Ch. 9. Geography, Taste, Aesthetics, Obesity, Body Image

The USDA on Mad Cow: Don't Ask, Don't Tell.

Raj — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 09:48:43 -0600

In case you missed it, here's the USDA's two-pronged approach to containing mad cow disease:

1. There are no mad cows.
2. Lalalaalalaalalalalaalala.

Although the nattering nabobs of negativity might suggest that, perhaps, it might be a good idea to verify claim #1, the USDA has recently had its Mad Cow Disease vindicated in federal court. Last week, a federal court sided with the USDA in a case involving a small-scale beef producer who wanted to test more than 1% of its livestock for BSE. The federal ruling is this: you aren't allowed to test for Mad Cow Disease unless the USDA lets you.

The argument turned on whether testing dead animals for Mad Cow disease might be considered a treatment. If it were a therapeutic treatment, it'd fall under the USDA's domain.

A federal judge had previously ruled that, since the cows were dead, it seemed clear enough that testing them from mad cow disease couldn't really be considered a treatment since, despite scientific progress, death remains fatal. ... read more »

Starvation Politics: From Ancient Egypt to the Present

Raj — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 21:19:53 -0600

The splendid George Caffentzis has kindly allowed me to share this piece, written for Turbulence in the UK.

Starvation Politics: From Ancient Egypt to the Present

America As Seen From Europe

Raj — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 12:10:57 -0600

The blamestorming and name-calling has begun around the WTO collapse. I'll post more about that particular storm in a teacup soon. Update: Here's a swift thinkpiece on the WTO.

But regarding the insults that have been hurled across the playground of the Atlantic, it's amusing to see that Europe has increasingly been calling America, in print, art and cinema, a "big fat meanie".

There's more to be said about the politics of flab, who has it, who doesn't, and what it means, but while I assemble the argument, I thought I'd share a couple of bits of evidence.

The first came via email with the caption After a two year visit to the United States, Michelangelo's David is returning to Italy

Spank me and call me Cassandra...

Raj — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 11:27:57 -0600

Were we perhaps expecting the event to come to us pre-labelled? The first US food riot of the twenty-first century didn't look like much, and there certainly weren't large signs announcing it. But the scenes outside the main welfare office in Milwaukee in the wake of last month's floods must surely count.

Like food riots past, the story involves both a demand for food and a demand that government live up to its obligations to provide. As with food riots past, the issue wasn't the availability of food. Last I checked, there was still plenty of it swilling around the Midwest. The issue, caught accurately in the first paragraph of this report, is poverty. And, with little changing for America's poorest, indeed with new data showing that inequality is increasing (also in the UK, Australia, South Africaand Canada), there's every reason to suspect that things aren't getting better any time soon. ... read more »

Obesity Researchers Need to Understand Capitalism...

Raj — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 23:45:57 -0600

Yep, I've been a very delinquent blogger over the past week. Trying to work on the next book while keeping up with the developments in food politics this week has rather overwhelmed me.

While I figure out my time-management skills, here are a few gobbets of good things. First, via Marilyn, is a piece from SciDev, in which an epidemiologist points out the blindingly obvious to his peers:

To stem the spread of obesity, we must study the web of commercial interests and strategies driving it. ... read more »

Childhood Obesity in America

Raj — Thu, 29 May 2008 00:21:21 -0600

It doesn't take much in these dark times for folk to find cause to celebrate. Todays 'hell, it could be worse' story is about childhood obesity. Word is that the number of obese US kids has remained constant since 1999.

To quote from the New York Times article:

“It may be that we’ve reached some sort of saturation in terms of the proportion of the population who are genetically susceptible to obesity in this environment,” Dr. Ogden said. “A more optimistic view is that some things are working. We don’t really know.” ... read more »

Dying to Lose Weight

Raj — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 03:58:43 -0600

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A reporter at Bloomberg dropped a line with this story about diet pills in India. What with Indians ballooning (as we all are) there's something of a demand for weight-loss remedies.

The remedies that make sense (eat less, be a little more physically active, don't eat processed food, enjoy fresh food more) aren't terribly popular. Generating far more interest are the solutions that let you carry on eating unhealthily, but where you don't have to bother trying too hard. The chemical companies have been lining up to provide something like this, a magic regulator of free will that can help take the edge off our food cravings.

Through the cunning use of cannabis, specifically the discovery of how to switch off that part of the brain that makes you crave Mars bars when you're high, the drug giant Sanofi-Aventis has hit on a billion dollar weight-loss drug: Acompli. ... read more »

Second Fattest

Raj — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 15:12:43 -0600

An argument that I find myself making over and over is that although diet is a very personal thing, it can be understood sociologically. And not only can it be understood this way, you have to understand it this way if you're to make sense of facts like one which I start the book with: that the closer Mexican teenagers are to the US border, the more likely they are to be overweight.

The dynamics of consumption that have been imposed on Mexico by its more powerful northern neighbour are having some profound effects. Mohammed writes with this article, which announces that Mexico is the second-most overweight country in the world, after the US, and if trends continue, will soon outweigh the gringos. More than 71 percent of Mexican women and 66 percent of Mexican men are overweight, according to the latest national surveys. ... read more »

A Tax on Meat

Raj — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 16:32:06 -0600

Source

Eric Holt Gimenez over at Food First sent along this wee nugget from Grand Island, Nebraska.

It's a story about biofuels, based on a report from, er, the American Meat Institute, which ascribes the rise in the price of meat to biofuels. The estimates per animal are striking: "the costs [are] 53 cents per chicken; $3.40 per turkey; $38 per hog and $117.50 per fed beef animal." These are the costs associated with higher corn-feed for the animals, the price of which has been driven up by the US governments hare-brained biofuels schemes.

But statistics, like love, is a battlefield. ... read more »

Even the Nosh Pot Must Be Low in Something

Raj — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 16:07:27 -0600

Earlier today I was on Canadian radio, joining the wonderful Costas Halavrezos on his show, Maritime Noon. Unfortunately, technical glitches meant I missed the first part of the show, which included this classic and almost-certainly-documentary footage from the beginning of How To Get Ahead in Advertising. ... read more »