A declaration for healthy food and agriculture asking for reforms and a new approach to our food.
On the costs of “cheap” food
Americans spend $250 billion on diet-related health care costs each year. What is the real price of the fast food I “saved money on” yesterday?
Whereas the cooperatives saw consumption as a social activity aimed at building collective identity and political awareness, the commercial chains encouraged consumption as a form of self-expression, reaffirming the individual shopper’s status in her household and community.
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Susanne Freidberg, French Beans and Food Scares: Culture and Commerce in an Anxious Age We are how we eat. |
You don’t have to vote for Lincoln, I just thought it was the best, but do check out the videos at http://www.farmtoschool.org/vote.php Their program, Farm to School, “connects schools (K-12) and local farms with the objectives of serving healthy meals in school cafeterias, improving student nutrition, providing agriculture, health and nutrition education opportunities, and supporting local and regional farmers.” The winner of the video contest $1,000 for their school food project and a trip to the 5th National Farm to Cafeteria Conference in Detroit, Michigan May 17-19th. If Lincoln, here in Seattle wins, maybe I can catch a ride back home to the mitten…
This article was quite timely and powerful when written, and with conversations about the health care reform still on the table, the clarion words still pierce the political rants.
Place, Pace, Face: An Introduction
The center of community life is the table. The very things a culture values and devalues are seen in the way that the populace eats together. But modern Americans do not eat together. Their table is more often than not the center console of the car or their computer desk. There is no community life. Even families and churches seldom eat together. When they do it is often only because they are doing some other activity and it occurs during meal time. Food becomes merely the fuel for productivity. As with any fuel, (especially when productivity is the priority) efficiency is the goal. So it is that food comes out windows rather than ovens. Farms turn increasingly to cash crops, subsidized grains engineered to produce synthesized byproducts, and inhumane animal factories aimed at churning out the most meat per penny. Even organic foods often come from giant farms whose trendy label is peeled off between freezer and microwave. Individually wrapped and composed of industrialized oils and proteins, the vast majority of America’s diet could never be recreated in any home. Which fits perfectly, because it is not meant to be eaten at home. It is meant to be eaten by individuals in a quick moving industrial society. There is a loss of understanding place, pace, and face. That is to say, food seemingly comes from nowhere and is eaten between places. It has become unlocated. It is consumed in a hurry, unsavored (and is often unsavory anyway) and unappreciated. And it is done with no recognition of the people that grew it, the people that prepared it, or the company or community one finds oneself in.
The first study showed that male rats given water sweetened with high-fructose corn syrup in addition to a standard diet of rat chow gained much more weight than male rats that received water sweetened with table sugar, or sucrose, in conjunction with the standard diet. The concentration of sugar in the sucrose solution was the same as is found in some commercial soft drinks, while the high-fructose corn syrup solution was half as concentrated as most sodas.
The second experiment — the first long-term study of the effects of high-fructose corn syrup consumption on obesity in lab animals — monitored weight gain, body fat and triglyceride levels in rats with access to high-fructose corn syrup over a period of six months. Compared to animals eating only rat chow, rats on a diet rich in high-fructose corn syrup showed characteristic signs of a dangerous condition known in humans as the metabolic syndrome, including abnormal weight gain, significant increases in circulating triglycerides and augmented fat deposition, especially visceral fat around the belly. Male rats in particular ballooned in size: Animals with access to high-fructose corn syrup gained 48 percent more weight than those eating a normal diet [via fishy].
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Further proof that it is not how much you eat but the quality of what you eat that contributes to weight gain and other health concerns. Reductionist nutritionists have long assumed that fat is fat and sugar is sugar, at least we are finally getting past that.
