ojai news at The Ojai Post :: blog, newspaper, events in Ojai, California

I know! Let the government regulate what we eat!

Thomas Jefferson once said: "If we were to allow the government to tell us when to sow and when to reap we would surely go without bread" -How true-Ed Nemechek.

There are some great books out there that discuss the intro of processed foods/chemicals/preservatives into the American Diet (i.e. Fast Food Nation). Obesity is like ADHD - it's a chance for drug companies to make more $$$. After all, if you are an obese child, guess what happens? You might get Type II diabetes! Yippee! Drugs! And who is the happiest? The manufacturer of the food that got you there! I heard that Obesity is now being referred to as a "disease." Hmmmm....I thought Cancer was a disease.

I know! Let unscrupulous money-grubbing bastards feed us anything they want to! It's the Free Market Way!
Yay, MONEY!

In my opinion, the government indirectly regulates what we eat in this country and has been for quite a while.

You can always go to the farmers' market !

When I think of what we've (collectively) done to our children and what we've left them as a legacy, I'm reminded of that anti-littering commercial in the 70's (the one with the Indian shedding a tear - I've been haunted by that since it first aired!) It's a full-blown tragedy if we don't all begin to change our own diets (if necessary) and to vigilantly monitor what our children consume.

I for one would love to see the return of Victory gardens, to begin with. If you get children involved with growing their own food, it is almost guaranteed that they will learn to love (or at least tolerate) their fruits and vegetables.

Reading the last few postings over the last few weeks, all I can say is:

PUT A FORK IN IT. THE OJAI POST IS DONE.

The only thing worse is the situation being displayed on the OVN. What's happened to this town?

Don't blame the government or the corporations. What we eat is our personal choice. Over the years my diet has evolved as I've gained more understanding. Now I eat only whole grains, vegetables, fruit, legumes. No animals or fish or their products and no processed foods. Am I better off? I think so but we'll see. I'm 67 and appear to be in better health than ever. I carry no health insurance in the belief that healthy eating is the best insurance and that insurance sets up an unconscious desire to be used. But then I'm retired and don't have to slave for the money masters. I use my bicycle, public transportation and my legs for getting around. I don't use refrigeration anymore either. In my opinion, killing and eating animals is the biggest economic, ecological and health disaster of all. But then big pharma, big medicine, big agribusiness would dispute that. To them its a cash cow. To each her own.

Hey STOR,

You know I've often disagreed with you on many issues, but just a shout out to you about the choices you've made above and are committed to. I know from experience that even the smallest changes and sacrifices made in our daily consumption can be difficult - so good for you!!

While indeed, what we choose to eat comes down to a personal choice, education is of course a necessary component towards living a healthy lifestyle. And when the slick marketing machines of our corporations have such influence over the children of today (and, unfortunately, the poor as well) I think we all need to be more proactive in getting to these kids early on. Education, leading by example and equating "healthy" with "hip and sexy" are good places to start.

There's a great book called Food Politics, written by Marion Nestle (no relation to the big phood company). She sheds light on the impact lobbying has had on food and drug regulation in this country for years. Yes, we are all ultimately responsible for our own choices. But when the choices put in front of us are largely, forgive my french, Crap, how do we choose wisely?

I read recently that if you go into a supermarket with two dollars, you can buy about 1200 calories of fat and carbohydrates, or about 200 in the fruit and vegetable aisle. In low-income families, this is a no-brainer. It is also likely to create a situation where our bodies, programmed by the need to survive, crave the quick easy calories, even if they come with chemicals we don't know how to process, digestive woes, and a feelings of fatigue, lethargy and maybe some acid reflux after we eat them.

Our doctors get less than 8 hours of nutrition training in their expensive medical schools, so don't expect them to know anything you couldn't learn in a weekend.

There's another great book called The Omnivore's Dilemma (nothing to do with choosing to eat meat or not) by Michael Pollan. I've only read the first few chapters but I was appalled to learn that 25 percent of the foods in the standard supermarket contain corn (think wax on veggies and filler in dog treats) and something like 40% contain soy - soy protein isolates, soy oil, etc. Lobbying, convenience and ignorance are the leading causes of diabetes, obesity, heart disease and early death.

Thanks, LTOR. I couldn't agree more about education. My own education on food came from being marrried to a woman who practiced macrobiotics.

Dovetailing on Heather's comment, I get bad vibes from even entering a typical supermarket. See the DVD "RAVE" for one doctor's take on our suicidal diet. It's almost unbelievable how money can corrupt everything, and something as vital as food in particular.

There is another great piece by Peter Jennings in his documentary "In Search of America" that originally aired in September 2002. It is about Frito-Lay, and its ambition to "use potato chips to spread the spirit of free enterprise." Although presented overall in a conventional way, there is a subtext with moments like something out of "Spinal Tap." A group of people in the Netherlands, being interviewed about increasing their snacking (they only snack during the evening and Frito-Lay wants them to snack with their lunches, too) say that no, they do not want to get fat like Americans. In another segment, a Chinese woman is looking suspiciiously at a package of potato chips. The Chinese had to be told what potato chips were and shown in ads that they actually came from potatoes. But this savvy shopper says, with obvious outrage, that she could buy a whole bag of potatoes for the price of the chips. Meanwhile, also in China, slender people are shown carrying little bags of dried fruits and nuts to snack on. The goal of Frito-Lay is to lure them away from these healthy and inexpensive snacks. The Frito-Lay company actually has the concept of "stomach space," and they see themselves as fighting for stomach space globally. If your stomach space has healthy snacks in in, or doesn't want to snack all day, watch out! If they can't sell their product to the adults, they will go after the children, which is exactly what they did in the Netherlands, placing their products in schools. Peter Jennings interviewed the Frito-Lay people with an earnest, deadpan attitude, and one in particular relaxed enough to reveal a truly fanatical gleam in his expression while talking about the global spread of his company. Another executive spoke with glee about the texture of the potato chips, that you can't eat just one and you consume your package fast (then want another one). Clearly "free enterprise" in this picture means that the ambition is to remove your choices by creating an addiction, getting you to abandon healthy eating, and undermining your influence over your children's health. The food industry doesn't care whether you get obese and unhealthy, it just wants you to put their products in your stomach space.

Thanks, lamtg, for the comment. These insane suicidal diets are driven by money addicts. The banksters are behind it all. They rig our debt, interest, speculative, gambling money system through tactics like you describe. These men are evil, low consciousness lizard brain demons, trying to addict the people you referred to with their lying ads. I call them patriarchs who for thousands of years have been warring on the earth, women and children. We've got to wake up to the existence of these monsters or they'll eat the life out of us with their poison. Fast food chains are one of their covers. Love rules.