Food Worries

Introduction

Food is something people think a lot about. They think about it consciously, and they think about it instinctively. These days we have books, magazines, TV shows and all sorts of Internet sites devoted to food topics. The bright side of this is we can easily enjoy lots of wonderful food styles these days. The dark side is we worry about food in ways that create lots and lots of waste. And the waste is the result of goat sacrificing.

Getting good food and enough of it is a concern that predates the human species. Heck! It predates vertebrate species! Even jelly fish have the concern constantly on their neural network. (They aren't complex enough to have brains.) In other words, there is a lot of instinctive thinking going on in this activity. It is also one of the human species' most versatile activities. How to do it well changes constantly from place-to-place and time-to-time, and there is much to be learned. This means there is also lots of analytic-thinking applied to the process.

Adding to this already potent mix, technology in the form of farm machinery, fertilizers, plant and animal breeding on the farm, as well as refrigerators, stoves, mixers and microwaves in the kitchen, and boxes, cans, bottles and plastic bags on supermarket shelves dramatically changes how we acquire and prepare our foods. These changes are so dramatic that they allow a whole lot of take-it-for-granted-thinking to be added to the mix as well. Ask a kid where hamburgers come from and the quick answer is “McDonald's”.

It is not surprising, given the importance of food and the constant technological changes, that there is a whole lot of goat sacrificing possible in the world of food growing, preparation and consumption.

Adaptability and Worry

Two basic concepts to keep in mind when talking about food worries: The first is the amazing adaptability of the human digestive system. It is designed to handle a lot of variety, as in, all the foods made all over the world. The second is that the digestive system learns, just as the brain does. An example of this is foods which are an acquired taste. Another is that travelers often have difficulty with native foods when they first encounter them, but can adapt to them over time. So it is important to keep in mind that while the digestive system can have glitches, its greatest virtue is adaptability.

The variety of potential foods available in the Neolithic Village environment is huge. And while the digestive system is adaptable, the range is even wider than what the digestive system can adjust to; in fact, some choices are outright poisonous. This means that Neolithic Village humans must spend a lot of time and attention on acquiring food and preparing it in ways that are helpful not harmful. Consequently, spending a lot of time thinking about food, and worrying about it, is instinctive.

Fast forward to the civilized environment and things change - a night and day difference. In the civilized environment we know a lot about food safety, and we put that knowledge into practice at every step between raising food, transporting it, and preparing it. There are rules, regulations, and inspectors everywhere. The civilized environment provides foods which have consistency and safety unimaginable in the Neolithic Village environment. This should put an end to the worry, but this worry instinct is a strong one and has opened the door for a lot of blind-spot-thinking, and goat sacrificing. Many people still worry a lot about food safety, and many others make a living on servicing those worries.

When Does Worry Become Goat Sacrificing?

Goat sacrificing is the result of blind-spot-thinking and good intentions gone bad. The goat sacrificing is waste that takes place so people can feel warm and fuzzy about their food.

Blind-spot-thinking enthusiastically supports something that feels right but has never been put to a rigorous test. In the case of foods this is the cacophony of calls for different kinds of healthy diets and miracle foods. There are dozens of books, magazines and TV shows talking about good diets. This is not bad in and of itself, but what is being advocated in this torrent of advice is contradictory, faddish, and based much more upon opinion than fact. This 25 Jun 14 WSJ article, “This Story Is Gluten-Free: Another questionable food fad” by James Freeman, summarizes a long list of food fads that have doubtful virtue. In the article Freeman questions the benefits of gluten-free, avoiding fatty meat, seeking out organic food, and avoiding GMOs, with citations to books and speakers on all of the above.
Good intentions call for action. But when little attention is paid to the consequences of what is implemented in the name of that call, then lots of waste ensues. Concerning foods, this shows up in the hundreds of government programs to subsidize farmers in general and specific kinds of foods in particular. Sugar, for example, has been blessed with decades of special treatment by the government. There have been import quotas on sugar since World War II. The good intention at that time was to make sure Americans had sugar even while Nazi U-boats prowled the Atlantic. These days the beneficiaries for this good intention are a group of about 4,000 sugar cane and sugar beet farmers in Florida and Hawaii. They make a nice living while Americans endure sky-high sugar prices. This 5 Jun 14 Heritage Foundation article, “U.S. Trade Policy Gouges American Sugar Consumers” by Bryan Riley, outlines the history and cost to consumers and taxpayers of this program. From the article, “In fiscal year (FY) 2013, Americans consumed 12 million tons of refined sugar, with the average price for raw sugar 6 cents per pound higher than the average world price. That means, based on 24 billion pounds of refined sugar use at a 6-cents-per-pound U.S. premium, Americans paid an unnecessary $1.4 billion extra for sugar. That is equivalent to more than $310,000 per sugar farm in the United States.” In East Asia the crop of worry is rice. Every government in East Asia subsidizes rice farming. The good intention is to protect the people’s food supply should some kind of blockade happen. And as a result East Asians endure sky-high rice prices.

When these modes of thinking support expensive actions, and those actions are not solving the root problem that called them into being, then we are engaging in one style of classic goat sacrificing: actions that are initiated and continued in order to stave off fear and instill hope that the worst won’t happen. These calls are even more damaging when they are supported by evangelism - the thinking that everyone must do it this way. Evangelism leads to disenfranchisement which skyrockets the waste.

Conclusion

Because food concerns are so potent in human thinking, they are fruitful ground for lots of goat sacrificing. To avoid the sacrificing we must be extra careful that good analytic-thinking and vigilance are being applied when we take actions on food issues.

What follows in the next sections are some contemporary examples of food concerns supporting goat sacrificing.