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Post by abbey1227 on May 30, 2021 12:39:47 GMT
Mark Bittman’s history of why we eat bad food.
By Bill McKibbenTwitter May 18, 2021
Mark Bittman writes the way he cooks: The ingredients are wholesome, the preparation elegantly simple, the results nourishing in the best sense of the word. He never strains; there’s no effort to impress, but you come away full, satisfied, invigorated.
From his magnum opus, How to Cook Everything, and its many cookbook companions, to his recipes for The New York Times, to his essays on food policy, Bittman has developed a breeziness that masks the weight of the politics and economics that surround the making and consuming of food. In Animal, Vegetable, Junk, his latest book, he offers us his most thoroughgoing attack on the corporate forces that govern our food, tracking the evolution of cultivation and consumption from primordial to modern times and developing what is arguably his most radical and forthright argument yet about how to address our contemporary food cultures’ many ills. But it still goes down easy; the broccoli tastes good enough that you’ll happily go for seconds.
Bittman does discuss some interesting initiatives that are taking hold in different parts of the world and beginning to have a larger impact. Countries from Uruguay and France to South Korea and Taiwan have passed laws limiting junk-food advertising to kids, and they seem to work. Quebec, which banned such ads 40 years ago, has fewer overweight children than other parts of North America. In 2012, Chile—where half of 6-year-olds were overweight or obese—passed the world’s strongest food labeling and advertising laws. Any processed food high in calories, sodium, sugar, or saturated fat carries a “stop-sign-shaped ‘black label’” and can’t be advertised to kids under 14 or sold in schools; “almost instantly Chilean children went from seeing 8,500 junk food advertisements a year to seeing next to none.”
Mexico has also fought back as best it can; a tax on soda has driven consumption down 12 percent. Bittman cites more notable successes on the local level. Belo Horizonte, Brazil’s third largest metropolitan area, has bankrolled “People’s Restaurants” that sell high-quality lunches at affordable prices and cooked-from-scratch school meals emphasizing more vegetables and fewer processed foods; the government also subsidized farmers’ markets that sell staples at reduced prices and funded urban gardening programs. As a result, hunger in the city has been “nearly eliminated…while fruit and vegetable consumption and farmer income have risen.”
Even in the United States—the belly of the beast, as it were—Bittman finds some interesting developments. He describes the Good Food Purchasing Program, which began in Los Angeles in 2012 and sets standards for nutrition, animal welfare, environmental sustainability, and treatment of the labor force. When LA schools signed on, their main distributor started reaching out to wheat farms that could meet the new standards, which led to 65 new full-time, living-wage jobs. Cities from Boston to Oakland have signed on to the GFPP, and New York is about to join.
But more dramatic change will only come with initiatives like the Green New Deal, which “with carbon neutrality as a starting goal…would necessarily support…sustainable agriculture.” In fact, by the end of the book, Bittman uses the food crisis much as Naomi Klein did the climate crisis in her landmark This Changes Everything: as a lever for thoroughgoing change. “Instituting fairness in race and gender means in part undoing land theft, racial and gender-based violence, and centuries of wealth accumulation by most European and European American males, wealth accumulation that is still being compounded. This means land reform, this means affordable nutritious food regardless of the ability to pay…. This means wholesale change.” Indeed it does. “What’s for dinner?” has always been among the most basic of human questions. Now, asked honestly, it’s among the most unsettling and the most explosive.
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People eat 'bad' food because it appeals to the brain's pleasure centers. They also often do not engage in reasonable moderation.
But why do I suspect those 65 'living wage' jobs are just yet another tendril of Govt? ![[giveup]](//storage.proboards.com/7182076/images/FSYefibmKqtatIXMgHZg.gif) I'm wondering if those hirees are met with the same strict Rules of Employment that Stewardesses faced back in the day? Otherwise they're just setting an horrible example, aren't they? |
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Post by Prometheus on May 31, 2021 2:34:50 GMT
As I said before, if pictures of black, shriveled lungs on packs of cigs are leading to fewer people smoking then pictures of Mama June (pre-diet) on bags of Doritos would go a long way to reducing obesity. I'm guessing that you would rather blame the people for not exercising responsibility even though you just admitted that these foods are absolutely engineered to affect people's brains. One could even say that junk food has been engineered to be addictive. Again, I'll guess that you see addiction as a personal failing in the area of responsibility: "Everyone told you it was bad but you did it anyway!" Right? "But the nutritional values are right there on the package!" Yes they are, but there's also something on the package that people don't really look at: serving size. All those wonderful numbers talking about grams of this and that are based on the serving size... which is not regulated. I have a bag of "baked cheese sticks" right here in front of me. The carbs and sodium are pretty low. There's actually some protein. It's "junk food" but it doesn't look so bad... until I look at "serving size" which is 30 grams... about one ounce. The small bag has about 3 servings, but I know that neither I nor most other people are going to stop at precisely 30 grams. They taste too good. They really do. What I'm getting at is that most people don't realize that the package they are buying doesn't usually constitute a single serving and therefore those nutritional value numbers probably look a lot better than they actually are. Think about it. Have you ever bought something that said, "single serving packages" and thought, "what am I? A mouse?" and eaten 3 or 4 packages worth of the item... or all of them? We all know that 4 ounces of lean meat is supposed to be the "perfect amount" but if I put a 4-ounce steak on your plate you'd wonder if I was slaughtering pygmy cattle and openly ask where the rest of the steak is regardless of how much healthy food is on your plate and how filling it is. I know these things because I seriously need to fight the lockdown bulge but it's difficult. hence the unhealthy but extremely tasty baked cheese sticks. Yes. A lot of it's on me to take responsibility for what I put in my body, but it's so hard when tasty, quick, and affordable choices are all around me... and they never remind me of how fat I'm getting. Aren't they so nice for doing that? I really need to go out and do some shopping and pick up some fruits and veggies... right after I finish this bag of death.... |
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Post by abbey1227 on May 31, 2021 6:45:04 GMT
I'm guessing that you would rather blame the people for not exercising responsibility even though you just admitted that these foods are absolutely engineered to affect people's brains. One could even say that junk food has been engineered to be addictive. Again, I'll guess that you see addiction as a personal failing in the area of responsibility: "Everyone told you it was bad but you did it anyway!" Right? Yes. A lot of it's on me to take responsibility for what I put in my body, but it's so hard when tasty, quick, and affordable choices are all around me... and they never remind me of how fat I'm getting. Aren't they so nice for doing that? I really need to go out and do some shopping and pick up some fruits and veggies... right after I finish this bag of death....
That's my view exactly........especially because it isn't a secret and hasn't been for a long time.
Ever notice that most of the worthy things in life aren't all that easy?
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Post by abbey1227 on May 31, 2021 7:52:27 GMT
Again, I'll guess that you see addiction as a personal failing in the area of responsibility: "Everyone told you it was bad but you did it anyway!" Right? .. right after I finish this bag of death....
in a way, I guess we could compare this discussion to the notion of Judeo-Christian beliefs. 
Do we, as regular people......... expect God/Govt to protect us at all times and remove all temptations from our lives because really we're all just misguided children in need of babysitting forever?
Or do we boldly go forth with the notion that freedom comes with responsibility? And we're responsible for the sins we choose?
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Post by Prometheus on Jun 1, 2021 3:29:42 GMT
Again, I'll guess that you see addiction as a personal failing in the area of responsibility: "Everyone told you it was bad but you did it anyway!" Right? .. right after I finish this bag of death....
in a way, I guess we could compare this discussion to the notion of Judeo-Christian beliefs.
Do we, as regular people......... expect God/Govt to protect us at all times and remove all temptations from our lives because really we're all just misguided children in need of babysitting forever?
Or do we boldly go forth with the notion that freedom comes with responsibility? And we're responsible for the sins we choose?
I find it interesting, Abs, that for all your talk of responsibility, the one entity that you always seem to absolve of any is the government.
Let me help: "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence,[note 1] promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
This is NOT an enumeration of rights, but it IS an enumeration of ideals that the government is supposed to strive for. It's their RESPONSIBILITY.
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Post by abbey1227 on Jun 1, 2021 3:36:06 GMT
I find it interesting, Abs, that for all your talk of responsibility, the one entity that you always seem to absolve of any is the government.
Let me help: "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence,[note 1] promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
This is NOT an enumeration of rights, but it IS an enumeration of ideals that the government is supposed to strive for. It's their RESPONSIBILITY.
That would be because there is no Government without the money from the tax payers.
So when people glibly chime in with "It's free......the Govt pays for it." They're purposefully ignoring the fact that it could be their family and neighbors actually footing the bill.
Sorta like you've correctly denoted that people expect wayyyyyyy too much of the police these days....... they simply expect wayyyyy too much from Govt......instead of being more responsible for themselves.
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Post by Prometheus on Jun 1, 2021 3:49:58 GMT
I find it interesting, Abs, that for all your talk of responsibility, the one entity that you always seem to absolve of any is the government.
Let me help: "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence,[note 1] promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
This is NOT an enumeration of rights, but it IS an enumeration of ideals that the government is supposed to strive for. It's their RESPONSIBILITY.
That would be because there is no Government without the money from the tax payers.
So when people glibly chime in with "It's free......the Govt pays for it." They're purposefully ignoring the fact that it could be their family and neighbors actually footing the bill.
Sorta like you've correctly denoted that people expect wayyyyyyy too much of the police these days....... they simply expect wayyyyy too much from Govt......instead of being more responsible for themselves.
And when you receive a benefit from the government, YOU are taking money out of the pockets of your family and neighbors.
It's called a "society."
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Post by abbey1227 on Jun 1, 2021 3:55:44 GMT
And when you receive a benefit from the government, YOU are taking money out of the pockets of your family and neighbors.
It's called a "society."
All the more reason to be so very conscious of what YOU are taking
This so called society is all about being 'Green' and conserving, right? Focus more on tax dollars, which equate directly to other peoples' time and effort.
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Post by Prometheus on Jun 1, 2021 4:02:20 GMT
And when you receive a benefit from the government, YOU are taking money out of the pockets of your family and neighbors.
It's called a "society."
All the more reason to be so very conscious of what YOU are taking
This so called society is all about being 'Green' and conserving, right? Focus more on tax dollars, which equate directly to other peoples' time and effort.
Yet it always seems that the things you want people to do without are exactly the things that they need in order to be productive taxpayers themselves. |
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Post by abbey1227 on Jun 1, 2021 4:05:06 GMT
Yet it always seems that the things you want people to do without are exactly the things that they need in order to be productive taxpayers themselves.
This is where the proponents of such programs call them 'Investments'.
Sorry, but I'm not seeing the ROI actually coming to fruition in millions of cases.
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Post by Prometheus on Jun 1, 2021 4:17:38 GMT
Yet it always seems that the things you want people to do without are exactly the things that they need in order to be productive taxpayers themselves.
This is where the proponents of such programs call them 'Investments'.
Sorry, but I'm not seeing the ROI actually coming to fruition in millions of cases.
That's because you're an even bigger misanthrope than me.
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Post by abbey1227 on Jun 1, 2021 4:20:53 GMT
This is where the proponents of such programs call them 'Investments'.
Sorry, but I'm not seeing the ROI actually coming to fruition in millions of cases.
That's because you're an even bigger misanthrope than me.
See? We can agree from time to time.
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![[giveup]](http://storage.proboards.com/7182076/images/FSYefibmKqtatIXMgHZg.gif)
I'm wondering if those hirees are met with the same strict Rules of Employment that Stewardesses faced back in the day? Otherwise they're just setting an horrible example, aren't they? 
![[cheers]](http://storage.proboards.com/7182076/images/engyBVslEdpmpmdnBwZQ.gif)
