Maher & Agribusiness
So, I'm flipping through the channels tonight and I come across Bill Maher. I pause because Robin Williams is on, but Bill launches into another one of his paranoid rants about agribusiness. This time, it's directed at Tommy Thompson, who's sitting right there. He probably deserved some of it (we all know that the four food groups were selected by the farmers, and the more recent pyramid is a grab bag of agribusiness interest and public health wonk fantasy), but I was quickly reminded of why I can't understand how Bill Maher thinks that he could lecture anyone on economics or politics.
This is more or less how it went: Maher thinks that terrorists couldn't make America's food supply any more toxic than it is now. He explained it with this incredibly muddled process: farmers grow corn because they give campaign contributions (that's right: because). Then they have all this corn, so they have to produce high fructose corn syrup to get rid of it. That makes us fat, and we are going to pay for it one of these days. Meanwhile, the pharmacy companies are selling us the cure for the toxins we are ingesting. I think he was calling it the agri-industrial complex last season, echoing Eisenhower's famous warning.
Can anyone understand the man's "logic"? The grow corn because they can contribute money? This begs the question: where did they get the money? From growing corn? If so, for what reason did they grow the corn before it "allowed" them to contribute campaign money? Also, they don't make high fructose corn syrup because they have corn: they grow corn because they can sell HFCS. They can sell it because the next best sweetener is sugar, but the government supports sugar prices at higher than market levels. As a result, HFCS is a cheaper alternative. They also grow corn because the government supports ethanol programs. The problem is not just the government or just companies like Archer Daniels Midland: it's the combination of business and government. To paraphrase PJ O'Rourke, when you first start to legislate buying and selling, the first thing to be bought & sold is the legislature.
Meanwhile, Robin Williams chimes in with this classic little bit of Hollywood environmentalism: he couldn't understand the whole deal about "acceptable" amounts of strychnine that they were putting in the water. Robin: it's arsenic, not strychnine. Nobody is putting it there, it is a natural contaminant. It costs money to take it out, and it's not clear that the benefit of getting the last little bit out is worth the cost. Robin's argument was that this was like discussing an acceptable amount of feces in the bath tub. Newsflash, Robin: I'd be willing to bet that the amount of feces in your tub is nonzero. Has it ever hospitalized you? Would you be willing to pay someone to scrub it with bleach every day?
Also, Bill, check your stats: Americans are living longer every year, and we have more, not less, variety available to us. I saw canned guava in Walmart the other day. You may not like it, it may not be as good as the fresh guava in the fruits and veggies section, it may not be as good as the organic guava you enjoyed as a child, etc., but it is more variety than was formerly available to me. Go look in the dairy case: there must be 5 varieties of soy milk in there. Our local Walmart even has Nutella, the American absence about which I have heard european bloggers rant. Every grocery store now has organic eggs, organic vegetables, organic meals, etc. It used to be tough to find Yukon Gold potatoes: now I can get them in 10 lb. bags at Walmart. Or I can go to the food coop up the street where they sell all kinds of vegan-friendly and organic foods. Thanks to modern supply chain management, transportation, and international trade, I can get almost any kind of fresh vegetable at any time of the year, making the term "out of season" almost obsolete. I can buy wild salmon almost right out of the water. I can get fantastic gourmet cheeses, many of which are vegetarian-friendly. The local Albertsons started stocking not one but two brands of arborio rice. Both Albertson's and Walmart have sections dedicated to purely Mexican brands, which is interesting because it caters to customers that are probably in the lower quintiles. And I'm not the only one noticing the variety explosion.
American obesity does not stem from the diet, but rather the lack of exercise. It may also be a lack of the discipline to say no to another helping of Ben & Jerry's (another company that should be branded as evil by Maher, but gets a pass because of their hippy ethics - nevermind the fact that they sold out to Unilever, a company that also makes Slimfast). But it's silly to think that there is a conspiracy between companies trying to sell snacks and companies trying to sell insulin. The problem lies right between our ears, and conspiracy theorists like Maher simply feed the belief that it is someone else's fault and that if we simply had the right mix of laws and a magic pill, we could all become Lance Armstrong.
Please, oh please, oh Master of Smarm: go back to making B movies.
This is more or less how it went: Maher thinks that terrorists couldn't make America's food supply any more toxic than it is now. He explained it with this incredibly muddled process: farmers grow corn because they give campaign contributions (that's right: because). Then they have all this corn, so they have to produce high fructose corn syrup to get rid of it. That makes us fat, and we are going to pay for it one of these days. Meanwhile, the pharmacy companies are selling us the cure for the toxins we are ingesting. I think he was calling it the agri-industrial complex last season, echoing Eisenhower's famous warning.
Can anyone understand the man's "logic"? The grow corn because they can contribute money? This begs the question: where did they get the money? From growing corn? If so, for what reason did they grow the corn before it "allowed" them to contribute campaign money? Also, they don't make high fructose corn syrup because they have corn: they grow corn because they can sell HFCS. They can sell it because the next best sweetener is sugar, but the government supports sugar prices at higher than market levels. As a result, HFCS is a cheaper alternative. They also grow corn because the government supports ethanol programs. The problem is not just the government or just companies like Archer Daniels Midland: it's the combination of business and government. To paraphrase PJ O'Rourke, when you first start to legislate buying and selling, the first thing to be bought & sold is the legislature.
Meanwhile, Robin Williams chimes in with this classic little bit of Hollywood environmentalism: he couldn't understand the whole deal about "acceptable" amounts of strychnine that they were putting in the water. Robin: it's arsenic, not strychnine. Nobody is putting it there, it is a natural contaminant. It costs money to take it out, and it's not clear that the benefit of getting the last little bit out is worth the cost. Robin's argument was that this was like discussing an acceptable amount of feces in the bath tub. Newsflash, Robin: I'd be willing to bet that the amount of feces in your tub is nonzero. Has it ever hospitalized you? Would you be willing to pay someone to scrub it with bleach every day?
Also, Bill, check your stats: Americans are living longer every year, and we have more, not less, variety available to us. I saw canned guava in Walmart the other day. You may not like it, it may not be as good as the fresh guava in the fruits and veggies section, it may not be as good as the organic guava you enjoyed as a child, etc., but it is more variety than was formerly available to me. Go look in the dairy case: there must be 5 varieties of soy milk in there. Our local Walmart even has Nutella, the American absence about which I have heard european bloggers rant. Every grocery store now has organic eggs, organic vegetables, organic meals, etc. It used to be tough to find Yukon Gold potatoes: now I can get them in 10 lb. bags at Walmart. Or I can go to the food coop up the street where they sell all kinds of vegan-friendly and organic foods. Thanks to modern supply chain management, transportation, and international trade, I can get almost any kind of fresh vegetable at any time of the year, making the term "out of season" almost obsolete. I can buy wild salmon almost right out of the water. I can get fantastic gourmet cheeses, many of which are vegetarian-friendly. The local Albertsons started stocking not one but two brands of arborio rice. Both Albertson's and Walmart have sections dedicated to purely Mexican brands, which is interesting because it caters to customers that are probably in the lower quintiles. And I'm not the only one noticing the variety explosion.
American obesity does not stem from the diet, but rather the lack of exercise. It may also be a lack of the discipline to say no to another helping of Ben & Jerry's (another company that should be branded as evil by Maher, but gets a pass because of their hippy ethics - nevermind the fact that they sold out to Unilever, a company that also makes Slimfast). But it's silly to think that there is a conspiracy between companies trying to sell snacks and companies trying to sell insulin. The problem lies right between our ears, and conspiracy theorists like Maher simply feed the belief that it is someone else's fault and that if we simply had the right mix of laws and a magic pill, we could all become Lance Armstrong.
Please, oh please, oh Master of Smarm: go back to making B movies.
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