food libertarianism vs. food fascism: what role do you think the government should play in our food consumption?

this subject's come up a few times recently on ilx and it's slowly becoming more of a thing in american politics. here's a good example:
http://motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2012/02/dilemma-conservatives. welfare makes that a gotcha-issue for conservatives, but outside of that context it's kinda a gotcha-issue for people on the left too.

so I guess the question is how much control is too much control? in yr ideal world what is the extent of gov't interference w/ our food consumption?

sometimes i wish i didn't have to eat. food is a fucking hassle.

Food is a fucking joy!

At the very least, government shouldn't be subsidizing production of unhealthy foods over foods that have nearly unanimous support in the nutrition literature. In the U.S. there are big subsidies for dairy and corn (used in ethanol, animal feed, and refined into sugars like HFCS), but none for vegetables and fruit.

^

I think that's true but I also think it's the low-hanging fruit in the debate - everyone's gonna agree w/ that. 'should we tax sugar?' is where things get complicated.

seriously, i wish there was more fast healthy food for lazy fux like me

Food is a fucking joy!

― le ralliement du doute et de l'erreur (Michael White), Thursday, February 9, 2012 3:42 PM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

not saying i don't enjoy eating! it's just not one of my life's main sources of pleasure. if there was way for me to live without the inconvenience of having to eat i'd get so much more stuff done.

i guess really just wanna be an android :-/

ok, sorry for the derail. carry on!

Michael White = under the influence of the French

well to be fair the french do have good food

i heard american schools declared pizza a vegetable last year. there comes a time when you need to get fascist about this shit, and that is when kids think that pizza is one of their five a day.

Aside from what Sanpaku says (which is a really big deal) i think the government has a place in public schools. we pretty much systematically shove highly addictive and deleterious foods into kids faces from a very early age.

seconded w/r/t public schools and no subsidies for patently unhealthy stuff.

i do not, for a second, think that the government has any place limiting the spending of consenting adult welfare recipients and/or other benefit users

i think the more important battlegrounds are cultural (what counts as "nutritious," how often and how much we eat, etc).

free pie for every citizen.

i think the more important battlegrounds are cultural (what counts as "nutritious," how often and how much we eat, etc).

Isn't this basically a known quantity? What's 'nutritious' is pretty settled. It's just no tenable or desirable way to live, for many people.

In MA at least, you get like double bucks for all purchases made at farmers markets if you're on food stamps. (I'm not, even though I meet all the guidelines, because I've been cycled out so many times by the idiots who adjuticate aid).

well there's the realm of 'this is true' like 'fried twinkees are bad for you' but there's also a lot that's up for debate once you get into the details of what's nutritious and what's the ideal amount of food someone should consume etc.

oh i think there's a lot of debate. veganism vs vegetarianism vs paleo vs calorie restriction (and im sure there's more). i think it's interesting to look at all of those movements as cultural responses to "abundance."

like, the whole idea of a specific "diet" (rather than just eating what's available) is a new invention, i imagine.

In MA at least, you get like double bucks for all purchases made at farmers markets if you're on food stamps.

that's a pretty good idea imo but this is mostly just a question of framing. you could also say they get X*2 per month if they buy vegetables from the market but they only X per month if they decide not to. it's framing it as a reward and not a punishment, but it effectively does the same thing.

What is basically nutritious is X amount of protein, X amount of fiber, X amount of carbohydrates, X amount of fat, X amount of cholesterol, X amount of calories, X amount of sundry vitamins and minerals scaled to weight and activity level. It's not terribly mysterious! The choice of how these quantities are obtained is up for political debate, and culturally varied, but A Healthy School Breakfast is not hard to plan/create, adapt, and serve.

it's not "the government" that underwrites the farmers market bucks, it's the farmers' market groups

like, the whole idea of a specific "diet" (rather than just eating what's available) is a new invention, i imagine.

http://media.kunst-fuer-alle.de/img/41/m/41_00007980~luther-at-the-diet-of-worms.jpg

o interesting xp

haha can i backtrack and claim "new" as like anything in the pats 10,000 years?

I don't think there's universal agreement on those x's, remy

Of course the government has to regulate food; the market can't really make up for dead people in a way that's satisfactory to society. Otoh, the way that agrobusiness has forced its interests over those of the greater society is one (of several) reason(s) our food and produce were so shit for so long.

it's the farmers' market groups

This is very savvy marketing, imo

the government shdn't subsidise food production, advertising shd be regulated so that junk isn't targeted at kids, school meals shd be regulated and there shd be some kind of legal pressure on parents to at least ensure their children don't eat a grossly unhealthy diet.

there ought to be cheap and available public sports and exercise facilities.

as far as punitive measures against unhealthy foodstuffs are concerned, this almost inevitably becomes a tax against the poorest section of society so fuck that. also adults ought to be free to mind their own eating choices.

unitive measures against unhealthy foodstuffs are concerned, this almost inevitably becomes a tax against the poorest section of society

what do you think about cigarette taxes?

there's not universal agreement on anything, but there's certainly a general consensus about the foods that lead to long-term health. i can with a lot of conviction and knowledge that a diet of (body weight in pounds x 12) = very approx number of calories to eat per day, distributed as ~ 40% carbs, ~ 30% protein, ~ 30% fat, provided the sums are obtained by foods that are maximally dense in terms of nutrients and fiber.

that is for an average person, in a lightly active lifestyle

also take a goddamn multivitamin

what do you think about cigarette taxes?

i think as a means of stopping people smoking they suffer from the same problems and the same hypocrisies. and i cd be off but i'm pretty sure smoking related illness in the uk is still most prevalent amongst the poorest, so the evidence for smoking tax as effective regulator of behaviour seems slight.

i cd be off but i'm pretty sure smoking related illness in the uk is still most prevalent amongst the poorest

I'd be amazed if this wasn't the case

getting rid of the smoking tax would presumably raise that number or at least slow the rate of its decline

like regardless of it being in itself enough to regulate behavior, I don't think it's ridiculous to think that it has *some* effect

does not have*

i'd be in favour on the social costs of poor diet/smoking being covered by the individual, tbh- there's info out there about the drawbacks, be it on yr own head, but pay in advance for yr own expensive treatments etc

Aware my knee is jerking, agree with my knee tbh

ok i can't even begin to understand that post

health tax levied on eg sugary snack products in advance imo.

Kinda think making healthier food more available in poorer neighbourhoods and shite food less so (and less ubiquitous) is a good idea. Don't know how that works though. Come to think of it, the only food shop in walking distance where I grew up is one of those mini Tesco/ garage things and that's only been there a couple of years.

... whole families existing on Scotch eggs + Mars Bars from the late night garage!

i think just about any taxation of a consumer product that's sufficiently common and cheap is gonna end up a being regressive tax.

I think i'd also want to preserve a distinction between even foods with no nutritional value (ie, sugar) and something like cigarettes. i think these are different enough (though maybe that perception will change) that the cigarette model for dealing with bad and addictive behaviors is probably not the best one to follow.

sugar is p bad, p addictive.

the cigarette model for dealing with bad and addictive behaviors is probably not the best one to follow.

Pictures of obese people all over yr chocolate bars.

Cancerous bowels morelike

i think subsidizing healthier foods (veggies, mainly) in order to make them cheaper may not really work. it may encourage people to buy tomatoes or it may just encourage them to spend even more of their money on the (now more expensive) calorie dense junk food.

gardens are nice but they take a lot of effort

in any case there really are not very many places in america where you'd have trouble finding space for a small plot of dirt, including much of nyc

I would be open to turning Detroit (back) into farms if I didn't worry that the soil is now contaminated with 300 toxic things that it wasn't before, but in general I just think it's beneficial to expose people to growing things to eat. Even if it's in plastic pickle buckets on your fire escape.

Do you have allotments in the US?

... tend to be populated entirely by doddery old geezers admittedly

related idea: we should teach kids to slaughter animals, too (I'm only being semi-trolley when I say this)

'should someone who couldn't feel like they could kill an animal be allowed to eat one' is an inneresting question

i'd probably apologize for tapping a rubber tree, but i'm not saying no to jimmy hats

i'd buy a ticket to a scorpions gig but i'm not growing a mullet

we should ban junk food from the US until everyone can bench press at least their own body weight

― max, Thursday, February 9, 2012 11:02 AM (53 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

sorry, wrong, squats are key

its true, i was bought off by Big Benchpress

don't let them eat cake

And I'm eating carrots and edamame RIGHT NOW, you'd think I would have gained some super-strength by now. I feel cheated.

― one little aioli (Laurel), Thursday, February 9, 2012 12:04 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

hello, you should be eating spinach.

http://media.comicvine.com/uploads/5/50876/1007265-popeye_large.jpg

The argument for "libertarian food" falls apart pretty damn fast, because there is nothing that limits one's personal initiative to farm one's own food, cook it and eat it, other than a mountain of impracticalities, as opposed to a mountain of government-imposed rules and regulations. For example, if I own a she-goat I can drink all the raw goat's milk I want, provided I don't try to sell it to someone else.

The conservative's critique of goverment regulation of food is basically a twist on the libertarian argument: instead of having no role to play, the government should just do less regulating. The only presumed benefit from this is an increase in the number of ways a business can wring a profit from people's need to eat, and a greater variety of roads citizens can take toward ruin.

The liberal critique of government regulation at least starts with the sensible idea that government should make the food supply safe and should promote the overall interests of society, which the two other critiques do not really embrace. Then it just becomes a matter of deciding which among competing goals are the most desirable ones, making regulations to achieve those goals, and monitoring the actual effects of regulations to see if they match their desired effects.

Most of the liberal critique occurs at the point of deciding priorities among competing goals, which is the obvious point of controversy, as opposed to controversies over whether regulating food is a corruption of government power, or regulating the food business interferes too much with making profits.

And riding off of that comment:

The amount of trans fat in the American bloodstream fell by more than half after the Food and Drug Administration required food manufacturers to label how much of the unhealthful ingredient is in their products, according to a new study.

Blood levels of trans fat declined 58 percent from 2000 to 2008. FDA began requiring trans-fat labeling in 2003. During the same period several parts of the country — New York most famously — passed laws limiting trans fats in restaurant food and cooking. The makers of processed food also voluntarily replaced trans fats with less harmful oils.

The decline, unusually big and abrupt, strongly suggests government regulation was effective in altering a risk factor for heart disease for a broad swath of the population.

Researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention discovered the decline by analyzing blood drawn as part of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, which interviews and examines a sample of Americans at least once a decade.

i'm a food libertarian in that i think people should be free to eat whatever they want, so long as they're not eating on the government's dime and the food in question isn't an endangered species or something. you want your pork rinds fried in beef tallow? fine, have ats. i don't thing the government has any business restricting such things. same goes for, like, unpasteurized dairy and juice products, meat slaughtered by farmers themselves, etc.

however, i think the government should regulate much more aggressively. processing and handling standards, safety and hygiene inspections, labeling. labeling labeling labeling. think we ought to require a good deal more package info than we do. radiated or not, gmo or not, labeling on alcolholic beverages, much stricter federal standards for terms like "organic", "natural" and "free range".

i'm a food libertarian in that i think people should be free to eat whatever they want, so long as they're not eating on the government's dime

i'm trolling a little, but do you intend that people eating on the government's dime should include welfare recipients, who should only have access to some food?

how would there shd be some kind of legal pressure on parents to at least ensure their children don't eat a grossly unhealthy diet work? i have some paranoia on this topic of kids being taken away from parents

i don't know, it's why i tried to word the suggestion so cautiously. child welfare is so riddled with class and race issues as soon as the State gets involved. and i'm certaintly not thinking of obesity here, an unnutritious diet can have all kinds of different effects on children. but the issue of parents wilfully letting kids go without vegetables or basic essential nutrients is a problem, and sometimes amounts to abuse in fact if not in intention. maybe the only viable solution is to make damn sure kids in school have at least one nutritious meal a day, but i think we ought to at least think about what else we can do to stop children growing up on all junk-food diets

you want your pork rinds fried in beef tallow? fine, have ats.

I forget. When did this become illegal?

In making arguments on this subject, it is good to distinguish between policies that are in place and represent the actual workings of government from those that are mere figments of the imagination, conjured up to add zest to a slippery-slope argument.

but do you intend that people eating on the government's dime should include welfare recipients, who should only have access to some food?

That's almost always what people are referring to, but never to, say, soldiers, or Congressmen, or civil servants. Somehow, a salary paid directly by the Federal government doesn't = "eating on the government dime," but food stamps do.

come on those people choose to be on welfare

whenever anybody pulls a rhetorical switch that seeks to separate "the government" or "the public purse" from the people that the government is supposed to represent and belong to then you know there's fun ahoy

i'm trolling a little, but do you intend that people eating on the government's dime should include welfare recipients, who should only have access to some food?

― "renegade" gnome (remy bean), Thursday, February 9, 2012 11:27 AM (16 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

no, but it seems reasonable that a government might provide food aid in a number of ways, not just in straight-up cash payments. i'd be okay with "food stamps" (does any state still use these) being limited in certain ways with regard to what they can purchase. my EBT card won't buy beer for me, for instance. that seems reasonable. i'm actually kind of surprised/bummed that it buys cheetos and coke, but not cat food.

limiting the purchasing power of welfare money seems like a recipe for black markets and further exploitation of the marginalised to me

yeah but the money you would have otherwise spent on food can buy you beer

noodle vague otm

"poor people can't make good decisions, so we'll make those decisions for them"

I forget. When did this become illegal?

there's more than one government. in the US, a lot of local governments restrict trans fats.

Not in your own frickin' house they don't.

i remember that my school lunches had the same rundown every week: one day with pizza, one day with a burger, one day with a chicken sandwich, one day with steak-ummms, and friday was pizza boat day! plus lots of cookies.

not much in the way of veggies iirc.

"poor people can't make good decisions, so we'll make those decisions for them"

i don't think it necessarily has to be about poor people, just what the government does and doesn't want to pay for. i wouldn't object if my gov't decided that it didn't want to fund the purchase of soda pop. and if that in turn encouraged black market soda rackets, i wouldn't be too concerned. free enterprise!

max just reminded me of the whole honourable history of "poverty is solely the result of bad decisions" arguments, which is probably a little bit older than the history of welfare systems

what is pizza boat

Not in your own frickin' house they don't.

uh, yeah, but i never said that

pizza boat sounds awesome

basically oversized cheese garlic bread

http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRV35ietAgJ_uao07HLzfpJ1y0VNmyccxG-Je1HpSr987PuRBcz

u cd hide vegetables under the cheese

that wd be a good plan for kids who refuse to eat vegetables tbh. or smush them into the tomato sauce.

i mean a vaguely healthy kids meal shdn't have to look like gwyneth paltrow's lenten lunch

uh, yeah, but i never said that

You strongly implied that "government restrictions on trans fats" would stop a person from eating "pork rinds fried in beef tallow."

"poor people can't make good decisions, so we'll make those decisions for them"

poor people often can't afford to make the same bad decisions rich people can

i just meant that the gov't shouldn't be telling restaurants what they can and cannot serve (outside, like rat poison and controlled substances, obv). much better approach is to require warning labeling.

like "warning: though delicious, these tallow rinds will make you gross and dead"

i don't think it necessarily has to be about poor people, just what the government does and doesn't want to pay for. i wouldn't object if my gov't decided that it didn't want to fund the purchase of soda pop. and if that in turn encouraged black market soda rackets, i wouldn't be too concerned. free enterprise!

― Little GTFO (contenderizer), Thursday, February 9, 2012 1:53 PM (8 minutes ago)

pretty much agree with this

a lot of local governments restrict trans fats

I just looked it up and neither beef tallow nor pork rinds have any trans fats, so I'm pretty sure that, even combined, they won't fall afoul of any local regulations against trans fats. Just sayin'.

phil d.- is that salsa you mentioned upthread available at the Shaker Square farmers market?

xp: okay, lol, you got me. i know nothing abt the chemical composition of tallow. i totally assumed it was trans-y, like regular beef fat.

brownie, yep, that's where I buy it.

Hey, it has a webpage: http://www.cbgarden.org/Ripe_From_Downtown_Salsa.html

I will say that the collusion of big government and big agriculture has helped take any number of healthy, innocuous products - from corn to pork - and transformed them into massive, environmentally damaging and nutritionally depleted tragedies. I just read this great book called "Pig Perfect" about the former symbiosis between farm, farmer and pig, and how the advent of factory farming took what was once was a major economic and diet linchpin in America and basically knee-capped it. Not only has the quality of the product gone down, but the number of people who used to produce it have been reduced to a fraction of what they once were, and the resources used to produce pork have been in turn shuttled over to other business. And vast pools of pig shit (unregulated because they're legally farm waste vs. industrial waste) have been left to sit, stink and destroy small towns and farm land for others. For example.

There are lots of asides in the book centering on Spanish iberico pig, and how stringent U.S. regulation ironically makes it virtually impossible to produce pork in this country in accordance to environmentally friendly, animal friendly, nutritionally and taste superior means by which the product had been previously produced for centuries. On a micro level, for example, there's a great local ice cream maker here who was more or less shut down because she would not shell out for tens of thousands of dollars of equipment "required" to bring her small-batch artisan stuff up to code.

Anyway, food production in this country just another facet of our corrupt, broken system.