one of the pleasures of writing guttermorality is the opportunity it affords me to indulge in the occasional random, drunken rant.
unless you've experienced it yourself, you'll just have to trust me--there's little in life more satisfying than getting a hair up your ass about some dumbass thing or other, letting loose in a satisfying blast, hitting "publish" and stumbling all self-satisfied off to bed.
and such was (almost) the case with this post written back in early may. problem was, by the time i was done venting my spleen i was too, let's say, exhausted to perform the elementary photoshoppery necessary to create the below composite image--so i hit "save as draft" instead, stumbled my not-quite self-satisfied ass off to bed and promptly forgot all about it.
until tonight, that is. better late than never, right?
* * * * *
michelle obama is, i'm sure, a very nice lady, and she's handled her duties as first lady--a job that would have to bore the living shit outta someone with her background--with commendable grace.
but one thing michelle obama is not, is stupid--which makes what she's doing right now not only egregiously dishonest, but laughable.
what am i talking about? her dancing around the country telling poor and middle-class people to eat healthy when she knows damn well that one of the main reasons poor people eat unhealthy is because a jumbo jack with cheese can be had for less than a third of what a comparably-filling chinese chicken salad would cost 'em, that's what.
and not for any good reason, either. the cost of producing a bowlful of healthy greens is infinitely less than that of a quarter-pound of hamburger and a slice of cheese (and i'm not just talking dollars and cents--the environmental costs associated with raising, feeding, waste disposal and slaughter of industrially-grown cattle are astronomical).
but you'd never know it when you go to the supermarket, would you? a pound of hamburger and a pound of arugula will cost you about the same. it's madness, and all thanks to the way the people over at michelle's husband's department of agriculture--in fact, every department of agriculture since nixon--dole out the goddam subsidies.
basically what it comes down to is, the corn, beef and dairy lobbies throw a lot of campaign money at politicians in washington in order to ensure that shitloads of your tax dollars will be used to keep their respective industries' genetically-modified, excitotoxin-laced, hormone-adulterated products artificially cheap so that you will eat and drink them in abundance and consequently fatten and develop all kinds of mental and physical diseases, at which point the food industry will happily hand you off to the medical and pharmaceutical industries so that they can drain you of whatever dollars you have left before you die.
think i'm being a little harsh, do you? then consider this: about the same time michelle was kicking off her "let's move" campaign, a division of her husband's department of agriculture euphemistically (and misleadingly) called dairy management, inc. was working with the fast-food industry in an ambitious multi-million-dollar campaign to boost lagging sales by increasing the use of cheap, fat-laden, taxpayer-subsidized cheese in their products by up to 40%.
how did it (and other similar past campaigns) work? admirably, i'd say--according to the above-linked article,
Americans now eat an average of 33 pounds of cheese a year, nearly triple the 1970 rate.
you really want us to eat healthy, michelle? then next time you're in bed with your husband, snuggle up to him real close, nibble his ear a little and, in your sweetest, most seductive voice, whisper to him to quit subsidizing fattening, unhealthy foods with our tax dollars, and throw a little of that money to--
oh wait--there's no arugula lobby, you say? never mind.
1 comment:
One minute you are saying global warming is a myth (excuse me, man made climate change is a myth), the next minute you are extolling arugala and lamenting that poor people can't afford it.
Guttermorality is always interesting.
First, I love cheese. So I am glad that other people are eating it too. While cheese has a not so hot calorie and cholesterol profile, it is better than meat, so in substitution for meat it is a good deal.
Second, have you been to McDonald's lately. It has salads and numerous healthy options. It is possible to go there and eat relatively well cheaply and quickly. Most people still order the cheeseburgers and fries. And, worse still, the burgers are getting bigger and bigger (thank Carls Jr. for that trend) meaning unhealthier.
But a big part of Michelle Obama's campaign is healthy eating choices and getting kids to want to make wiser choices. That implies someone has options to pick from. Because the truth is that you do have eating choices and while the unhealthiest choices are probably easier and tastier, they are not usually the only alternative.
A second part of her campaign is to encourage kids to exercise. When I was a kid, you ran around and played with other kids on the block. These days, kids are scheduled for carefully monitored play dates or just sit in front of the computer/tv/game console and are sit for hours on end. Inactive life styles is a big cause of obesity.
So, guttermorality is being a little cynical in saying that poor people are forced into unhealthy eating. It's true there are incentives, but give folks some credit. Armed with more information, people can eat healthier and exercise more.
BTW, there is an arugula lobby, just not a very powerful one.
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