Eating like an American

Do not despair - not only did the New World add the famous chillipepper-Zing to Asian food, China's and Korea's population swelled after their poor share croppers began planting and eating imported sweet potatoes, becoming healthy and fertile again. The issue isn't food, its water. The foods we enjoy in our refined diets need irrigation from aquifiers that once they turn saline are lost to humanity... see the Aral See that dried up from the thirsty new-improved American genus that the apparel industry preferred over the native Indian cotton plants.

Then factor in climate change (not who changes it__God knows__but what do we do when it will inevitably change, as it has in history and will again in the future) Americans need not feel obliged to feed the world, but rather like the Norwegians and their permafrost-seed-bank, Americans should capture the great biodiversity that this continent offers the world... and transfer knowledge from the Xera-scaping expertize (aesthetics of arid landscapes, for casinos etc in Nevada) to the agriculture arena.

I agree with Clare - it's not food. It's water. I think that making desalination of sea water workable will be the major, life saving project of the 21st century.

And to be perfectly honest, I find this argument that there's something inherently wrong with "eating like an American" a bit tiring. Why is wheat worse than rice? If wheat were simply worse than rice from an agricultural perspective, then why did Europeans become dependent on it to begin with? Would we be better off if Americans became dependant on casava instead of wheat as their main source of starch? The problem isn't wheat or pork or corn. The problem is when we go to extreme lengths to produce foods, or as Clare points out particular cultivars, in ecosystems which they are not suited to. So the problme isn't eating like an American per se. It's eating unlike what your ecosystem can reasonably support.

As far as putting more land into production, this would simply be a reversal of a trend to take farm land out of production which has been a dominant force in agriculture for about 30 years. The land is there, both here and around the world, to grow the food needed to support ourselves. The problem is water and getting some of these corrupt, dysfunctional governments out of the way. (Zimbabwe anyone?)

Maybe I'm overly influenced by living somewhere where real farming - both the industrial and the small scale kind - actually takes place and being able to look out my window at hundreds of empty acres of former farm land which are now just scrub, but I think this discussion is being framed completely the wrong way.

I really hate to see Mr. Dreher fall back on Kant. That principle, carried logically through will be unworkable.

I think that the problem with wheat over rice isn't superiority. Its that its an imported product over a native one. One that doesn't grow where they are without significant increased cost. Only, not for a luxury good, but a staple.

Stefanie: In some ways there's nothing wrong with "Third World diets" *if* they are traditional, and people get enough to eat. Most people's traditional diets "evolved" over thousands of years. Take for instance the Hawaiian diet of poi, taro, fish, and fresh vegetables. There are clinics in Hawaii that treat diabetes patients (who eat white bread, spam, hot dogs, etc.) by helping them plant gardens for taro, and construct traditional fish ponds. Pima Indians in SW California who ate traditional diets of corn, pine nuts, and game didn't get overwhelmed with obesity and diabetes as their descendants have.

That's precisely the point Pollan makes in "In Defense of Food." He cites multiple studies and investigations that found primitive ("primitive") peoples around the world can thrive on diets that are rather narrow by contemporary American standards, but which are *not Western.* As soon as these people start eating like Americans, they develop obesity, diabetes, and all the stuff that afflicts us. It's really amazing.

Fake crisis, stupid, counter-productive solutions.

If "American-style" foodstuffs become too expensive, the thirldworlders will reduce their consumption of them.

What is the problem? Free Market suddenly stopped working?

Besides this manufactured crisis may even do some good by helping to kill corn-based-ethanol-fuel extortion.

Rod
As to Pollan's point about new chronic diseases showing up in traditional cultures, you should really read Gary Taubes book "Good Calories, Bad Calories". It's a look at the history of human nutritional science over the last century. Some of his stories about what happened to native populations when they moved from traditional diets to our modern highly processed carb-heavy junk food diets are stunning and infuriating. Probably the most enlightening science book I've read in the last decade.

My own apocalyptic vision is that the US is turning into a 3rd World country, and the appropriate response to the current economic mess is that we should all learn to like rice and beans and cook them in interesting ways, while we still have a choice in the matter. And so, of course, should everybody else.

Random thoughts:

1. When one tries to fuel our economy by "burning food" (i.e., biofuels), of course you end up with rising food prices. Supply & demand; if the latter rises, so also will price while the former catches up. Granted, demand for US biofuels is partly inflated by government subsidies & mandates, where the solution is obvious. A more interesting public policy question: what happens when the price of oil, etc., rises to such high levels that biofuel production becomes economically feasible even _without_ any government interference?

Note that, even when using dedicated energy crops with higher fuel-per-acre production (e.g., oil palms sugar beets), at some point you’ll still be competing with food crops for scarce land, which is basically the same thing as “burning food”.

2. Withholding exports: Americans are sufficiently Jacksonian (i.e., nationalistic, unilateralist, xenophobic) that even fiscally-trivial amounts of foreign aid & UN dues are perpetually controversial. If they see export-driven increases in domestic food prices eroding their standard of living, they'll _demand_ the imposition of application of the Export Administration Act (*) to foodstuffs. Ethical or not, political realities make this a likely outcome. “Civilizations have the morality & ethics that they can afford”, most people will say; in a world of food scarcity, they’ll rationalize that charity for foreigners is something we simply cannot afford.

OTOH, if third-worlders’ purchasing power gives out before Americans’ willingness to endure export-induced food-price increases, the need/desire for export controls might be obviated by famine & starvation.

3. IIRC, most of the Persian Gulf’s oil exporters depend on food imports. We have food, they have oil. Oil-for-food redux, anyone? (Personally I’d prefer energy independence, and let they drink their oil, but others might differently....)

4. What happens to our immigration flows (not to mention our foreign policy) when export controls impose famine on people South of the Border, and the latter see Americans living fat & happy on agricultural surpluses? I foresee “interesting times”.

(*) See 50 USC app. 2401 et seq, and particularly sec. 2402(2)(C) and 2405.

Feeding the world on a long term basis is not possible by the US. Helping other countries develop the means to feed themselves would be a relatively cheap investment compared with any of our wars. It has the potential for improved trade and security. An economically secure, well fed people makes a more difficult target for Al Qaeda and the Taliban.

We dont really have a free market in agriculture. Europe and the US both subsidize agriculture.

I've read that under NAFTA, small Mexican farmers were put out of business, with the result that Mexico is now flooded with cheaper US grain imports. Is this true? Can somebody point me to a source of information that could verify (or debunk) it?

To what extent are global food prices being skewed by:

subsidies for corn to be expensively made into fuel ethanol?

subsidies for First World farmers in the U.S. and E.U. which make it economically impossible for Third World farmers to stay in business?

bans on developing nuclear power, which would allow us to expand our food productivity substantially through desalization and irrigation?

bans on the U.S. exporting genetically engineered crops to the E.U., and thus, through collateral legal damage, to Africa even during an African famine?

civil wars in a variety of Third World nations that disrupt such agricultural productivity as they already have?

Tell me all that, and I'll tell you what I think of the proposition that we're all about to starve unless we Americans all start eating like medieval peasants again. Until I'm told that, I'm going to keep my (cynical) opinion to myself.

I've read that under NAFTA, small Mexican farmers were put out of business, with the result that Mexico is now flooded with cheaper US grain imports. Is this true?

Yes, apparently:

From www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/03_51/b3863008.htm

...the agriculture sector is still reeling from the competitive shock of NAFTA. One consequence was the virtual wipeout of Mexico's small farmers by a flood of subsidized U.S. food imports. Some 1.3 million farm jobs have disappeared since 1993, according to a new report by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a Washington think tank. [snip]

"Nor was the U.S. As the campesinos lost their livelihood, they headed to the border. By most estimates, the number of Mexicans working illegally in the U.S. more than doubled, to 4.8 million between 1990 and 2000." [snip]

Note the second paragraph; granted correlation doesn't prove causation, but it's still an interesting coincidence....

The following two are from NAFTA supporters:

From: econ161.berkeley.edu/movable_type/archives/001178.html

It is the high cost of Mexican farming that makes it so uncompetitive. [...] [L]ocal farmers are still going out of business because their costs—from diesel to electricity to credit—are about a third higher than those north of the border. [...] [I]t costs about three times as much to deliver corn by rail from Sinaloa to Mexico city as it does to ship it there from New Orleans via Veracruz.

From: www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2003/12/10th_anniversar.html

many Mexican farmers are upset at competition from American pork and corn. Most of these farmers are not mechanized in any way. They push a plow through their fields with a burro or ox. [...] [M]any of these farmers don't even use techniques from the horse and buggy age.

Keep in mind that free trade in food will be a windfall for Mexico's urban poor. Furthermore many indigenous farmers grow food for their own consumption, not for sale to outside markets. Cheap American imports can't make them worse off, since they can always continue their current time allocation if they wish. More likely, they will start buying more cheap foodstuffs and look for a different line of work.

I'm no fan of free trade - I'd like to replace US farm subsidies with agriculture tariffs - but his last paragraph is worth considering.

I see some people have beat me to it, but I guess I'll just add my voice on this issue:

"To what extent have free trade agreements and the US government's promotion of grain exports and American agribusiness hamstrung the abilities of peoples of other nations to feed themselves?"

Sorry, it isn't free trade. The question should be:

"to what extent have our massive agricultural subsidies priced third-world farmers out of the market and made it much more unlikely that their ag products can compete with Western ag products?"

I know this isn't a free-market blog, but if we are suddenly going to be concerned about the well-being of the developing world, it is beyond question that a freer market at least in agriculture would be a huge benefit to the developing world both in terms of availability of food and increased income from farming.

RE: “The moment you develop a taste, you are hooked,” said a confident Muyiwa Talabi, director of an American wheat-marketing office in Lagos.

I could say the same about teff, the hi-protein grain used in Abyssinian cooking, see

www_ethiopianrestaurant_com/injera.html and www.ashdenawards.org/winners/ertc#

or chalbap, the Korean sticky rice which does not need paddies to be submerged

www_koamart_com/shop/15-rice_grains.asp

(saving water) and can be grown in smaller plots in more marginal areas and cooks rapidly over steam saving water, spaghetti-noodles 8:1, Basmati is 2:1 ratio, Chapsal just 1:1. (and both low in gluten and better for those of us with wheat allergies). Since they're not made by Uncle Ben's they're hard to find at your local store, but they don't cost more. If agriculture were truely free trade this wouldn't be the case. The reason you don't see more variety on our shelves is because we're chauvinists, and I think Rod would agree, just because you want to shop local doesn't mean that the local farmer can't be growing pearl rice instead of long grain, or teff instead of wheat, right?

My point is that the disease resistant higher-protein rice that is grown by, and feeds, most Indians wasn't developed in India, but in the US. We do have God-given talents and the Gospel proverbially tells us not to chauvinsitically speaking "bury them" but go off and try out something new and multiple those talents, for which we will be rewarded with an unmatched international reputation, that would be hard to beat.

Doha demands that our tariffs must go but not that our brains atrophy!

Heck even a few more miles of single-lane byways for motorcycle ambulances would do a lot to improve African maternal mortality rates...

www.infoforhealth.org/inforeports/fistula/fistulaprint.html
www.transaid.org/press-centre/motorcycle-ambulance-project-gets-off-the-ground-with-man-erf---4-july-06

a shocking attrition of promising young lives, while we salve our consciences with contraceptive mantras... "She wouldn't have died if she'd had access to reproductive choices" What if its her and her baby-daddy's choice want a big brood to help run their family farm so they, and not our taxes via USAID, feed their neighbors?

Sheilagh--Rod doesn't need "meat-like" alternatives. There's grains and beans (including edamame [soybeans in their natural state]), which are highly superior to tortured products such as seitan, tofurky, and not-dogs. I figure if you're not going to eat meat, why eat things that emulate meat? And he keeps calling this a vegan time, but it sounds like eggs are still allowed?

Tying this thread to the one about why do people read and comment if they disagree with most things Rod says--I read this blog for the food posts (and to point out some of Rod's and commentor's worst errors).

Brazil invested in biofuels using sugar 30 years ago, but we haven't heard anything about Brazilians starving or not having enough food to export!

This is partly because Brazil uses far less energy (per-capita) than the US does, and partly because Brazil's energy crop (i.e., sugarcane) produces far more gallons-per-acre than the corn we're currently burning. Even if Brazilians consumed gasoline on the same scale as the US currently does, they probably wouldn't be starving...but they probably _would_ be clear-cutting Amazonia at an even faster rate.

As for the US...corn ethanol's productivity is sufficiently low that even replacing US gasoline consumption with corn ethanol would require ~500e6 acres (*). Note that USDA's 2002 Census of Agriculture put total US cropland & harvested acreage at 434e6 & 308e6 acres, respectively.

(*) This source (www.earth-policy.org/Books/PB2/PB2ch2_ss5.htm) puts corn ethanol at 354 gal/acre. With 1 ton/acre of corn stover (**), and using Syntec biomass gasification, we get another 105 gal/acre. US gasoline consumption is ~140e9 gal/yr. Derivation is left as an exercise for the reader.

(**) US produces 75e6 tons corn stover annually (feedstockreview.ornl.gov/pdf/billion_ton_vision.pdf) on ~75e6 acres of corn.

That's precisely the point Pollan makes in "In Defense of Food." He cites multiple studies and investigations that found primitive ("primitive") peoples around the world can thrive on diets that are rather narrow by contemporary American standards, but which are *not Western.* As soon as these people start eating like Americans, they develop obesity, diabetes, and all the stuff that afflicts us. It's really amazing.

Exactly. The problem right now is that because of political corruption, war and other factors a lot of people aren't getting ENOUGH food.

I was really amused by a co-worker of mine (I'm not being uncharitable in stating that she was a big fan of the typical western diet, high on fat and protein and low on vitamin rich fruits, grains and vegetables, resulting in her developing adult onset diabetes) looking at my lunch of meatless chili, whole grain bread and fruit and stating "You eat like a poor person!"

- Although there's *nothing* wrong with lobster on Fridays.

I grew up in a family that had large gardens. We produced much of our own food. My grandparents' nearby farm provided additional food. I can't help but grow a little of my own food, and we live in Madison, WI, perhaps the local market capital of the US.

Also, a question: How many people thank the living God for us having the most productive farmland in the entire world? And how long can our current consumptive style support us the way that we're used to?

Well, when the rules were made, meat was rare and expensive treat, and fish and seafood was something anyone could get with a net, or hook and line. Heck, lobster was poor man's food during the colonial period.

But, as times change, what is and is not a sacrifice might as well.

Lobster over hamburger is not (except financially) much of a sacrifice.

The problem with "rice and beans" is that a lot of people of Northern European ancestry simply don't do well with a lot of carbohydrates, even "whole" ones like brown rice and beans. This is all highly individual, of course, but some people put on weight basically if they eat anything except meat, dairy, and vegetables.

That's an interesting observation, Stefanie. I am German on both sides of my family. Meat and dairy were in plentiful supply (and my mom, bless her, is a wonderful cook!) but now that I am living a lifestyle centered around beans, legumes, whole grains, fruits, veggies, etc. I've found I'm actually having an easier time staving off age-related weight gain (I'm 58). I think the defining factor is that unlike my lazier, younger years I exercise and bike ride regularly and that seems to be making the difference.

Also, it seems to me that all of our diets were adapted over many millenia. Even the ancient hunter-gatherers of Europe lived without dairy products before the domestication of cattle. It's one of the great advantages of being an omnivore. We can survive on just about anything, unlike the strict carnivores who must have flesh to survive.

And you are certainly correct that fish is actually becoming a luxury food. There are alarming reports coming out about how are oceans and lakes are being depleted due to overfishing and "modern" methods of fishing.