The following Mark's Daily Apple article was written by Marksissons and is narrated by Brock Armstrong.

Food shame, the morality of eating.

Last week in my PaleoFX post, I shared that my favorite presentation that I did at the event

called, Tweaking the Recipe to Create an Awesome Life, discussed my evolving philosophy on

moderation for the sake of the bigger picture.

Mark's Daily Apple reader, his doudness, commented that it's becoming more common to conflate

morality and food choice.

Already being in this mode from the FX talk, this topic piqued my interest.

Far beyond those quaint and diluted labels about fat content, today we see phrases like

guilt-free, low-carbon, humane, and fair trade.

The grocery aisle has become a dizzying ethical landscape.

No matter how well we think we're doing in terms of responsible eating choices, for example, grass-fed beef,

somebody turns around and brags that they're eating a pastured heritage beef breed.

If we're of a particularly sensitive or maybe just competitive nature,

suddenly we're sucked into a Portlandia version of social shame

and ethical hell. How did we exchange sanity for perfectionism? And how the heck do we find our way

back? When it comes to making simple food choices, where do we draw the line between putting helpful knowledge

into practice and putting ourselves through a moral gauntlet?

The fact is, eating isn't a simple enterprise anymore.

As with many things in life these days, we can feel like we know too much.

This kind of food destroys the forests. That type of food is harvested by

people who live in these unjust conditions. If you buy product X, you're supporting this destructive

...