Well we managed to get the health care bill out the door. Walleyed, and with a cleft palate and limp (the limp is debatable, we will see if the fixes get through the senate), but there is a problem closer to home. We ain't exactly feeding our children poison in the public schools, but what some schools are feeding them is seriously not healthy. Heck, a lot of the stuff we feed our adults is seriously not healthy.
First, two disclaimers, I'm not pushing vegetarianism, I'm an omnivore myself, and subscribe to Michael Pollan's advice Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. The second disclaimer, a lot of this is coming from more MSM sites (with a big push for the show that is starting on Friday on ABC), but I've seen his stuff for a while, and if being on ABC gets the knowledge out, so be it.
The industrial-food complex has been pushing so much crap down our throats, and it's been SO bad for us, that the deaths influenced by obesity are the first, the second AND the third leading causes of death in the United States. still it really didn't hit home until I saw the TED talk below by Jamie Oliver.
http://www.ted.com/...
I knew about Jamie Oliver before, I had seen a few of his "naked chef" shows. When I managed to catch is "Jamie's kitchen" series, it was heart-wrenching, seeing him trying to give dead-end kids something to support themselves and make their way in the world with. At the end of the series, he opens his restaurant, Fifteen, with the students. Although it was widely panned by the food critics, one of the critics I think got it right, saying that by opening this resturant he should be awarded the Victoria Cross (the UK equivalent of the Medal of Honor).
These corporations.. people.. forces.. are strip mining the citizens of our country, they take away their jobs through off-shoring, sell them crap that takes both their health and employment, and as bodies fail, sell overpriced, too-late products and services that leave their children destitute, alone and indebted. And their children, fed the same crap to their minds as have been fed to their bodies, fed the same crap to their minds as have been fed to their bodies, are in even worse shape then their parents. You look at what we are supposed to eat, and what our government pays people to produce, Here, you can see the massive disconnect. 73% of our farm money goes to meat and dairy, which should be 23% of our diet. Vegetables and fruits, which should comprise 34% of our diet, get less that a SINGLE percent of federal monies.
You see a little bit of it in the TED talk, but his current project, called "Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution" is showing up on ABC Friday. He is going to the most unhealthy area in the country "Huntington, West Virgina", and attempting to change the public school's menu, and the menu of the people of Huntington, to food that isn't killing them slowly.
I've only watched the pilot (it can be seen online early at hulu here), but I think there are many important issues here. Not only on improving the food, but also on breaking the self-destructive shell in red state America. He goes up against the local red-state AM station, and the corporate written rules for food. He up against the best human beings of red state America that been told most of their life to distrust the foreigner, the hippie, the community organizer who pours his life and heart out to show them that there is a better way to make their town better.
Will he pull it off, I don't know, I hope so. The link below is where you can learn a bit more and help
http://www.jamieoliver.com/...