A year in Peru, and now I can't eat sugar

I never expected that a year in South America would ruin for me life in the United States. Perhaps it is not just American life that has been tainted. The things that I witnessed directly and learned about the world over the course of the past year have challenged the way I see the world, and I suspect that much of life— life as a consumer, that is— has been irreversibly changed.

Sure, I expected that I would have trouble shopping at Michael’s, having heard a friend's experience with the brutally exploitative practices in the Philippines. And I assumed it would be difficult to purchase high-priced jewelry in the tourist district of Lima, since many of my friends are the grossly underpaid and oppressed artisans.

But sugar?? I reached for the bag this morning, reading the enthusiastic description of the “rich taste with caramel flavor notes” from the “tropical paradise” of Mauritius. All I could think was, How are the laborers treated? How desperate are the poverty and exploitation? What about the environmental degradation of the island, how many acres of tropical forest were leveled to bring me this fantastically flavorful sugar? And on the back of how many forgotten men and women, mothers and fathers?

It isn’t just sugar that has been ruined – no, that would be manageable. Add to the list both Brazilian beef and soybeans – the two biggest products for which nearly 2 acres of rainforest disappear each second. It is neither safe to be carnivorous nor vegetarian, as the production of both products has forced thousands of indigenous communities from their ancestral lands – all for my culinary delight.

Don’t even get me started on every other consumer good. Clothes and shoes? I know the conditions under which they are produced. Stores actually produce a physical reaction: in Target, I suppressed my quickly rising lunch; in Harris Teeter, I fought back a faint. How many corners have been cut, workers exploited, or environments ravaged to bring me these shockingly low prices?

Can I indulge my Diet Coke addiction, knowing that mobsters have been employed to curtail the formation of labor unions in Coca-Cola factories around South America, resulting in the intimidation and assassination of those fighting for their rights? Can I eat seafood imported from Peru after hearing a close friend’s account of his years in a packing facility— disturbing from both humanitarian and nutritional perspectives? Can I drive my father’s Land Cruiser knowing the working conditions in the Japanese factories— where workers are, literally, worked to death? Can I buy fake Christmas foliage knowing that women in the slums were paid less than $1 for a man-sized bag, its contents assembled by hand?

Behind every consumer good, I see faces, sweat, tears, and suffering. The paper aisle, lumber store, and food in my freezer induce flashbacks from the Amazon – I cannot help but vividly recall the lush forest, populated by beautiful people and breathtaking ecology, punctuated by desecrated, empty swaths of land, still smoking as the unlogged brush is burned. In every bracelet and pair of earrings I am brought back to my friends Ofelia and Lucy, in the human settlements of Lima and their homes of ignoble material, creating jewelry for which they receive less than two percent of the final selling price.

I am now faced with the difficult question: What to do with this knowledge? How do I meet my needs— food, clothing— while not participating in the dehumanizing exploitation I have witnessed? I wish sometimes I carried not this knowledge. It is burdensome; as if putting on glasses, I saw the world more clearly; I am unable to take them off, I cannot return to my previous nearsightedness. Perhaps I could continue as before, but I cannot unsee what I have seen. I cannot unknow.

There remains only to continue from here, forever reconciling my needs and wants with my knowledge. I must continue learning the reality, no matter how it challenges my daily life. Condoning oppression and suffering around the world is unacceptable, and deliberate ignorance is no less insidious than knowing support of the worst corporate offenders. Perhaps someday I will encounter another alternative; perhaps, with work and belief in change, these practices can be transformed. Perhaps I will once again eat sugary cereal and know that it need not be ruined because neither man nor nature has cried out under the burden of my consumer demands.