If you thought the war on fat and veganism was just for fun...

[Baldanders]

The most plausible conspiracy theory I've heard is one in which "The Global Elite" uses climate change as an excuse to do away with internal combustion engines (except for them). Coal/Natural Gas fired electric plants (except for them), a meat based diet (except for them) and implements mandatory population control (except for them) in the named of saving the planet.

The theory ends with just enough of the have nots left to keep the machines running for the Nomenklatura who hoard the resources for them and their families.

I have no problem believing there are people who are really planning something similar and I have no problem believing Blumberg is one of them. I also have no problem believing this is the real rationale behind the global push to disarm the "little people".

I think most folks honestly believe that the agenda they pursue is the best thing for everyone. Upper-class liberals are all about saving the planet via "enlightened" consumer choices. Why would they want a system where they keep driving gas-fueled vehicles?

We should consume less sugar, eat less meat, and less processed food, on the whole, for optimal health.

But screw you if you try to mandate my diet.

As someone was alluding to, dropping corn subsidies would do a lot to make healthy food more financially attractive.

Dropping ethanol subsidies would stop corn prices from being too crazy, sans subsidies.

Of course, neither is happening, as they put money in the "right" hands.


Heavy meat diets seem to be all the rage in libertarian/right circles, these days. (IMO, the science is really not behind this idea, but do what you feel. You can find plenty of kook/fringe folks with studies to back you up. But they really are the fringe.) My diet is not a political statement of any kind. I don't give a damn who approves of or hates my diet. Hell, steaks ordered "rare" scare people out where I live.

[the Schwartz]

Offal isn't awful.

Touche' or touchy...

Of course, I was using the second definition

Offal; n.,
1.) the entrails and internal organs of an animal
2.) refuse or waste material

[Baldanders]

Touche' or touchy...

Of course, I was using the second definition

Offal; n.,
1.) the entrails and internal organs of an animal
2.) refuse or waste material

Blues is the expert, but switching definitions w/o saying so is a valid technique when you are engaging in wordplay, I think.

In all honesty, the pork head did smell a bit reminiscent of definition #2. Still great, though. I still have to steel myself a bit for eating intestines, 'cause I don't care how much washing there was, you are definitely getting both types of offal. Tripe just makes contact with pre-poop, at least.

But you have to take a bit of shit to get what you want, sometimes.

[OlongJohnson]

What is soylent green? (I know someone is dying for a chance to yell it out with a meme)

Well, since nobody else answered the man's question,



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At least most vegans don't try to convert you to Seventh Day Adventism. Although there is that remnant who do.

----------------

More seriously, over the past several years, my allergies have gotten worse and worse. Not quite a year ago, I had a life-threatening reaction to some still-unknown something, and have had to take it very, very seriously. It's not as bad as Dr. Peterson and his daughter, fortunately. The main thing seems to be sulfites. The way that citric acid is produced industrially (frack-all to do with citrus fruit) leads to it being contaminated with sulfur ions at the end of the process, so I can't eat anything with citric acid in it without getting mildly sick. Which means 90 percent of the grocery store. And I basically can eat two things at restaurants: meat/cheese combos (e.g., In-N-Out 4x4 with no bun or toppings) or a salad bar where I inspect and choose the ingredients. And I am extremely cautious about any packaged food. I must have been hungry when shopping, as I picked up a pack of Oreos. Had one in the evening, one the next morning. Felt like crap later in the day; took a Benadryl and everything cleared up. No more Oreos for me. This has repeated with most packaged desert items, so I haven't been eating much sugar. I can eat a lot of things, but they basically have to be prepared from fresh, raw ingredients, so I know what's in it.

I'm 25 lb lighter than I was a year and a half ago without undertaking any kind of workout program (limitations of other health issues), and am developing muscle in my mid-40s as a result of minimal yard work type activity that I never got when I was lifting in my late teens and early 20s. Was at a memorial (fuck cancer!) for a dear friend a few weeks ago and saw a photo of myself before I started buzzing my hair, which makes it at least 8-9 years old, and I look way better and healthier today.

My sister is in a much worse boat. She has been very heavy her whole adult life, with a whole range of health issues. She finally figured out that many of them were due to undiagnosed food allergies. In the next year and a half, she lost, as she put it, "a person" in weight. Jordan Peterson talks about the first thing that happened when he went on the beef-salt-water diet was he lost 50 lbs.

It has occurred to me that the oft-mentioned epidemic of fat people in the industrialized world (cited as evidence of how good things are, because there is more than enough food for all of us for the first time in history) may not be entirely due to portion size. It may be at least in part the accumulated results of decades of eating toxic crap that we put in the food supply, because it can't be proven scientifically to be harmful in the short term. There are a few of us unlucky enough to have bodies that reach a point where they finally say,



Anyway, that's just my $0.02.

[Baldanders]

Well, since nobody else answered the man's question,



----------------

At least most vegans don't try to convert you to Seventh Day Adventism. Although there is that remnant who do.

----------------

More seriously, over the past several years, my allergies have gotten worse and worse. Not quite a year ago, I had a life-threatening reaction to some still-unknown something, and have had to take it very, very seriously. It's not as bad as Dr. Peterson and his daughter, fortunately. The main thing seems to be sulfites. The way that citric acid is produced industrially (frack-all to do with citrus fruit) leads to it being contaminated with sulfur ions at the end of the process, so I can't eat anything with citric acid in it without getting mildly sick. Which means 90 percent of the grocery store. And I basically can eat two things at restaurants: meat/cheese combos (e.g., In-N-Out 4x4 with no bun or toppings) or a salad bar where I inspect and choose the ingredients. And I am extremely cautious about any packaged food. I must have been hungry when shopping, as I picked up a pack of Oreos. Had one in the evening, one the next morning. Felt like crap later in the day; took a Benadryl and everything cleared up. No more Oreos for me. This has repeated with most packaged desert items, so I haven't been eating much sugar. I can eat a lot of things, but they basically have to be prepared from fresh, raw ingredients, so I know what's in it.

I'm 25 lb lighter than I was a year and a half ago without undertaking any kind of workout program (limitations of other health issues), and am developing muscle in my mid-40s as a result of minimal yard work type activity that I never got when I was lifting in my late teens and early 20s. Was at a memorial (fuck cancer!) for a dear friend a few weeks ago and saw a photo of myself before I started buzzing my hair, which makes it at least 8-9 years old, and I look way better and healthier today.

My sister is in a much worse boat. She has been very heavy her whole adult life, with a whole range of health issues. She finally figured out that many of them were due to undiagnosed food allergies. In the next year and a half, she lost, as she put it, "a person" in weight. Jordan Peterson talks about the first thing that happened when he went on the beef-salt-water diet was he lost 50 lbs.

It has occurred to me that the oft-mentioned epidemic of fat people in the industrialized world (cited as evidence of how good things are, because there is more than enough food for all of us for the first time in history) may not be entirely due to portion size. It may be at least in part the accumulated results of decades of eating toxic crap that we put in the food supply, because it can't be proven scientifically to be harmful in the short term. There are a few of us unlucky enough to have bodies that reach a point where they finally say,



Anyway, that's just my $0.02.

There's so much going on in processed food, it's hard to pick it apart. Some studies seem to show it alters our intestinal microbiome in bad ways.

And I respect some things about Dr. Peterson, but don't try his diet. It makes as little sense as the quack way he tried to get off benzos, which may have left him permanently disabled.

[Cypher]

I think most folks honestly believe that the agenda they pursue is the best thing for everyone. Upper-class liberals are all about saving the planet via "enlightened" consumer choices. Why would they want a system where they keep driving gas-fueled vehicles?

I think most people pursue an agenda of what's good for them.

The population of this planet is unsustainable no one is going to miss a few (million) useless eaters.

Why do the Nomenklatura ride in jets and limousines to their climate conferences now?

If only the Nomenklatura had access to ICE the pollution level would remain at sustainable levels

[the Schwartz]

Blues is the expert, but switching definitions w/o saying so is a valid technique when you are engaging in wordplay, I think.

In all honesty, the pork head did smell a bit reminiscent of definition #2. Still great, though. I still have to steel myself a bit for eating intestines, 'cause I don't care how much washing there was, you are definitely getting both types of offal. Tripe just makes contact with pre-poop, at least.

This is why I simply cannot dishes like that...or menudo....my carnivorous side has its limits.

But you have to take a bit of shit to get what you want, sometimes.

Well, that's just flat out axiomatic.

[RevolverRob]

In 2020 I cannot get fresh lettuce for a salad in February in Chicago, IL. More flights and freight travel through Chicago than any other land-locked city in the world.

I can't get fresh lettuce. Why?

In our future world where food emissions must be super low and as a result only local or near local production can be consumed - what happens when winter comes?

Like autonomous freight vehicles, I firmly believe the idea of meat-free or less meat diets are a fallacy perpetuated by the ultimately privileged person.

The same people that preach "minimalism" preach "veganism". They seem to believe that by throwing things they don't need today away, with the attitude they can buy them again, is minimalism. Simultaneously, flying in fresh lettuce from Mexico for their fucking salad in the middle of winter doesn't strike them as any big deal. After all, think of the cow farts!

Cow farts must be more harmful than airplane emissions!

I told one of my colleagues to shut the fuck up a few months ago. She went on a rant about reducing waste and emissions outputs, this woman owns a car, never uses public transit, and travels between North and South America by plane 6-10 times PER YEAR. And she wants to lecture me about my carbon footprint?

[Baldanders]

I think most people pursue an agenda of what's good for them.

The population of this planet is unsustainable no one is going to miss a few (million) useless eaters.

Why do the Nomenklatura ride in jets and limousines to their climate conferences now?

If only the Nomenklatura had access to ICE the pollution level would remain at sustainable levels

Perhaps I am an incurable optimist, but I don't think there is a vast conspiracy to commit genocide beyond the doors of the rich and powerful.

With a lot less people, they wouldn't be elite anymore.

Then they'd have to find a new way to figure out who the elite are.

ETA: https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Depopu...spiracy_theory

The part of that page past the heading "negative effects" has some non-snarky points about why depopulation would hurt economic elites badly.

[Welder]

As someone was alluding to, dropping corn subsidies would do a lot to make healthy food more financially attractive.

Dropping ethanol subsidies would stop corn prices from being too crazy, sans subsidies.

I commented on this in another thread, but I'm going to say it again. Some people really need to get some perspective on agriculture. It's a unique business that few outside of the industry understand. Yet everyone has the "this one thing" solution. It's not simple, it's never simple.

Please show me the "crazy" in corn prices. Corn prices per bushel have remained flat or declined in the 20-plus years since I've been on the farm. And the time value of money has been doing it's normal thing as well. Neither of these are making average farmers rich; I live in the #1 ag county in VA, and times are hard all around here for farmers. We are losing farms to suburban encroachment and overall unprofitability.

The price of gas at the pump has more than doubled in that time. The price of a combo meal at a fast food restaurant has doubled in that time. Minimum wage hasn't doubled but it has increased. $40k annual gross was good middle class pay back then, you could live on it comfortably. Now, not so much.

Subsidies do affect markets, yes, and they are an economic tool used to influence farm production, or sometimes, lack thereof. I haven't paid attention to specific subsidies or amounts in decades, but I can tell you that subsidies are not the sole deciding factor on what will be planted that year by individual farmers. In the first place, family farms are often fiercely independent and simply will not accept subsidies, period. My grandfather absolutely refused to take gov't handouts because he understood that they often came with strings attached. And rightfully so, the argument can be successfully made.

Secondly, subsidies are often intended just to keep American farmers afloat, period. When the global farm economy has a boom year, it can be disastrous for us here at home. The average American farmer growing a homogenous product constantly has one foot in an economic grave. We have zero control of the weather, ZERO. And yet the weather controls the outcome of an entire year's labor and expenses. We have zero control of the global economy, ZERO. And yet we compete directly with a large portion of the entire planet's farmers.

You decide in the late summer what you're going to plant in the fall and harvest in the spring / early summer. Who knows what it will be worth, or how much you'll end up with? You decide in the winter what you're going to plant in the spring and harvest in the summer / fall. Same questions apply. You must first test your soil and then fertilize for those specific crops. Depending on your farm's location, you may have certain soil types or 'lays' of land that simply will not grow certain types of crops. On our farm we had one tiny 9 acre field that had six different soil types in it (that's why the field was small; we put all the 'crazy' in one place). We had land that you could only grow drought-resistant crops on, and we had land that would hold water for ages and not let you into the field to harvest if the weather patterns were wrong. And we had land that would grow anything. Corn will grow a lot of places; sorghum, for example, not so much. Soybeans not so much. If you don't get a rain very soon after the beans are in, you're going to be replanting. The figure used to be 12 days; I don't know what it is now. But it might take a week to get it all planted, and the weather forecast isn't that long-term accurate. Do you begin to understand?

Also, certain types of disease and pests will decimate a crop if you follow it with another crop of the same type. So you generally crop 'rotationally,' following one type of crop with another. Run correctly, and in the right climates, you can get two unrelated crops off of a field in a 365-day window...maybe more of crops I'm unfamiliar with. In our area it was usually a winter small grain planted in the fall and harvested in the spring, followed by soybeans. Or you might put rye in for an extra early harvest followed by corn, followed then by wheat or barley planted that fall. You might put some radishes in to break the compaction up, then spray and kill them, using them for 'green manure.'

Finally, and speaking specifically of corn since that is the crop quoted, you have to understand that a lot of corn does not go to human consumption. This was true well before ethanol as fuel became a thing. A portion of it never leaves the farm, but is instead chopped for silage for our dairy herds; corn silage as an energy source has been around for a very long time. Especially in the dairy belt and in limited acreage operations, the vast majority of corn can be consumed as feed for that farm's animals. Even in the corn belt, a sizeable chunk of that corn is going toward animal feed as shelled corn. Yes, we humans use a ton of it, but we're not the only consumer.

I say all that to say this.

What the gov't is choosing to subsidize or not does NOT make the final decision on what you're going to plant; you must look at overall market price indicators, your individual farm's needs, as well as consider the ongoing health of your land. This is why subsidies are nothing but a blunt instrument. Ultimately, corn *will* be planted. It is an incredibly versatile crop and can be planted in many environments. There is no conspiracy to make Americans fat going on by the gov't, or conspiracy to make farmers rich. Whether you understand this or not, we have a national interest in keeping farms afloat lest we lose the ability to feed our own nation should the current global economy fall apart. Corn is not perfect as a human food source, but it's role here is irreplaceable.