Category Archives: Food

Dennis Rosinlof says he eats the McDonald’s burger with fries ten times a week – sometimes twice a day – on his travels, and only takes a break on Sundays.

But despite having a fondness for the 930 calorie Big Mac meal, Mr Rosinlof is actually a slim 165lbs and healthy.

Meat, cheese, bread, potatoes. Might want a bit more salad or fruit in there but nothing wrong with the basics there.

Dietician David Zinczenko said that Mr Roslinof was staying thin because he stayed within his daily calorie intake, even if he was doing it in a rather unconventional manner.

As we’ve all been saying about this obesity ting. How much not what.

Have to admit I can’t stand Big Macs but a real cheeseburger is a meal of the Gods.

So, we\’ve got this lecture on sugar and how it\’s evil, causing diabetes, fructose kills the liver and we\’ll all be murdered in our beds. And then we see this:

According to the historian and nutritionist Maisie Steven, Scots kids eat four times the amount of sugar they did in 1942.

At which point it doesn\’t matter what else is being said. They\’re clearly and obviously lying like bastards and we can ignore them.

Agreed, a slightly odd thing to say for I\’ve no doubt that the statement itself is actually true. But they\’re still lying like bastards.

For think back to what was happening in 1942. The menfolk of Scotland were off dying in their thousands in India and Africa, preparing to do so in France, as they battled the second most evil tyrant of the century, the womenfolk were scouring the moors for anything they could feed to their wee bairns and as to sugar for said bairns the Nazis were trying to shoot, drown or blow up anyone who had the temerity to try to bring them any sugar.

And you\’re going to try and use that time, the middle of a fucking world war and the U boat blockade, as your baseline for anything at all?

No, you\’re lying like a bastard, aren\’t you?

A 240ml glass of orange juice might contain 120 calories of sugar, or sucrose; half of that will be fructose. The fructose will all end up in the liver, which may not be able to metabolise (process) it fully, depleting vital chemicals in the organ and turning into fat. \”It\’s not about the calories,\” says Dr Lustig. \”It has nothing to do with the calories. It\’s a poison by itself.\”

Sigh.

Look, there are parts of the world where bananas are the staple food: like bread and potatoes to us, like rice to the slant eyes and corn to the chicanos.

And a ripe banana has four teaspoonfuls of sugar. \”That\’s natural sugar. It\’s fructose. That means it\’s from fruit,\” I was told.

So, do those parts of the world have everyone dead already from diabetes and liver failure? Hmm, what\’s that? No?

Then there\’s something wrong with the theory then, isn\’t there.

A government advisor said everyday products such as cocoa and meat could become relative luxuries by the 2040s.

Professor Tim Benton, head of Global Food Security working group, added there could be shortages in the UK in the future as the emerging middle class in south-east Asia sparks a revolution in \”food flows\” such as the trade in grain and soya around the world.

Professor Benton, from the University of Leeds, told the Daily Telegraph: \”Food is going to be competed for on a global scale. There\’s been a lot written about where food prices are going to go but they are certaintly going to double, with some trebling. It\’s not just fruit and vegetables, but everything.\”

So, general inflation we expect to be around the 2% or so mark. Mainly because that\’s what the damn target is, 2 % or so inflation. 2% inflation over 35 years means a doubling in the general price level. So we already expect food prices to double into the late 2040s along with the price of everything else doubling. And incomes more than doubling of course.

The world\’s population is tipped to rise from 7 billion to 9.3 billion by 2050. Two years ago, Oxfam warned food prices were set to double by 2030 and that millions more could suffer food shortages because of a \”perfect storm\” of ecological and sociological factors.

Those sociological factors being that the poor are getting rich and that they\’d like to eat yummy meat from animals as well. And that same Oxfam report noted that food expenditures as a portion of income would continue to fall even as prices rose. Because, you know, the price rises are being driven by that very fact of people getting richer.

\”Over the long run I think food prices and the proportion of income spent on food may well be going up,\” he said. \”Because of growing demand it is going to change. It is the basic law of supply and demand.\”

I don\’t doubt that the price of food is going to go up. I doubt very much that the portion of income spent on it is going to go up.

For one of the things that is driving up food prices is that incomes are rising…..

There’s nothing like a trip to the local curry house to bring on labour.

Or so say millions of women who swear by spicy food as a method of induction. Though no scientific study has confirmed this old wives’ tale, one theory is that the spices irritate the intestines, causing the uterus to contract.

No, no. A curry brings on a damn good shit. Which is quite useful if you\’re about to spend the next 12 hours squeezin\’ dem pelvic muscles.

You know, disposes of one set of mess in the loo rather than on the table?

Boars captured in the capital, Warsaw, are “escorted” back to forested areas rather than being killed and converted into food.

“If nothing is done to curb their numbers in two or three generations they will have lost all respect for humans, and then they will rule us,” Doctor Kruszewicz warned.

Supermarket multibuy promotions on fatty foods could be scrapped in a new obesity crackdown by the Government.

Minutes from a Department of Health working group reveal big retailers and food companies may also have to set aside a percetange of marketing spend for \”healthier\” products instead of promoting fizzy drinks, confectionery and crisps.

Seriously, the cunts are going to determine not just what a company\’s own money may not be spent upon, but what it must be spent upon?

Over and above such civil liberties concerns there\’s the point that the cunts are so often wrong about these food issues anyway. The salt thing for example, there\’s good evidence that they\’re entirely arse about tip over it. Given that we excrete any surplus salt and that a lack of it actually kills.

The bottom line of this is that clearly, we\’ve got too much government and too many would be governors if they\’ve got the time to piss about with stuff like this. Time to hang some of them.

The actual article itself is just the usual wishy washy drivel. We don\’t like those neoliberals so we shouldn\’t have neoliberalism in global food production.

The policies that the hunger summit endorsed will not eradicate hunger – and they might well make it worse. They are based on the same principle that guides all of the government\’s development thinking – namely the idea that \”the market knows best\”. That\’s why African farmers\’ movements rejected a major component of the hunger summit – the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition. This alliance was launched at the last G8 and promises to increase investment in agriculture through \”partnerships\” with food giants such as Monsanto, Syngenta, Cargill and Unilever.

It really is the usual stupidity. We know very well that 50% of the crops in these poor countries rot before they have a chance to be eaten. Deal with that and there just wouldn\’t be food shortages. And how is that dealt with? Well, companies like Cargill do in fact deal with it. It\’s the whole agricultural infrastructure of grain elevators, railroad cars (or trucks). Or warehouses and shipping ports. That\’s what the commodity giants do: and that\’s exactly the system that these countries need.

It\’s quite true that the commodity giants don\’t have to own these systems, don\’t have to be the people who build them. Governments can give it their usual cack-handed try if they prefer. But it is still true that this industrialised and efficient gathering, processing and shipping system is what is needed. All that\’s being argued about is whether it should be done by people who know what they\’re doing or not.

But a peek at the comments shows some seriously disturbed people:

@Nicopotamus – Mao\’s farming model DID work.

Historically, China has never been able to feed itself. The famine during the Great Leap Forward was due to 50% of all farmland being unusable due to floods and droughts. Rationing reduced the impact of the food shortage and gains during that period in irrigation (etc) ensured that there hasn\’t been another significant Chinese famine since.

Mao solved China\’s food shortages, he didn\’t cause them.

Eh?

The Green Revolution was a disaster. That people in the West still laud it as some sort of miracle is a testament to western corporate propaganda.

What?

Excess cereals could be fortified and sold cheaply, subsidized, to the parts of the world suffering from hunger. The very opposite of the free market.

Thereby putting every small scale farmer out of business in those countries.

Neoliberalism has put more people into poverty than at any time in human history.

That poverty has been reduced and is reducing would seem to argue against that idea.

What hope is there when the voters believe such things?

Not that this is exactly news, rather just another example:

The massive increase in meat consumption in rich countries in recent decades has led to spikes in the price of grain

Has there been a massive rise in meat eating in the rich countries? There\’s certainly been a massive rise in the developing countries…..as people begin to get rich enough to have more than just the bowl of rice.

What does amuse though is the picture with it. A plate of British sausages: a food not known to have any connection with any form of known meat.

One burger, two and a half sausages, two pints of lager and a sunny Bank Holiday Sunday afternoon makes the perfect barbecue, a survey has found.

And they\’re right of course.

That\’s no barbecue, that\’s just cooking outside. Short beef ribs, baby back pork ribs, pulled pork, chicken of various cuts…….there\’s a great deal more to barbecue that a burger and a couple of hostages.

Been reading a bit of history and in Anglo Saxon times they got a \”render\” of 7 to 1 on rye, 5 to 1 on wheat.

I assume this means you got 7 or 5 usable grains back from using one grain as seed.

So what\’s the render today? Double, triple that?

Doctors may warn that processed meat is bad for your health, but one grandmother said it is the reason she has lived to be 105.

Pearl Cantrell, from Richland Springs, Texas, says eating bacon every day is the secret of her long life.

She is so passionate about bacon that she encourages people to eat more of it.

Bacon every day is worth whatever anyway……

How is it possible to be a professor and also be this damn ignorant?

According to Prof Lang, all assessments of the world’s food systems reach the same damning conclusion, namely that “a big crunch is coming”. Falling oil reserves – needed for fertilisers – climate change and a soaring global population are coming together in a perfect storm.

What the hell do oil reserves have to do with fertilisers? We don\’t use oil to make them after all.

We use natural gas to make fertiliser. You know, that stuff we\’re all about to drown in as the shale revolution gets underway?

It really does puzzle me how people can make this logical leap:

It was revealed earlier this month that our wet winter and freezing spring have led to the poorest potato yield (down 20 per cent on last year) since the drought of 1976. Jersey Royals will be at least a month late because of tardy planting due to adverse weather, and the price of a 2.5kg bag of white potatoes has risen by 43 per cent – up from £1.35 this time last year to £1.93. The carrot harvest has been hit by the waterlogged ground, peas and tomatoes have been affected by low levels of light, and Britain will also need to import more wheat than it exports for the first time in a decade.

So depending heavily upon one geographic region for our food looks like a bad idea then. Bad weather has the possibiloity of wiping out much of our food supply. So, what should we do about this?

All the same, can it really be true, as agriculture minister David Heath claims, that unless householders start Digging for Victory (Survival, even), we will face empty shelves as supermarkets struggle to import enough food to feed us? Alarmingly, it would appear so.

We should double down and increase our reliance upon one geographic area for our food?

There\’s something not quite right about this logic. Something insane about it actually.

If reliance upon one geographic area causes problems then the solution is to rely upon more than one geographic area. Mopre trade for food, not less home grown stuff.

And so to the puzzle: how is it that people who do indeed remember to breathe manage to get this wrong?

To help, we asked Baena to talk us through the highlights of Portuguese cuisine, which, he insists, don\’t include piri-piri chicken: \”It\’s part of Portuguese cuisine, but it doesn\’t represent it. It\’s known abroad, but in Portugal we don\’t eat that much.\”

It\’s the standard takeaway food. As with fish and chips in England. Not something you normally cook at home but something bought in as a treat or when time runs short.

And just like England a few decades back, it\’s often the only take away food you can get. If a place is too small (or poor or whatever) to have more than one outlet, it\’ll be chicken piri piri.

On the other hand he gets two things right:

Black Iberian pigs, known in Spanish as pata negra, are reared on both sides of the border. In Portugal, the best come from the Montado region of Alentejo. Farmed in oak forests and fed on acorns, the pigs, like Japanese kobe beef, develop layers of intramuscular fat that results in a sweet, moist meat. In Portugal, pork is widely cooked confit-style, in dishes such as rojões, a northern favourite. At Notting Hill Kitchen, confit pork cheeks will be served with truffled bread and bacon crumble.

Those cheeks of black pig (chaps I think in English?) are indeed delicious. A very different flavour to the pork and our local does them grilled in garlic butter on a skewer. Yum, Yum.

I think vinho verde [young ,\"green\" sparkling wine, from Minho], will be appreciated here.\”

Indeed, great quaffing wine. Young, petillant, not very strong, perfect for a cooling draught on a hot day. Think the picnic in the park on that one day in July when England is actually perfect.

but protein and decent vegetables are beyond a food stamp budget. You cannot lecture people about healthy diets when fresh produce is so expensive.

What?

Sure, out of season strawberries are expensive but basic decent fresh food which you then prepare yourself is vastly cheaper than supermarket Shergar lasagne.

As John B regularly says, it\’s entirely possible, even in the most austere food desert in the country, to make a nourishing, tasty, filling meal out of fresh ingredients for £1 a head.

Piss easy in fact.

Of course we don\’t want to eat bugs. But can we afford not to?

Yes.

Next question?

In more detail Jay Rayner is once again making a fool of himself.

But protein from insects will eventually become a part of our diet.

As ever the key driver will be economics;

Oh dear, this isn\’t going to be pretty, is it? Economics as filtered through the understanding of a lefty food writer.

Meat is becoming increasingly expensive, beef especially so. This isn\’t some blip. The future is only for more of the same, as a rising global population puts a premium on cereals and grains, too much of which are fed to livestock.

At the same time grazing land will become scarcer and tensions over water will intensify. By the middle of the century as much as half the planet could be \”water insecure\”; letting cows and sheep drink what\’s left will seem obscene. Many experts believe that, to deal with the environmental impact of livestock, we will have to cut our fresh meat consumption by half.

Err, no. A Few scaremongers bleat that we\’ll have to reduce meat consumption. No one else very much does.

The driver of greater meat consumption is that the poor are getting rich. For which Hurrah! of course. As people do indeed get rich they do indeed like to get more of their protein from rich and juicy meat rather than having to stuff themselves with yet another bowl of maize porridge. We would do the same: indeed, our forefathers did do the same in the 19th century as bread became less the staff of life and meat became a regular part of even working class diets. Hurrah! again.

But here\’s the bit that always gets lost in these discussions. The poor getting rich, how does this happen? Well, by the poor becoming more productive. And what does more productive mean for farming? Well, specifically, here, it means that each farmer produces more output: the productivity of labour rises. But in more general terms it means that farming itself becomes more productive. That\’s the only way that poor farmers become rich farmers: by productivity increasing. And what actually do we mean by productivity increasing? Well, more food being grown actually. So if more food is being grown then there\’s unlikely to be a shortage of food is there?

Another way of putting this is that currently poor farmers will become rich farmers when they start using the same productivity boosting methods that currently rich farmers use. They might use different methods, this is true (what works for rice might be different from what works for barley for example) but by definition, productivity levels must equalise if incomes are to. And if the world\’s poor farmers were as productive in output of foodstuffs as currently rich farmers are then what food shortages are we going to have?

This is the thing you see. The two are intimately linked. The \”shortage\” of meat is going to come because the world\’s two billion destitute peasants will be getting rich and demanding bacon sarnies for their breakfast. For which Hurrah! of course. But the very method by which 2 billion destitute farmers get rich has to be, can only be, by current peasant farming methods reaching the productivity of current rich farmers\’ methods. It\’s this very increase in productivity that creates the wealth that allows the greater consumption of meat, see? And if the world\’s destitute farmers all become as productive as the rich ones then what fucking shortage of meat or food are we going to have?

And if farming doesn\’t become more productive then there won\’t be the extra demand for meat either.

Yes, of course, it is true that the increase in supply might not quite match the increase in demand. Could go either way actually: supply could increase more than demand, less than, making food either more or less expensive. Given historical evidence we\’d rather think that supply would grow more than demand making food ever cheaper. As has been happening since the Neolithic in fact.

But it is still true that what Rayner and the like are missing is that poor farmers will only become rich farmers if productivity improves. And improved productivity is indeed increased production from the same resources. We cannot just look at current output and say that the poor getting rich will increase prices: we must take into account that the very process of the poor getting rich will increase output.

Watkins draws comparisons with energy. \”We need to ask ourselves: where will our food come from in the future? We\’ve got to have food security.\”

Quite true. We don\’t want to go to the larder and find that it\’s empty, that\’s for sure.

So, how about expanding English farming then?

It is only now becoming apparent just how terrible sodden 2012 has been for farmers, particularly those in the north-west and south-west. Wheat yields were at their lowest level since the 1980s, the potato crop at its lowest since 1976. The oilseed rape harvest and barley yields also suffered. Livestock farmers suffered too. The wet weather conditions sent the price of animal feed soaring as farmers were forced to keep their animals indoors.

England\’s a fairly small place. So when one are gets shitty weather it\’s not unlikely that all areas will get shitty weather. So if we were to rely upon English farming for all English food we\’d find ourselves locked into something pro-cyclical. When food\’s in short supply it\’s in short supply everywhere in the country.

Which isn\’t a great contribution to \”food security\”.

What we actually want is some counter-cyclical plan. One that doesn\’t depend upon linked events. One, for example, that allows us to source food from outside the area that will all be affected by weather at the same time and in the same manner.

Concern is shifting to sheep farmers, who are losing as much as £29 for each lamb they sell, owing to the rising costs of feed, wet weather and increased competition from New Zealand farmers who can undercut them.

Ah, yes, that\’s it. Buy food from farmers subject to different weather systems. That reduces reliance upon those who will, in a correlated manner, suffer from whatever plague, flood or hailstones affect any specific geographic area.

So, yes, let\’s have food security. In the obvious and simple manner: through trade.

Britain\’s 220,000 doctors are demanding a 20% increase in the cost of sugary drinks, fewer fast food outlets near schools and a ban on unhealthy food in hospitals to prevent the country\’s spiralling obesity crisis becoming unresolvable.

The Academy of Medical Royal Colleges is calling for action by ministers, the NHS, councils and food firms, as well as changes in parental behaviour, to break the cycle of \”generation after generation falling victim to obesity-related illnesses and death\”.

In a report spelling out the problem in stark terms, the academy says doctors are \”united in seeing the epidemic of obesity as the greatest public health crisis facing the UK.

Not that Trotsky particularly worried about obesity. But this is still Trotskyite.

The revolutionary vanguard, the small class that really understands the problem, self-selects to get on the committees. And then whatever the committee says is what all doctors say: must be, see, for democratic centralism says that whatever the committee says is what all members say. They are indeed the enlightened who know all, \’coz they\’re on the committee, see? How could it be otherwise?

No one at all has consulted all 220,000 doctors in the country. But the one GP whose colleagues agree is too stupid to be allowed to see patients, the one who actually adores committee work, has been selected to sit on the Lower Barsetshire GP\’s Committee To Think About Things. Which votes, along with the others too stupid to practise, for the All Barsetshire Committee To Consider Things which then selects from among its members for the East South Midlands Committee To Consider Things and so on up to the august personages who get to vote for those who sit upon the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges Committee To Consider Things who will tell us that they speak for all doctors.

Which they don\’t: this is an example of Worstall\’s Law. All organisations will end up being run by those who positively enjoy committee meetings.

And what Trotskyism does for you as a method of political organisation is concentrate power in the top committee. And you\’ve got to pass through all those lower committees to get there. Something that will only be done by those who do enjoy committee life more than a real one.

And thus are we ruled.

Food poverty \’puts UK\’s international human rights obligations in danger\’

Consortium of charities to monitor food poverty in Britain with view to possibility of triggering formal UN investigation

Then:

Obesity crisis: doctors demand soft drinks tax and healthier hospital food

Yes, let\’s make food cheaper by taxing it more then.