Suzanne Harrington: Here's why I ordered the non-sustainable avocado meal
It takes 2,000 litres of water to produce one kilo of avocados
Eating dinner at a Mexican street foody place, the menu offers a sustainable alternative to guacamole, made from locally-grown fava beans instead of imported avocados. One kilo of avocados needs 2,000 litres of water to produce, a bit like almond milk - to grow one single solitary almond takes 5 litres of water. Which is why we are all drinking oat milk now – it needs six times less water than almond milk to produce.
These are the kind of sums that have become part of our brain’s daily workout. Through climate change necessity, more mindful consumption has been slowly replacing the mindless kind, the kind that limbic capitalism has long promoted.
Limbic capitalism is the hacking of the brain’s reward and motivation centre by industries like food, porn and fashion, to create highly profitable addictive behaviours in the rest of us – instant purchases of ultra-processed food, depersonalised digital sex, disposable sweatshop garments. More, now, again. One 2013 experiment in a US clothing shop showed how ‘limbic lighting’ increased sales by 10%. How clever of them.
Even when you’ve made your purchase, it won’t be enough. You still have to upgrade, upgrade, upgrade. Your phone, your clothes, your tech, your car, your house, all need constant improvement and enhancement – otherwise you will be left behind. You will look poor, sad, naff, off-trend. People will laugh at your unbranded trainers.
CLIMATE & SUSTAINABILITY HUB
Except this message is no longer valid, as the sustainability message seeps through our shopping-addled limbic brain. Still using an iPhone 5 and wearing second-hand clothes? What used to be markers of impecuniosity are now markers of sustainability. Limbic capitalism hates this, and would like you to feel uncomfortable enough to cave in and buy more new stuff, instead of using what you have, and diving into the glorious, treasure-laden world of second-hand.
We’d all like to live more sustainably. Of course we would, we’re not daft. We know what’s around the climactic corner – there’s no more hiding from it. Hence all the micro-tweaking of our own daily habits, the microbeads, the plastic straws, the sitting in restaurants wondering if you should order avocados or fava beans. Wishing you could afford an electric car. Wondering why a train from London to Marseille in August is booked solid and double the price of a cheap flight, which is why you will end up booking a cheap flight - the alternative is to stay at home, and we’ve all done quite a lot of that recently. And it’s too far to cycle.
Why aren’t there more trains/boats and less flights? More trains/buses and less cars? Where is our incentive to change the way we travel, if doing so sustainably is more expensive and less available? Why do you have to be either movie-star rich or relocate to an off-grid smallholding in order to live sustainably? Where is the systemic change, the top-down leadership?
Fuck it. I order the avocado over the fava beans.
