Thread: Food is a National Security Issue

Food is a National Security Issue

By Holly Noonan

HOPE (Oct 26): If you haven't read Michael Pollan's October 9th Open Letter to the Next President in the New York Times, I can't recommend it more highly. This champion of food writers, a man who has been one of the great heroes of illuminating the unfortunate realities of our food supply through his book The Omnivore's Dilemma (and many other books and articles) will actually be in Maine tomorrow night, speaking at Bates College. (I'm gutted I can't be there. I found out about it too late.)

Michael Pollan finally says it outright: "Food is a National Security issue." He notes that more than 30 nations have experienced food riots because of shortages in the past several months, and one government (Haiti) has fallen. He makes the point so clearly as to be unmistakable, that our policies up to now which have encouraged massive flows of cheap, subsidized commodity grain to flow unencumbered across global free-trade zones, has been a mistake. The results of this oil-dependent, unsustainable, non-local food supply system is that the poorest on our planet are starving right now.



As this article from the Economist notes, "Last year wheat prices rose 77% and rice 16% (see chart 1). These were some of the sharpest rises in food prices ever. But this year the speed of change has accelerated. Since January, rice prices have soared 141%; the price of one variety of wheat shot up 25% in a day."

Josette Sheeran, the head of the UN's World Food Programme, the largest distributor of food aid, said recently;


"For those on $2 a day, it means cutting out meat and taking the children out of school. For those on $1 a day, it means cutting out meat and vegetables and eating only cereals. And for those on 50 cents a day, it means total disaster.â€

Besides food, water is also a concern of national security, as it is needed by every living thing, including crops.

That's why you should regulate and limit immigration. The best reason to eliminate illegal immigration.

Not to mention, the added waste and polution.

Dixie

I'm just sick to death of all the food tinkering to be honest. I don't care what it is or whose doing it. I remember what real beef tasted like. Honest to goodness eggs, bread that doesn't smell like chemicals...had a real tomato the other day and thought I'd died and gone to heaven. It doesn't taste the same.......and frankly, I don't care how much melmain or whatever it is to make a test show more protien, or what other fillers and watering down they do.........I firmly believe our bodies know the difference. There are very few places......and I mean even in 3rd world poverty areas where you actually see bone dead skinny people anymore. Globally, even in starvation..... it seems people are overweight.

Yes there are some, but it doesn't look like it did years ago. People are dwindling in health even when they are fat and sassy and wealthy. GOOD food costs 10x's more than the stuff they have in the store so people eat the worst stuff because it's the cheapest to get......yet they all look plump. It doesn't wash.

I don't think anymore it's because people eat too much.......I don't think they're getting the nutrition out of the food they eat because it's mostly phony stuff.......I think the phony stuff is putting on the weight while people are defeceint in what they need.