Keep your self-righteous fingers off my processed food (A Right-Wing screed)

[DainBramaged]

Just in time for the worst economic downturn since the Depression, here comes a new crop of social critics to inform us that we're actually spending too little for the food we eat, the clothes we wear, the furniture we sit on and the gasoline that runs our automobiles.

Never mind that U.S. job losses these days range from 200,000 to 500,000 a month, that foreclosures are up 32% over this time last year and that people are re-learning how to clip newspaper coupons so as to save at the supermarket. Dire economic circumstances don't seem to faze these spending enthusiasts, who scold us for shopping at supermarkets instead of at farmer's markets, where a loaf of "artisanal" (and also "sustainable") rye bread sells for $8, ice cream for $6 a cup and organic tomatoes go for $4 a pound.

The latest cheerleader for higher prices is Ellen Ruppel Shell, a professor of science journalism at Boston University who has just published a book titled "Cheap." It's not a guide to bargain-hunting. The theme of Shell's book, subtitled "The High Cost of Discount Culture," is "America's dangerous liaison with Cheap."

Shell's argument goes like this: Shopping at discount stores, factory outlets and, of course, Wal-Mart (no work of social criticism is complete without a drive-by shooting aimed at that chain) exploits Chinese factory workers (who would much rather be back on the collective farm wearing their Mao suits) and degrades the environment because much of the low-price junk wears out and ends up in landfills.

Even IKEA comes in for a drubbing in Shell's book. Yes, the Swedish chain's inexpensive, assemble-yourself furniture may look tasteful, but behind every Billy bookcase lies a gruesome tale (in Shell's view) of Siberian forests ravaged for all that pine veneer and gallons of fossil fuel burned by couples motoring to IKEA's remote store locations, strategically chosen for their rock-bottom land values. Most damaging of all, says Shell, is the cost to America's soul.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-allen30-2009aug30,0,2592815.story


http://www.ellenruppelshell.com/

http://www.michaelpollan.com/

[ixion]

1. Bon appetite, my freeper cousin

Enjoy. :evilgrin:

[GoCubsGo]

5. Yup. Eat up!

Keep your processed and factory-farmed crap. It leaves more of the good stuff for the rest of us.

[rucky]

2. The Ecology of Pizza...

this is a great article, I've bookmarked for occasions such as this - revealing the true cost of our processed food vs. organic. I think it makes the case that organic is more cost-effective in the long term:

http://www.motherearthnews.com/Real-Food/2006-06-01/The-Ecology-of-Pizza-Or-Why-Organic-Food-is-a-Bargain.aspx

[Edweird]

3. Great. Remeber what happened after * talked about "artificially low gas prices"?

This idiot is clearly pining for rioting and anarchy. Fucking morons.

[FarCenter]

4. Food prices should rise over the next year

Chinese buying of soybeans and corn continues to rise.

The value of the dollar will fall, making it cheaper for other countries to import agricultural products from the United States.

[customerserviceguy]

6. Thanks for posting this

I see a lot of attacks on the way that people use to cut a few dollars out of the budget. Not all of us have high-paying bureaucrat jobs that allow us to pay $8 for that loaf of bread.

Thirty years ago, we would have called this attitude yuppie elitism.