Thursday Open Thread 03-05-15
Good morning 99percenters!
Ever think about what people around the world eat? I’m not talking about the shrimp fried rice, or tacos, take-out around the corner from your house. I mean how do local cooks in other countries prepare and serve food. What’s on a plate along the Mediterranean? Scandinavia? Asia?
A good indicator is what we serve our kids for lunch. It’s all about what we teach them and accept as normal. They take their signals from us.
Let’s compare typical school lunches.
- Finland: Pea soup, beet salad, carrot salad, bread and pannakkau (dessert pancake) with fresh berries.
- South Korea: Fish soup, tofu over rice, kimchi and fresh veggies.
- Italy: Local fish on a bed of arugula, pasta with tomato sauce, caprese salad, baguette and some grapes.
- Greece: Baked chicken over orzo, stuffed grape leaves, tomato and cucumber salad, fresh oranges, and greek yogurt with pomegranate seeds.
- USA: Fried ‘popcorn’ chicken, mashed potatoes, peas, fruit cup and a chocolate chip cookie.
Other countries serve fresh vegetables and fresh fruit.
In this country we teach our kids it’s okay to eat ground-up and processed meat, canned vegetables, freeze-dried and reconstituted vegetables and processed fruit sitting in a preservative-laden sugar syrup. We live in a place where a packet of ketchup is considered a vegetable.
Don’t get me started about the flavored milks and junk food machines.
Sigh.
This is an open thread so come on down and chime in about what’s on your mind today. I yield the floor.
Comments
I wonder how voter turnout will be in 2016.
The last election saw voter turnout at it's lowest since WWII but Presidential elections bring a
bigger turnout, over 50%. But since we're coming off a very low turnout election, it might carry
over to the next one, particularly if it's Bush vs. Clinton.
I think the goal should be to get it under 40%, well into the 30's. That would make it by far the
lowest turnout for a not only a Presidential election, but any election.
That would send a message to the country and the world that the system is broken.
Or, we could have 130 million people vote for Bush or Clinton. That would send a different message to the world.
Clinton 2.0 vs. Bush 3.0 would send a message to the world...
...no matter how many people vote.
If the 2016 election is Hillary the Inevitable vs. Jeb!, we'll be looking at two families controlling the nation's highest office for 24 of the 32 years between 1989 and 2021. It's the American version of the Wars of the Roses, minus the pageantry.
Don't forget that the Obama's are
cousins. Same family basically.
Hey Merle Haggard
How else should we treat a war criminal?
And Ted Bundy had a great handshake also. So what?
Sorry Merle, you're a dumb shit.
So evidently, Jagland, the head of the Nobel Prize
committee that gave Obama is "War" prize and has now been demoted, has said it would be
"really nice" if Obama returned the prize.
Ha!
http://www.thepeoplesvoice.org/TPV3/Voices.php/2015/03/05/nobel-peace-pr...
My grandparents ate like farmers
By that I mean that they ate really hearty meals, all prepared from scratch. And they were healthy and not overweight. I can remember when I was a kid in grade school, there were very few children who were even somewhat plump and none that were obese. And my school was in one of the poorer parts of town. But we had a cafeteria where all the food was made on site. Nowadays, a lot of public school lunches are pre-made in a central kitchen and then trucked to the schools, particularly the elementary schools. I tend to think that the obesity epidemic in this country is due in great part to not only fast food, but all prepared foods and the antibiotics that are given to animals. Most kids do not stand a chance with everything they eat having been pre-engineered and with parents opting for frozen and fast food meals because they so little time due to having to work just to keep their heads above water.
It made me sick that the wingnuts attacked Michelle Obama for her efforts to get children to eat healthier. It was one of the best things to come out of this administration.
Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy
Kids are seriously screwed
when it comes to the food they eat. Most of their calories come from those bad lunches. I can't believe that most of that "food" even has any taste. If you don't taste it you can't enjoy it. If you don't enjoy it you either wolf it down, or throw it away. It sets them up for a life time of thinking that food is a necessity much like changing your socks.
"Never separate the life you live from the words you speak." --Paul Wellstone
The worst thing about the wingnuts' attacks of Michelle Obama
These attacks aren't directed at the merits of better food in schools but at her personal appearance. One of the worst offenders is Rush Limbaugh, who would never be mistaken for Charles Atlas.
Avaaz.org
Anybody hear of that? Just came across it when someone forwarded a petition.
This is what I've been thinking for years, a global network of citizens and activists that can work together.
I don't know about this organization, I'll check it out more.
But it's things like this that make me think we could do it if we could carry through with the
organization, outreach, and action on a global scale.
http://www.avaaz.org/en/