Eaters or Consumers?

The Community Voice, the newspaper local to Cotati, Rohnert Park and Penngrove just south of me, has a new writer on staff, and she's also an organic gardener. Last week the Voice published a piece by Betti Faust on her passion for eating locally:

http://thecommunityvoice.com/articles/2007/03/16/home_and_garden/homeandgarden1.txt
It's one of the best short articles I've seen. But I'm wondering about one little thing in it. Why does she refuse to call us consumers?

I guess it's true that I'd rather be thought of as an eater, or even a glutton, than a consumer. But the fact is we are all caught up in this consumer society of ours. Just when we think we may be untangling ourselves, something else sneaks up behind us, reminding us of the waters in which we swim.

I also seem to recall that consumer is an appropriate term for animals in ecology. If you can't make it (photosynthesis), you need to consume it. Wasn't it producers, consumers, decomposers? Undoubtedly an over simplification, but isn't it good to have the humbling reminder that we are dependent on other living things for our very existence? Maybe we need to bring back this more honest use of the term "consumer".