<\/a>
\nWalking home from the office today, I was listening to a Scientific American podcast Putting Food On The Table: What To Eat<\/a> (go to sciam.com\/podcast\/<\/a> for their full set of podcasts), featuring an interview with the appropriately (or ironically – is irony dead?) Marion Nestle, author of the book “What to eat<\/a>“, and an article entitled “Eating made simple<\/a>” in the current issue of Scientific American.<\/p>\n

Lots of it is well covered (but still important) ground – eat less overall, get more exercise, favor salad over fries. An amazing bit, though, is that since 1980,<\/p>\n

\nCalories available per capita in the national food supply (that produced by American farmers, plus imports, less exports) rose from 3,200 a day in 1980 to 3,900 a day two decades later.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Yikes! That means that for each of us in the U.S., there are nearly twice as many calories per person out there waiting to be eaten than we actually need.<\/p>\n

She’s quick to point out that not all these calories are actually being consumed, i.e., we’re not as obese as we could<\/em> be. But, as she also points out, the structure of the current financial markets strongly reward growth, which in the food industry typically means selling more of those surplus calories than your competitors, all of which tends to favor pushing buckets of empty calories like soda rather than fresh tomatoes. And, of course, from an environmental standpoint, the idea of producing nearly twice as many calories as we need is enormously wasteful, for our choices are either to consume them (and turn into monstrous butterballs in the process) or throw them away (ensuring we have some of the best fed landfills in all of human history). What a frightful mess.<\/p>\n

(Composting, of course would be a preferable destination for those calories than either obesity or landfilling them, but even that doesn’t make it “right” or “desirable”, just slightly less stupid.)<\/p>\n

It’s also interesting that the food industry’s massive marketing machine has chosen to shove crates of processed junk our way. They could, of course, simply encourage us to exercise like Lance Armstrong in training; those fellows can pack away nearly 6K calories a day because they burn it right off. It’s a shame that PepsiCo isn’t pushing bikes and community fitness programs instead of chips and fizzy pop, although I suspect it’s easier to convince Joe and Jane Couch Potatoe to relax and enjoy a beer and some chips during the big game than it is to get them to go actually play.<\/p>\n

The other interesting bit was that apparently for the first time junk food is now cheaper per calorie than good fruit and veg. Back home we make an effort to buy a lot of locally grown organics from our local co-op<\/a> and (in the summer) the Easy Bean Farm<\/a>, but all that wondrous grub isn’t cheap. There’s lots of nice organic stuff on offer over here, but with 60% salary and the exchange rate smacking us about the head and shoulders 24\/7, it’s pretty tough to pay that premium.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, buying healthy, environmentally responsible food has become to a significant degree a privilege not so readily available for those in financially difficult circumstances. (A major change from 100 years ago, where the cheap stuff would have been the local produce.) It’s clear that any plan to save the world really needs to include plans to reduce financial inequities, and probably changes in the farming and food distribution incentives as well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Walking home from the office today, I was listening to a Scientific American podcast Putting Food On The Table: What To Eat (go to sciam.com\/podcast\/ for their full set of podcasts), featuring an interview with the appropriately (or ironically – is irony dead?) Marion Nestle, author of the book “What to eat“, and an article … Continue reading “Think of how many calories we must be throwing away”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,16,18,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-646","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-education","category-environment","category-gardening","category-science"],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p90sy-aq","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":527,"url":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/2007\/04\/07\/about-which-the-philosophy-of-science-teaches-us-nothing\/","url_meta":{"origin":646,"position":0},"title":"“…about which the philosophy of science teaches us nothing”","author":"Nic McPhee","date":"7 Apr 07","format":false,"excerpt":"I've been wading through tons of backed up e-mail and listening to the fine Rage Against The Machine album which Sub-Evil Boy and I bought last week. The album ended, and the next thing in iTunes happened to be a Science on Guardian podcast that I hadn't gotten around to.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Science"","block_context":{"text":"Science","link":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/category\/science\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"How science is done","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm1.static.flickr.com\/38\/103784837_fda1bffa76_m.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":745,"url":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/2007\/12\/12\/science-debate-its-about-time\/","url_meta":{"origin":646,"position":1},"title":"Science Debate: It’s about time!","author":"Nic McPhee","date":"12 Dec 07","format":false,"excerpt":"w00t! There's a group pushing for a presidential science debate focused on the many scientific issues that face us nationally and worldwide. Their call: Given the many urgent scientific and technological challenges facing America and the rest of the world, the increasing need for accurate scientific information in political decision\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/category\/general\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":644,"url":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/2007\/09\/09\/dont-eat-these\/","url_meta":{"origin":646,"position":2},"title":"I wouldn’t eat these","author":"Nic McPhee","date":"9 Sep 07","format":false,"excerpt":"Rumor has it that these are snowberries, in which case they're not edible for humans. Not that I'd be much inclined in that direction - they do bear a creepy resemblance to the cleverly disguised eggs of some alien with less than honorable intentions.","rel":"","context":"In "Gardening"","block_context":{"text":"Gardening","link":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/category\/gardening\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":141,"url":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/2005\/04\/30\/a-draft-of-a-strib-letter-on-the-id-silliness\/","url_meta":{"origin":646,"position":3},"title":"A draft of a Strib letter on the neo-creationism silliness","author":"Nic McPhee","date":"30 Apr 05","format":false,"excerpt":"I've just spent way too long flailing away in the horribly cramped confines of 150 words trying to write a letter to the Minneapolis Star-Tribune on the whole ID-in-schools silliness. I wrote about a zillion drafts, and WeatherGirl expertly poked holes in one after another, sending me back to the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Education"","block_context":{"text":"Education","link":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/category\/education\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":770,"url":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/2008\/01\/10\/we-have-to-help-them-understand-science-matters\/","url_meta":{"origin":646,"position":4},"title":"We have to help them understand: Science matters!","author":"Nic McPhee","date":"10 Jan 08","format":false,"excerpt":"I highly recommend \"Science, delayed\" over on Science- Progress.org. It's a short, clear case by Chris Mooney for how seriously messed up the U.S. Congress is when it comes to science, and how important it is for us all to speak up. The short version is the the Office of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Education"","block_context":{"text":"Education","link":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/category\/education\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Science buzz!!!","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm1.static.flickr.com\/97\/267333555_d8d1300c0c_m.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":739,"url":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/2007\/12\/03\/a-serious-case-of-misplaced-priorities\/","url_meta":{"origin":646,"position":5},"title":"A serious case of misplaced priorities","author":"Nic McPhee","date":"3 Dec 07","format":false,"excerpt":"Alert! One of our eagle-eyed readers (Lambo) pointed out in the comments that the details of this chart are almost certainly broken, and that the PCRM may not be quite the upstanding source that we might have hoped for. 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