'" This is called "third degree price discimination" in economic jargon - finding a way to segment your customers on the basis of their willingness to pay and extracting more money from those who are willing to pay more. But I am not willing to pay more. I do not want to give away any of my consumer surplus. So unless/until I know that the people selling "natural" meat are not laughing their way to the bank at my expense, I am leery of forking over the extra money.

I am very familiar with (and never tire of marveling at) the practice of people purchasing natural, organic, etc., foods and other products as a way of telegraphing to others that they have so much money that they can easily afford to spend more on these products, although the ostensible concern is for health and the environment.

The commonly given argument that organic foods are healthier does not appear to bear up well to scientific scrutiny (e.g., a review of 400 scientific papers concludes that "While there is no doubt that organic food is more “natural” than conventional food, “natural” on the other hand does not mean benign" and "There is currently no evidence to support or refute claims that organic food is safer and thus, healthier, than conventional food, or vice versa"; see Organic Food: Buying More Safety or Just Peace of Mind? A Critical Review of the Literature. By: Magkos, Faidon; Arvaniti, Fotini; Zampelas, Antonis. Critical Reviews in Food Science & Nutrition, Jan/Feb2006, Vol. 46 Issue 1, p23-56). The environmental value of organic farming has also been called into question (see this interesting article from Australian science magazine COSMOS for a review).

I wonder how many fervent organic shoppers are simply misguided about the relative risks and benefits of conventional versus organic food and would, if the empirical evidence demonstrated conclusively that the supposed health benefits were pretty much nothing, switch back to regular groceries, and how many would continue to purchase organic for the psychological and social intangibles of status and "feeling good."

(A really fascinating example of environmentalism as status symbol is the failure of the Honda Civic hybrid vehicle to compete against the Prius, which has been shown from market research to stem from the huge problem that the Honda Civic hybrid looked too much like a normal car to exude the image of "cool" and "environmentally hip" that the Prius does. This 2004 article in the Washington Post is a must-read on the topic, though it made me very nostalgic for $2/gallon gasoline.)

Basically, I am really looking forward to a time when synthetic meat is commonly commercially available. While this may be the utter opposite of what the "natural foods" movement stands for (if some people are already living in terror of genetically modified corn and rice, lab-grown meat is likely to be especially scary, and we can count on the activist population to stir up fear, especially among the scientifically illiterate who are less capable of assessing the risks and benefits in a more-or-less rational fashion) and I don't know how relatively palatable synthetic meat would be, it would certainly simplify the moral dilemma of eating.