That's #4 out of "10 things I know are true about food – that people don’t want to believe" (WaPo).
November 1, 2023
"Vegetables are a luxury product. They’re expensive to grow and incredibly resource-intensive."
"They get the highest level of fertilizer and pesticide applications, and they deliver nutrients without many calories. In an overweight society, that’s a plus, but if you widen the lens to the whole world, where we have to feed 8-plus billion, ideally without expanding agriculture’s footprint, crops that deliver nutrition and calories are ideal. Whole grains, legumes, tubers, tree fruits, nuts. Those are the backbone of a diet good for both people and planet."
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More noise from the crappy “you need to learn to live with less” Davos inspired gloom crowd. Let “the world” eat whatever the fuck they want to. I like a nice selection of vegetables in my local supermarket and there’s no reason to give it up.
Government Propaganda push to CONTROL our food. The housing and the medical care have long since became a government regulated operations.
When will the Regulations of home Gardening hit?
They want us all to eat bugs. First it was cows and pigs and chickens take too much resources. Now it’s vegetables. What a bunch of crap.
More "eat the bugs" propaganda, I see.
Didn't expect the "climate change" crowd to declare we shouldn't grow food, but here we are.
.....but they remain popular!!
I tried eating a Douglas fir while skiing.
It didn't work out.
Link to Scott Adams · Oct 24
Me: My whole body was extremely stiff and achy for two years, but it all stopped a few months ago…
Doctor: Because you quit gluten?
Me: Um…how did you correctly guess that?
Doctor: I hear it a lot.
Gluten free bread is expensive, but the aches and pains are worse.
Olives should be on that list of good things to eat as well but not the disgusting American variety that comes in cans.
… but if you widen the lens to the whole world, where we have to feed 8-plus billion, ideally without expanding agriculture’s footprint, crops that deliver nutrition and calories are ideal.. [My emphasis]
Why would it be “ideal” to not expand the footprint of agriculture? Why shouldn’t we expand the amount of land devoted to feeding us?
They can pry my Tomahawk Steak bone from my cold dead hands.
"More "eat the bugs" propaganda, I see."
Delicious, squirmy, crunchy bugs...
These comments don't seem to relate to the post or the article. There's nothing about eating insects here. Nothing about not eating meat. I don't get why you are reacting this way. I put something up about food so you just serve up a random food opinion? I don't get it!
The "expert" who wrote that lacks both history and science. Vegetables don't provide much in the way of calories. The Irish nation subsisted on a diet that largely consisted of potatoes from say 1820 to about 1845. Desperately poor they lacked fertilizer--and just about anything else; and their individual farming plots were very small. Potatoes were about the only crop that could feed a family in those small plot no fertilizer conditions.
The world population was less than 3 billion at the start of the 20th century and is now more than 8 billion and might close in on 9. "Scientists" like the WaPoo commenter argued the world would starve to death if population increased.
What happened? Well the Haber Bosch process involving fixing nitrogen from the air happened. It was done in ~1914 or so because Germany was desperate for nitrogen for explosives. The side effect of course is that the nitrogen it made was also very useful for several different sorts of abundant and relatively inexpensive fertilizer.
Will the world population continue to increase and go beyond 9 billion. Maybe not. But it won't be for a lack of food or calories. It will rather be due to decreasing fertility and changing attitudes about the desirable size of a family.
The comments reflect what normals think when these food extremists try to gain attention.
Many of your readers have situational awareness and perceive a longer term intent (by the publishers). Such a reader might suppose that this year’s fresh vegetables are next year’s food of white or white-adjacent colonizers, intent on oppressing brown and queer people (intersectionality!) for their asparagus and arugula. You swim in the waters of Madison, Wisconsin and get your fish flakes at Whole Foods from PEOPLE WHO CARE. Or maybe it’s just another right wing squatters insurrection.
"Those are the backbone of a diet good for both people and planet."
That's a basic mistake right there. As Elon indirectly pointed out, and deep ecologists quite directly, what's good for people, plague that they are, can't be good for the panet.
This guy wrote a whole article about how much he doesn't know. And he's apparently unaware that this might extend into the parts that he writes about, with confidence.
This is all part of a larger context. The camel now has its whole head and neck in the tent.
Seriously. When has don’t eat vegetables been in the Overton window of what food we should eat discussion?
When they came for my steak I knew it was only a matter of time before they came back for my creamed spinach, fried onions, and wedge salad.
No Anne. YOU don’t get it.
I put something up about food so you just serve up a random food opinion? I don't get it!
Not everyone here knows how to defeat the paywall in order to peek at the content/context.
I expected Klaus Schwab great reset cheerleading from WP.
Nope, just an entertainment piece.
Low-density green energy is suitable for ruminants and New Deal profits.
This article exists to push an agenda that you don’t understand because you live in a bubble.
“ Not everyone here knows how to defeat the paywall in order to peek at the content/context”
Then, just write about the part I quoted. Don’t guess about what’s in the article you’re not reading.
Especially don’t guess just to impose your own ideas about what must be wrong with the article and disagree with the person in criticized them. You don’t know what they said.
It wasn't about just "food". Vegetables are just the latest variety of food being lobbied against by those who would control. You can treat this as a distinct and totally isolated thing, but it's not.
I invite you to delve deeper, as a prof would say.
"Pack up the meat, sweet, we’re headin’ out
For Wichita in a pile of fruit"
"I don't get why you are reacting this way."
Happens a lot, but in this case the air of assumed superiority in the idea expressed in the headline you quoted - things I know are true but people don't want to believe - was bound to set a lot of knees jerking. Coming from the Post just made it even more asinine.
"Oh, fuck off" (to the author, not the poster) was my initial reaction. This holds still, regardless of whether or not the subject is worth discussion.
And it isn't. Except for the remarkable point that if the fact that the whole world can't eat asparagus every night is something that people she knows don't want to believe then she should meet more people. Especially a few who aren't idiots.
What's for dinner?
Tubers!
Nobody’s imposing anything…here.
"Why would it be “ideal” to not expand the footprint of agriculture? Why shouldn’t we expand the amount of land devoted to feeding us?"
Because the land is needed for solar panels and windmills.
Nobody’s imposing anything…here.
He's not entirely wrong, but I know my gut feels healthier during the months when I have to cook with lots of leafy green vegetables to keep up with my CSA share. He even admits that vegetables are good for a first world diet, so the concern about "how will we feed the world" seems a bit of malthusian panic to me.
As for the pay wall complaints: Brave Browser, Block Scripts. Seriously, it's not that tricky.
Going strictly by the excerpt in Ann’s post:
(1) Grains are not good for many humans. Gluten sensitivity is likely underreported, and the effect of most grains on blood sugar is likely a big chunk of the obesity epidemic. (I know it’s why I was overweight for many years, because I wasn’t overweight until I started following the goddamn food pyramid, and as as soon as I stopped eating grains and started eating more vegetables, animal protein, and both saturated and monounsaturated fat, the weight came off. Humans are only partially evolved to eat grains.)
(2) Fruit is bad for you in anything except very small quantities because it’s full of fructose, aka fruit sugar. Over the last 150 years, humans have bred fruits to be drastically sweeter than they used to be, and sugar is just about the most destructive thing you can eat. The reasons why vegetarians and vegans sometimes lose weight is mostly because they aren’t eating much sugar, unless they’re eating tons of fruit.
(3) Nuts often have good fats, but they also have a fair amount of carbs, and may have more omega-6 fats than is healthy; omega-3 fats are better.
(4) Tubers are generally dense, relatively simple carbs; might be better than grains but not by much. Same goes for legumes.
(5) Cruciferous vegetables and things like tomatoes (which are technically fruits, but usually lumped in with the vegetables) are great sources of micronutrients while being poor sources of simple carbs; if you’re eating low/no carb (which is what most people should be doing), these vegetables are basically treated as carb-free because their carbs are very poorly absorbed by the human gut.
I think that covers the WaPo except.
The foundation of a healthy diet IMO is:
(6) Carbohydrates are not dietary essential; you will be perfectly healthy on a diet of animal protein and fat, vegetables, and fats from some plants like avocados, coconuts, etc.
(7) Sugar is just about the worst thing you can put in your diet.
I was able to get through the paywall and read the whole thing. But just going on the quoted excerpt, when someone uses "good for ... [the] planet," that's already a dead giveaway of an agenda that runs counter to individual choice based on what is right for the individual. And what is right for one person may not be right for another. High-carb starches ("corn, soy, oats, chickpeas and barley") are a death warrant for someone prone to diabetes. If broccoli is more expensive to produce, but I'm willing to pay for it rather than green beans, that's my choice.
And the claim that subsidies have a minimal impact because the price effect is "imperceptible to the consumer" overlooks the fact that subsidies induce food manufacturers to use products like corn syrup instead of sugar, or unhealthy oils like corn and soybean.
1. Gene editing can be used for good.
2. Diet soda is fine.
3. Subsidies didn't create our terrible diets.
4. Vegetables are a luxury product.
5. Organic is not the answer.
6. Food deserts don't cause obesity.
7. All eggs taste the same.
8. Tilapia is good.
9. We know precious little about nutrition.
10. Carbs aren’t uniquely fattening.
Duh!
Fruit trees require a lot of land and need years to mature. They also require a lot of water, as do many nuts and grains. What do you do in drought years?
I'm more concerned about the lack of water in some places than I am about the use of fertilizers and pesticides. I think scientists will figure out how to make better fertilizers and pesticides - perhaps ones that don't leave a long-term effect on the surrounding land and water.
I think he is only talking about large scale farming in regards to vegetables. They are still good to grow for individuals with a small bit of land or even in containers. You can grow many of them from seedling to harvest in just two or three months. For an individual or a family, vegetables are better to grow because many of them have staggered harvests - a few ripen at a time.
I don't know why he didn't have seaweed on the list.
These are the intellectual heirs of the Population Bomb! panickers of the '70s. Also of the buggy whip panickers of 1900.
There are ways to grow vegetables intensively. There are ways to nourish yourself on almost any combination of foods. Why are some people so focused on trying to control what other people eat?
I mean, that's rhetorical. I know why: there are people who - for their own, well-intentioned reasons - believe that changing the diet of the developed world will somehow improve the diet of the developing world. Why they believe this, I can only speculate, given that it's never worked this way before - but I speculate it's because they can't conceive of a problem that THEY don't HAVE to find a solution for, preferably by muscular intervention in human society. It's a shortcut to secular salvation, I think.
Btw... I grew vegetables for my family of five in 3 6x6 "French intensive" style beds without chemical fertilizers for years. (The fourth bed was herbs and strawberries, not needed but enjoyed.) Summer things mostly, but when the deer and rabbits didn't get to my garden too badly, I was able to can enough for fall. With more effort - presumably prompted by more need - I could have definitely done more.
There's birth crash going on right now which will have a greater effect on diets than any planner's dream. For example, China is no longer the most populous country in the world; India is and India is a vegetarian country. The US is experiencing the birth crash in some population groups but still is expanding its total population due to the collapse of the border. Those coming in, Hispanics mostly, suffer from diabetes. They need to eat more vegetables.
"Whole grains, legumes, tubers"--lots of carbs. A great diet for type 2 diabetes and obesity.
At least he/she/zhe didn't call vegetables racist.
Well, on to Soylent Green then.
Not a word so far in this thread about many vegetables being a great source of fibre, which is essential to digestion and elimination.
I lost weight on a keto diet, but constipation was an issue.
To prevent that, Low-carb, high-fibre veggies were a must.
does the pay-walled article address that issue?
The guy throws around terms and sciency sounding stuff, but never actually says anything.
He is right about energy density and the cost of getting stuff to our tables. Consider lettuce. It serves no purpose. 90% water, massive amount of refrigeration to get it from field to table.
The climate gestapo wants us to reduce are home air conditioning, but sees no problem shipping lettuce across the nation.
Hy Vee has a massive flower wharehouse in Ankeny. Are cut flowers more important than green beans?
That's the dichotomy. Common folks have to pay, while the rich get cut flowers delivered everyday.
We have more than enough food to feed the world. Lack of food in parts of the world, is no lack of production, Its lack government competency and honesty. Govts cause starvation, no mother nature.
Tangentially connected. All the leftist Hamas sycophants are demanding food, fuel, and medicine be allowed into Gaza. But Hamas has all those things in abundance.
But Israel is the bad guy?
Whoops. I see that the author is a woman. My use of male pronouns above was entirely inadvertent and not meant to convey... anything
>“ Not everyone here knows how to defeat the paywall in order to peek at the content/context”
Ann Althouse said...
Then, just write about the part I quoted. Don’t guess about what’s in the article you’re not reading.<
Better yet, guess what Ann happens to think you should be thinking about the article. Then for extra points, guess what she happens to think about the article. Then put the two together and enter that as your comment on her post. And if you happen to guess correctly then she will get why you are reacting that way. And then you won't need chastising that day.
There. Think of this as an opportunity to learn something that many of us learned some time ago.
where we have to feed 8-plus billion
I don't have to do that. Ever. I am responsible for my own food. A while ago I was responsible for my kids' food.
Hamas is responsible for feeding Gazans (for example). Because they are the "leaders" there. The leaders of India are responsible for assuring that Indians have sufficient food to eat. My responsibility is not world-wide.
On vegetables and such. One of my favorite clueless qoutes from our New Light Worker on the campaign trail in 2008 (while speaking to a group of Iowa farmers), "Have you seen the price of arugula?" I don't think they understood Barry's angst about it all.
11. Eating vegan doesn't save the life of sentient beings, and may even harm more of them than eating a heavily carnivorous diet.
The annoying vegans who say "A rat is a pig is a dog is a boy" may not like to think about it, but there are a hell of a lot of rats and mice and gophers and moles and voles and lizards and nesting birds who are killed by vegetable farming.
If I shoot an elk or a moose, my whole family will have meat for months after taking the life of only one animal. If you eat factory farmed vegetables, you may have to account for a dead baby mouse or plover or bunny rabbit with every trip to the store.
There's a lot of truth to that article. The Angus steer that produced the steak I had last night was raised on grass and whole grains, and that steak was delish. And don't get me started on pork from acorn fed black Iberian pigs ("Jamon Iberico de bellota" in the Spanish food section of your local Swegman's). The fat from acorn fed pigs is actually high in HDL, literally melts in your mouth and the taste makes it worth every penny of the $100/lb you'll pay.
I find the "luxury" characterization of vegetables odd. As a +65 year old, I grew up when everyone knew someone with a vegetable garden. It ain't that hard to grow them. It's a bit like saying computers are a luxury item when one can buy a serviceable Raspberry Pi for $100, or build your own from components. It presumes people are helpless slugs.
In Economics a luxury good is one for which consumption increases faster than income increases. An increasing consumption of vegetables is simply an indication that worldwide incomes have increased past the subsistence level.
Meanwhile the "save the world" people are outlawing nitrogen-based fertilizer (and while they are at it, cows).
Now they want to take away veggies? Allegedly because growing veggies is limiting the capacity to "feed the world?'
We have lots and lots of capacity to feed the world. The problems are water and distribution, which are mostly solvable if the knaves and fools get out of the way.
You know what else is a "luxury?" Environmentalism. Which is why the "industrialized" nations are the "cleanest." They can afford it.
""Have you seen the price of arugula?" I don't think they understood Barry's angst about it all."
I remember that. I thought it was some clever self-deprecating humor from the Hyde Park guy.
I was wrong. He doesn't do self-deprecating.
Paul Erlich 2018, 50 years after the publication of his humiliating treatsie, "the Population Bomb. All predictions huge fails.
The world’s optimum population is less than two billion people – 5.6 billion fewer than on the planet today, he argues, and there is an increasing toxification of the entire planet by synthetic chemicals that may be more dangerous to people and wildlife than climate change.
Ehrlich also says an unprecedented redistribution of wealth is needed to end the over-consumption of resources, but “the rich who now run the global system – that hold the annual ‘world destroyer’ meetings in Davos – are unlikely to let it happen”.
Notice the real goal
"an unprecedented redistribution of wealth is needed to end the over-consumption"
The agenda items the left, since the Great Depression have all proven to be huge failures, and the poorest among us share the lions share of the load. Yet they never let up, and voters keep them in power.
Nothing happens in a vacuum, as they say. The seemingly benign antivegetable article is part of the larger WaPo globalist narrative and the author gives it away talking about feeding the world in this brief excerpt. It makes me think of the Dutch farmers being forced out of business by the EU because farming is too “carbon intensive,” and I don’t understand how people who read widely and understand the trends of the world can read this and NOT see the big picture. Should my personal dietary choices really be based on “feeding the world” and doing so for considerations of “efficiency?”
I don’t think so. And I despise busybodies like this telling me it’s for my own good or worse it’s better for “the world.”
I remember reading articles about the ecological horror of lettuce-growing. Whatever it is that you are eating, it's your fault.
"Vegetables are a luxury product. They’re expensive to grow and incredibly resource-intensive."
Redefining terms and recategorizing "good nutrition practices" as an incredibly resource intensive luxury good is a huge red flag. It reminds me that "The issue is never the issue. The issue is always revolution," to paraphrase David Horowitz. Therefore common everyday items like vegetables must be redefined by the revolutionaries as a "luxury good" to shame those who cling to the old ways of eating. Living in California, which is what Madison, WI would look like if it was a state, makes me extremely sensitive to "those people," and WaPo writers are always suspect just by virtue of working for this Country's Elite as the approved opinion outlet. In this case the writer's intent is transparently revolutionary, even if it is presented in listicle form as "things she knows are true."
Wonder what other batshit crazy ideas she has that "she knows are true."
boatbuilder said...
You know what else is a "luxury?" Environmentalism. Which is why the "industrialized" nations are the "cleanest." They can afford it.
I know this to be true. 100% true.
Personally? I'm blaming the Jews.
Whatever it is. The Jews did it.
I couldn't read the article ... Is fried okra mentioned? If so, is ok? Or is it racist to even ask?
You can read about the WaPo writer Tamar Haspel and her speaking engagements here: tamarhaspel.com
Draw your own conclusions about her enthusiasm for global warming hysteria/environmentalism and the non-profits she supports. She is an "oyster farmer" too according to the bio.
I'm confused by your confusion. The comments prior to your expression of confusion were exactly what I was thinking as well. Cue the "It's a TRAP!" clip...
She used to work in Marketing for Ziff-Davis. Tells me all I need to know.
Who's the "we" in "we have to feed 8+ billion people"?
She does proclaim Diet Coke perfectly fine. No hand-wringing about environmental costs of aluminum and plastic containers there! No worries about the intensive marketing to kids and minorities in support of Big Sugar*. Funny what things these revolutionaries will overlook when they "like" the product.
*Hey if one product from Big Soda is OK then you are supporting all of it. Amirite?
"Carbs aren’t uniquely fattening.
We have reams and reams of evidence. Low-carb diets outperform other diets by a few pounds in the short term, but all diets are equally ineffective in the long term."
--
When they didn't stick to it or overconsumed fat thinking they were impervious.
Environmentalists don't really like people much. And they are loving the forests to death.
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