I watched the documentary Food Inc. last week. Although it was pretty familiar material for me, it did remind me that conflicts and crony capitalism are not unique to just the financial sector. All the usual offenders are alive and well in the food business.
For many people, the ideal meal is fast, cheap, and tasty. Food, Inc. examines the costs of putting value and convenience over nutrition and environmental impact.
Our food policies and behaviours are literally killing us physically and financially with exploding health care costs. 1 in 3 children in North America will now get diabetes from the poisonous diet that their parents are feeding them. We might as well be getting our children hooked on cigarettes in kindergarten. Feeding them highly processed, junk food is that dangerous to their long-term health. And the most frustrating part is that this is actually something we, as a society, can fix fairly easily if we just get serious.
We need to reverse course, remove subsidies for junk food and redistribute any incentives toward healthy, sustainable farming. It should be more expensive to buy a Bic Mac than it is to buy organic vegetables. Here we have governments giving tax breaks to the offending companies which is increasing their profits and leaving us the society with even bigger tax bills due to increased medical costs. We taxpayers are paying the bill directly in both ways and getting nothing but pain and suffering for our investment. In a time, where improved efficiencies and reduced expenses are the necessary theme, this area is screaming out for our attention. (As a side note, for a ginormous graphic of the Big Mac Index showing relative purchasing power and how long people have to work to afford a Big Mac in various countries click here.)
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The supersizing of people is big business, and unfortunately is totally out of control. Of course it is cronyism. Ever-expanding waistlines (and other parts) mean ever-expanding bottom-lines to corporate balance sheets. Look no futher than MCD!
But what is truly hidden is the problem with caffeine. It is a proven fact that caffeine stimulates the adrenal glands to make the liver secrete sugar into the bloodstream and lead to elevated triglyceride levels and potential diabetes. Unless you control caffeine consumption, diabetes will continue to plague societies around the world BUT for the big pharmas that ‘make the drugs’ is is wonderful. My local PNC wealth advisor crows about the wonders of Big Macs and Lattes on generating returns for his high net worth individuals. There are surely better ways to generate returns other than illness causing methods.
I simply worry about my own families health and try to warn others, but alas, they simply don’t care. They can’t afford to eat healthy. The wealthy can and do. Just look at all the fancy cars in a Whole Foods Supermarket parking lot vs the cars in front of Target.
Watch ‘Forks over Knives’. It will change the way you look at food.
I slowly am switching over to organic food and my IB Irritable Bowel syndrome of the past forty years is finally subsiding! I feel so good! I will never go back! In my opinion these rotten GMO food companies are out to hurt and kill us! They just don’t care about humanity. So we have to learn to care for ourselves. I’m planning to grow an organic garden this spring. And four free range chickens! The cow is just not in the cards though and it doesn’t look good for a goat either. NAHHHHH!
Watch David Suzuki’s “Is pollution making us fat?”
http://www.davidsuzuki.org/blogs/panther-lounge/2012/01/is-pollution-making-us-fat/
Plastics! Plastics! Plastics! (I mean oil, oil, oil!) There are plant based “plastics” that could be used instead: biosolar is one company I know that uses this, but they are in solar cells, not in packaging! 🙂
I can only imagine what the oil companies and plastic companies are paying to keep things as quiet as possible.
Start using glass and ceramics.
And, watch the show.
I like this blog because when I read it I don’t feel like I’m being lied to, and along with some others, it’s trying to fix capitalism and as a Canadian farmer I consider myself a small c capitalist.
I’ve seen this movie; it’s certainly scary, but production agriculture is actually pretty cool, it can be done medium to large scale, efficiently and organically. No problem and good food can be produced in Canada very affordably.
I’m so tired of the business press slandering and name calling. If they don’t like marketing boards for example; let’s have a debate; for example; taxpayer subsidy based on production (the more you produce the more you’re subsidized, like in America) vs. no subsidy but a level of protection (from the subsidized stuff) and production matching demand based on quota like our milk marketing board. And we can ask why Canada has the most efficient and productive dairys in the world. No GMO hormones as well. But we don’t ask because we don’t want to know why; it doesn’t fit the Harper agenda; but wouldn’t it be nice if we could argue with all the facts on the table.
Or we can have a rant about foreign environmentalists (the Tides foundation) allegedly influencing the pipeline hearings. This foundation just gave the elementary school in our little village a $5000 grant for environmental and historical studies, because someone cared enough to take the the time to apply (we are no where near the pipeline). I guess that’s part of the money “ethical oil” is screaming about.
So I thank this blog for an alternate view. Right or wrong debate gets us on the path to truth. Beware of those who want to shut down the debate; and too bad about that wheat board deal.