June 03, 2008

Drop the chalupa

Food prices in America are skyrocketing. Well, so is the price of everything else but I'm not sure people are noticing. Some claim it's all George's fault for forcing ethanol (made from corn if you've been living in a cave for the last 30 years) on american consumers. Salvation through corn? Freedom from Middle Eastern oil? Doubtful. However, I must say it's a good excuse to eat more potatoes and shun the corn growers of America. I recall in the 80's we held corn over Russia's head. We won't feed you unless you do what we want.

So, potatoes. Makes good lefse, vodka, french fries (which is good for the lose weight now industry) and potato chips. So, let's hear it for Me. Potato. Let's turn Idaho into the richest state in the union. We always knew Idaho was good for something besides harboring White Supremists. Eat more 'taters people. Let's not forget the lowly tater tot in our equation either.

Pretty soon, the price of gas will be too high to drive our children to school and GASP, the lil' basterts will have to walk just like we did. Did I just say that? Our little fat children in America doing something physical? Yep. Teen heart attacks will skyrocket for a short while, but trust me. This is the true path to America's Salvation. Now, if we could just do something about our educational system.

3 Comments:

At 5:48 PM, Blogger Schuyler said...

You should check out the first chapter of "The Omnivore's Dilemma" at http://www.michaelpollan.com/omnivore.php There's so many things that are "corn" that you wouldn't think of being corn. Almost all (non-diet) sodas in the US are made with High Fructuse Corn Syrup instead of true cane sugar. HFCS has replaced cane sugar in most processed food. And that steak or hamburger or chicken or pork chop you just had? Almost positively was fed corn instead of grass. The "grain-fed" label is code for "fed corn".

(And speaking of cane sugar... Even the bagged white sugar in the 5 lb bags in the grocery store are most likely processed from sugar beets and not actual cane sugar...)

You post touches on the very purpose of Pollan's reason for writing the book in the first place. It's hard to know exactly what you're eating these days. What came from where and so on...

Wow. It sure is high up on this soap box for a short fat guy like me. Think I'll get down now...

 
At 8:13 PM, Blogger Buffalo said...

I wish I had something clever or sage to say. All I can think of is that we are neck deep in shit creek and here comes some fool in a motor boat.

 
At 8:44 PM, Blogger Mouthy Girl said...

You should check out Barbara Kingsolver's book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle.

She presents some of ths same issues and ideas as you did in this post and shares some very personal first-hand experiences in her quest to stop the reliance we Americans have on gas/oil/fuels, long-distance distribution of foods, and making the transition to eat locally and within season.

 

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