Ignore the UN and you'll live longer

New front page scare story.  This time it's a stepped-up warning from WHO about carcinogenic food:

On Monday, the World Health Organization delivered a wallop on the unsuspecting public: hotdogs cause cancer ....

So what else is new?  If it isn't scary speculation about global warming it's scary speculation about food.

Ignore the UN.  Your anxiety levels will drop and you'll live longer.

Also from this story, one of my pet peeves:

"... commonplace medical advice: don’t eat junk food and take everything else in moderation."

That's not bad advice, but there's no such thing as junk food.  There are only junk diets.  So, if you take everything in moderation, including what people insist on labeling as "junk" food, you'll do fine.   Even moderation should be taken in moderation. Pig out once in a while!

Don't (blindly) buy local

Ezra Levant interviews "The Locavore's Dilemma" author Pierre Desrochers to talk about the "wisdom" of Ontario's Local Food Act:



There are many reasons not to buy local.

Eat ‘global’ - it's more sustainable than eating ‘local’

An excerpt from "The Locavore's Dilemma" by Pierre Desrochers and Hiroko Shimizu in today's Post will be sure to set the 'eat local' crowd's hair on fire:

... Had resistance to innovation and change been more significant in the last two centuries, real income, life expectancy and food consumption would undoubtedly be much lower than they currently are, while infant mortality, food prices and hours worked, among other things, would have been much higher. Stagnation is fundamentally incompatible with any meaningful notion of sustainable development.

... we contend that modern practices are but the latest in a long line of innovations, the ultimate goal of which has always been to increase the accessibility, quality, reliability and affordability of humanity’s food supply. And if we may be so blunt, how many activists still use locally manufactured electric typewriters and copper-wired rotary-dial phones to spread their message and set up “grassroots” links between food consumers and producers.

... We have attempted to look beyond the anti-corporate, romantic and protectionist underpinnings of locavorism and to illustrate the rationale behind improvements in food production, processing and transportation technologies, along with the benefits of an ever broader division of agricultural labor.

... The available historical evidence tells us that locavorism, far from being a step forward, can only deliver the world our ancestors gladly escaped from and which subsistence farmers mired in similar circumstances around the world would also escape if given opportunities to trade. It would not only mean lower standards of living and shorter life expectancy, but also increased environmental damage and social turmoil.

An excellent read.

The "human right" to free food

[via]

Vancouver credit union caters to eco-loons and other flakes

Vancity may divest from Enbridge over pipeline:

A famously ethical Vancouver credit union may pull millions of dollars out of Enbridge over concerns raised by its members surrounding the Northern Gateway pipeline project.

...Vancity CEO Tamara Vrooman ... "We really think that there are risks that are being pointed out by our members, by First Nations, by the public, by people in the community ...

... The divestment might not mean much to Enbridge – the energy giant's pipeline project alone carries an estimated $5.5-billion price tag – but could satisfy Vancity members who hold its ethical investment guidelines dear.

Vancity is also backing an urban farm in downtown Vancouver:

... a two-acre urban farm ... the largest city farm attempted in Vancouver ... will be tended mostly by residents of the Downtown Eastside.

... funded by the Radcliffe Foundation, which donated $475,000, and a grant from Vancity.

... the boxes will be brimming with artisan varieties of strawberries, melons, baby carrots, spinach, salad greens, daikon, radishes and other trendy, value-added edibles.

I'm sure they mean well (don't all of the "famously ethical"?), but these efforts seem more than just a tad flaky.

Update: On today's (May 11th) Vancouver Sun front page

"Our food system is broken"

Absolute bollocks:

Canada has the dubious distinction of being the first wealthy nation to face a probe by the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right to food. ...

... "What we can say about Canada is that our food system is broken," said Diana Bronson, executive director of Food Secure Canada. ...

What nonsense! Why is the UN wasting valuable time and money on this?  Because that's what the UN does!

Canada's food system is as close to impeccable as one can find anywhere in the world. Food is cheap and plentiful in every conceivable variety and conveniently available in stores and markets everywhere. People can grow their own. Where individuals or families lack resources there are many food banks and other charitable sources of food to help out. It takes an extraordinary effort on the part of a very dysfunctional person to go without.

There must be some other agenda afoot here. Oh, I know, the GOVERNMENT needs to be more involved.  If the objective is to screw up the food system that's the best way to do it.

Boot the government out of our kitchens

I’ve long maintained that there is no such thing as junk food.  Today, Wendy McElroy provides more ammo against the food fascists:

... food is .. one of the main forms of self-control you exercise over your own life. It means something different to everyone, and that's what makes attempts by the state to set one standard for all so offensive.

... The typical counter-argument is to say that since society pays for our health care, we owe it to society to lead healthy lives. In short, your neighbour has a vested financial interest in what goes into your body. If you won't take care of it, the government will make you.

This line of reasoning - rather than justifying a Nanny State or a nosy neighbour dictating your personal choices - constitutes a powerful argument against socialized medicine, but it doesn't do much to say that the government should control what you eat. If socialized medicine had been advertised decades ago as a government mandate to control the minutia of your daily life, then it would probably have never been implemented....

... We need to kick the government out of our kitchens.

Read the whole column.

Orwellian food fascism

The Canadian Agri-Food Policy Institute (CAPI) has produced a new report. Predictably it's loaded with fashionable eco-buzzwords and bureaucratic bullcrap.  From Peter Foster's scathing critique:

... a steaming shovel-ready pile of policy titled Canada’s Agri-Food Destination, which amounts to a non-fiction rewrite of Animal Farm for the 21st century: a self-parody of bureaucratic pretension.

... The CAPI report produces grand Soviet-style targets before getting down to the nitty-gritty of planting new gobbledegook-fertilized bureaucracies as far as the eye can see.

... three pieces of numerical mysticism, two anti-economic mercantilist fallacies and subscription to an established policy disaster before we’ve even left the first page of the executive summary.

... The path to agri-nirvana requires five bureaucratic “Enablers of Change.” ...

... Here is the media’s role: “Link the important issues to prompt change ... [as for global warming, eco-brainwashing and badgering]

... It’s uncertain what the Harper government thinks of this Liberal-created bureaucratic monstrosity or its latest report.

And you can't miss Mr. Foster's exasperation with it all in his closing recommendation:

... [Federal Agriculture Minister Gerry] Ritz should take the whole organization, now ensconced in pseudo-agricultural splendor on the grounds of Ottawa’s legendary experimental farm, out to a more remote rural location with a long gun and a shovel.

Bravo, Peter!

Food Harpie Caught Ordering Cheeseburger and Fries

One of Michelle Obama's adopted pet causes is harping at the food industry to offer healthier eating alternatives.  Alternatives to, you know, cheeseburgers and fries. Ha! Gotcha!

Lefty attacks locavores

Prominent left-wing news rags like the NYT routinely publish op-eds by knee-jerk, Beck and Palin hatin' lefties.  Once in a blue moon it's a reasonable article:

... the local food movement now threatens to devolve into another one of those self-indulgent — and self-defeating — do-gooder dogmas.

He doesn't escape backlash, though. 

Food: Buy global!

Food activists have been haranguing us for a long time with their Buy Local, 100-Mile Diet, and food-mile Save-the-Planet bullcrap. It's all part of global warming hysteria and it’s working.

Dinky little local produce markets have been springing up on mall parking lots everywhere. And my grocery stores have been steadily climbing further onto the "green" bandwagon - pushing fabric shopping bags, flogging ever more organic produce (mostly at significantly higher prices) and offering fewer choices and lower quality.

For example, my favourite grocer used to carry a wide variety of potatoes including local, Island, and B.C. grown as well as from Idaho and P.E.I. Then the high quality Idaho and P.E.I. spuds started getting crowded out by lower quality (soggy, starchy) B.C. and ‘Island’ grown - and to add insult to injury the local ones were often priced higher than spuds shipped all the way from Idaho and P.E.I. Go figure! Recently all the grocery stocked were BC and ‘Island grown’ varieties. Now, to get good Idaho or P.E.I. spuds I’m forced to chase across town (saving the planet?) to find a grocer that carries them.

All I want out of my food supply system is convenience, choice and quality at a reasonable price. But the locavore / 100-mile-diet idiots are doing their level best to make sure that doesn’t happen. And I have had serious doubts that buying local would save much, if any, energy.

I’ve been meaning to complain to the grocery management about this but without hard data the only answer I expected from them was a spiel on "it’s-what-the-customer-wants" and their stock saving-the-planet lecture - though I have to admit, thanks to the green bullshit machine, there’s little doubt that "it’s-what-the-customer-wants".

Now, thanks to Peter Foster's column "Just plain bananas" and an accompanying article "Buy global" by researchers Pierre Desrochers and Hiroko Shimizu we now have good evidence debunking the ‘buy local’, food mile mythology. A sampling from Peter Foster’s summary:

... Food mile thinking is crude and ignores productivity differences between different growing locations.

... This simplistic approach completely ignores the rationale for the evolution of a dispersed and globalized commercial agriculture...

... Food mile lunacy has been taken farthest in the U.K. .... [But a British study showed] The biggest carbon offender was automobile trips to the supermarket! ... [The study also showed] Spanish tomatoes are responsible for one quarter of the CO2 emissions of greenhouse-grown tomatoes in the U.K. Importing fruit from the antipodes is cheaper (and less environmentally costly) than storing domestic fruit for use in the off-season.

... The [Desrochers & Shimizu] study notes the hypocrisy of many campaigners, who are simply domestic protectionists trying to guard their expensive "organic" products. It also points out that fads such as the "100-mile diet" reduce choice, increase costs and take up lots of precious time to pursue.

... the economic and environmental costs of food miles are almost irrelevant when compared with the horrendous costs of farm subsidies and food-trade barriers. ... This corrupted system is at the root of many current trade frictions.

... "The evidence presented suggests that food miles are, at best, a marketing fad... ."

... Food-mile mysticism involves lower incomes for Third World farmers and higher prices for First World consumers.

... Indeed, one can’t help concluding that only the wealthy, who live in underappreciated capitalist societies, could have the time and resources to engage in calculations of such moralistic, self-indulgent stupidity. What is most depressing is the willingness of corporations to waste billions of dollars dancing to their tune.

OK. Now I’m ready to complain to my grocery store managers - and my provincial government. Do I think it will have any effect? Not a snowball’s chance in Hades - they’re all part of the racket. But I’ll feel righteous.

[The full paper by Desrochers & Shimizu.]

“Locavores” - incipient food nazis

I always enjoy William Watson’s wit and wisdom. In his column yesterday the topic is the agriculture economy and the growing AGW/green-inspired eat-local-and-save-the-planet movement:

[My bold]
'Buy local' is just the latest bid for protection from our tiny, shrinking agricultural sector [...] counting only what farmers actually sell brings them down to 0.57% of GDP.
[...]
.... a "locavore" is a devotee of the "local food" movement. Eating locally, which ... agricultural protectionists have been recommending ... ever since the first turnip peddlar wheeled his wagon in from the next settlement over — seems to be the next green fad.
... one movement member ... said local eating is so popular because it's voluntary: "We're not telling people to do something ? We're telling people to try something." How long will it be, though, before the Minister for Local Food tells us the time for trying is over, now we must do?
... another locavore [is quoted] as saying: "Why would we be buying garlic in China when we could go out to our garden and dig it?" I can think of six reasons for starters:

1. I have a skating rink in my backyard and don't really want a garden.
2. If I had a garden, it would currently be covered with snow.
3. I'm not good at gardening.
4. Doing other things I'm better at allows me to make income I can use to buy garlic.
5. The Chinese do garlic well and sell it for less. ("Save money. Live Better.")
6. There are things we'd like to sell China that they won't buy if we boycott their garlic.
And, oh, a seventh: Most of the world's poor people would like to try to better themselves selling us food. Should we really tell them to "Stuff It"?

But what chance does good sense have in the face of green mania? My bet is we're about to reverse four centuries of progress ...[and raise the farmer’s share of the GDP]

It’s hard not to notice grocery stores getting-with-the-fad and increasingly pushing ‘local’ and ‘organic’ produce labels -- often to the detriment of choice and quality. So I believe Mr. Watson. It won’t be long before the green ‘revolution’ has our living standards (not mention the rest of the world's) driven down to former Soviet lows.

Junk Food Tax in BC?

The nanny-state prepares to strike again!

As predicted a BC legislative panel has recommended that 'junk' food be taxed as part of a proposed war on obesity.

Junk Food? There's NO SUCH THING!

Recently there's been a lot of hype surrounding so-called 'junk food'. Headlines - "Childhood Obesity - Junk Food to Blame"; books and movies - "Fast Food Nation" and "Supersize Me!" Socialist busy-bodies, trial lawyers and opportunists of every other stripe are trying to get a piece of the action.

Well, IMHO, there's no such thing as junk food. All food has a useful place in a healthy diet. Potato chips, chocolate bars, soft drinks as part of any balanced meal are all good for you. And you can wreck your body by eating too much of any food. The problem, if there is one, is junk DIETS, junk eating habits. But with all the media hype and political posturing one thing seems near certain - the nanny state will step in to slap a tax on the latest scapegoat - food.

There are so many ways this seems wrong it’s hard to know where to begin but here's the short list:

One, it’s unlikely to work. Since poor eating habits are the problem, those few who may be deterred by ‘junk’ food taxes will more than likely shift their overeating to other foods. Or, in accordance with the law of unintended consequences, they’ll sacrifice ‘healthy’ food to enable them to afford their ‘junk’ food habit.

Two, it’s a regressive tax that hits the poor the hardest. One more simple pleasure under seige by government.

Three, it’s doubly unfair because while it targets overeaters, a minority, it penalizes everyone. Why should everyone, including the poor, suffer a penalty aimed at deterring people with poor eating habits?

Four, the scientific basis for assumptions about weight and health is murky at best. Mortality is a reasonable measure of health and the results of at least one study showed that "Overweight was not associated with excess mortality." Statistically overweight people live no shorter lives than do those of normal weight. Only for the obese and the underweight is there an effect. Perhaps the 'junk' we need to be most concerned with is the ‘junk science’ being peddled to support ‘junk’ food theory.

Five, but not least, this is nanny-statism taken to a new height. Even assuming it were workable, it’s still an arrogant, totalitarian, one-size-fits-all measure. It’s state interference with one of our most basic personal responsibilities - eating habits. And children’s diets are parents’ responsibility.

People should be outraged by the gall of politicians and government bureaucrats attempting to micro-manage their lives, and with the media for its over-enthusiastic hype. Following this path to its ultimate conclusion will lead to government regulation of every aspect of our lives - everything being decided for us - everyone treated like an errant adolescent or serf - what isn’t forbidden is compulsory. In the broadest sense of the health of the citizenry, this is can hardly be a healthy state of affairs.

And, please, let’s not hear the tired argument that this is the government’s business because of the supposed $billions ‘junk’ food consumption costs the health care system. If anything this is one more strike against state monopoly healthcare which is being used to justify ever more interference in our personal lives.