cakeaustin

The web is all a’wag over this interview. Below [via La Vida Locavore] is an excerpt from Maher’s rant:

Maher: We can’t have [single payor putting insurance companies out of business]! Health care is the biggest industry we’ve got. We need sick people and the food companies are doing their part to help.

Oh yes, they put the time in the lab to find out just how much fat, sugar, and salt to load into a Happy Meal to make it more like crack. Do you know that even our baby foods are now up to one third sugar? Only Americans could develop comfort food for somebody who’s already eating off a tit. I mean, what kind of people hooks babies on sugar? It’s not a mystery why even one in five four-year-olds is obese. Four-year-olds! The elephant in the room is your kid. Not only can’t Johnny read, he can’t see his #$%. If Al-Qaeda slipped something into our food that did that to us, well we would torture some Arabs and keep on eating.

Via American Grassfed Association:

“In Kentucky, about 150 people attended the USDA [Pretends-to-be-Listening] session. Thirty-seven people spoke, with more than 90% speaking against a mandatory NAIS. Those who spoke against it were mostly individuals, speaking for themselves. Pro-NAIS speakers all represented organizations or their employers. Wendell Berry gave a rousing speech declaring that this was the first meeting he’d been at with USDA, after decades of activism, where USDA brought armed police to protect itself. Ralph Packard, a natural livestock farmer, agreed with Wendell Berry, that the government will need its guns if they make the program mandatory and require people to register their farms and animals. Speakers came from Kentucky, Indiana, and Ohio. Break-out groups started early, but no consensus was possible. Some USDA personnel continued to insist that NAIS is voluntary, ignoring the coercion that USDA has funded, and state mandatory programs, also funded by USDA. One USDA staffer painstakingly stated that there are many tagging options and that microchips aren’t required “at this time.” When confronted that his comment meant this could change, he would not respond. It was obvious that pro-NAIS personnel were uncomfortable, but also did not come prepared to make concessions. More promising were the connections made among anti-NAIS activists. The Community Farm Alliance held a press conference at noon. Adam Barr, Ralph Packard, Weldell Berry, and Karin Bergener spoke about why NAIS will wipe out small, independent farmers and the meetings still failed to truly provide farmers a forum because of the late notices, and timing during busy season.”

The Kentucky session has not yet been posted to YouTube, but I’m watching all of the Austin footage now. Unexpectedly, my favorite speaker was be Bill Hughes of Livestock Marketing Assoc. of Texas:

There were lots of good smoking guns and food-marketing shenanigans this week, but our friend Jill Richardson posted one of the best today on La Vida Locavore, citing a Congressman and his lobbyist wife’s Big Ag double-team.

Hmm...you remind me of someone...a president from the '80s who loved big food too?

My favorite comment reads: “It’s stuff like this that (rightly) feeds our cynicism.  How do you really fix the system when corporate money and our “public servants” (quite literally) sleep together?”

The only fix, in my view, is to make a big noise. By speaking out against NAIS at the USDA listening sessions (Austin’s is May 20th) and staying as far outside the industrial food system as possible with our eating choices each day, these seemingly individual actions WILL add up. Join me?

For years I have watched in amazement as Oprah performed this role, endorsing book after book, product after product. Sometimes I have enjoyed the items she recommends but most times the gifts to in-studio audiences seem to me force-fed consumerism.

Today, I am convinced that her reign must be checked and her judgment, questioned. How do you go from exploring factory farm conditions to SHILLING KFC!?!?!? I have to hand it to KFC: you’ve succeeded in raising my ire at a rate that has outpaced the chemical and seed companies this spring.

Chickens at a Factory Farm in KFC's Supply Chain

Not that Oprah’s error needs further comment, but I reiterate my prior criticism of KFC’s marketing: that it offers a product to families at-risk of diet related disease, none more so than the African-American community. After years of publicly battling her weight, which much of the country has observed and I would bet, at least inwardly, cheered her on, Oprah has imploded into a common sandwichboard.

Q scores aside, Oprah weilds more influence over the average family than a pastor, a local government official or a physician, most likely. What doctors are still not talking to patients about in this country is food. Sure, they might say, “You know you need to watch your weight”, but rarely are specific foods and eating habits recommended.

Civil Eats has a good overview of the imbroglio, one of the most spectacular PR disasters I have seen in a long time. Note the last paragraph in which a suggestion is offered as to what Oprah ought to have done to weild her power over KFC and to turn the tables.

And I think to myself/ What a wonderful world.

First Lady Michelle, Chef Sam and Bancroft Elementary Students

This image has caused my eyes to well with tears every time I glance at it. Certainly, the planting day was momentous, but it is the harvest that signifies triumph over the naysayers, the skeptics and the indifferent hoardes. I feel an overwhelming sense of gratitude today, and a peace, that though much work remains to be done to ensure the safety and sustainability of our food system, we live in a great country. There are those with stomach for the road ahead, and it is less and less a question than a moral imperative.