What Makes You Decide Not to Buy? | Eat Well Open Call

Cabbage soaked in formaldehyde, bayberries soaked in pesticides, and going back further, melamine-tainted milk powder and New Orleans-style chicken wings laced with Sudan Red dye… Time and again, food news shocks the public with a scandal.

Seeing these stories, a lot of people’s first reaction is probably just: I’m not buying it.

Not buying the cabbages here, not buying the bayberries there, not going to this restaurant, not ordering delivery from this one, not buying milk powder from a certain domestic brand.

Refusing to buy over food safety—this anger is easy to understand. But sometimes, what makes us ‘refuse’ isn’t just whether eating it will do us any harm.

Beyond food safety, there are many stories in the production and distribution of food that consumers rarely see—harm done to animals, the environment, or workers during the production process; or a particular action by a company, or a long-standing problem, that makes you feel as if continuing to spend money on it goes against what you believe in.

How a pig is raised, what a chicken goes through from birth and rearing all the way to its final appearance on your table; why growing a particular crop on a large scale can cause soil problems or severe water shortages; after we place a delivery order, from meal preparation to the rider arriving at your door, how the people in between race against the clock.

◉Napa cabbage dipped in formaldehyde – the scene.

Once you know, when you’re standing in front of the shelves, about to open a delivery app, or see that familiar brand again — you just don’t feel like buying.

It might be a sense of cruelty that stirs something in you, or anger, or disappointment — or perhaps just a vague unease you can’t quite name: you used to love something, but once you understand what it costs, you simply can’t go about your consumption the same way.

This kind of information can sometimes genuinely change how someone chooses to spend.

◉Behind the platform’s ’30-minute delivery’ promise of convenience lies the brutal survival reality of fresh produce e-commerce warehouse pickers — ‘30,000 steps a day, 30 fen per item.’ Former picker He Siqi shares his observations and experiences as a picker. Click the image to read.

Of course, this kind of ‘boycott’ isn’t necessarily that resolute either.

You may have held out for years, only to give in again a few days later; you may have found a substitute, or you may have discovered there is simply no better option; you may even know full well that ordering takeaway once less or eating meat one fewer time won’t change anything — but the next time around, you’re still torn.

We want to know: what was going on in your mind in that moment?

In this edition of ‘Eat Better,’ we’d like to understand the thinking, the emotions, and that small, deeply personal sense of ‘moral duty’ behind your decision to stop buying.

If you’ve ever felt this way, we’d love to hear from you:

• What is it that you’ve decided not to buy?

• What happened that first gave you the thought, ‘I don’t want to buy this anymore’?

• Beyond simply not buying, what else have you done since?

• Has this changed how you choose food since then?

• Do you think your refusal to buy makes a difference?

Scan the QR code to complete the survey. Your story has the chance to be featured in a future Foodthink article, and we’ll select two readers from among all participants to receive a small gift from a responsible producer.