Are you concerned?

af_thefragile · 13-10-2012 8:35am #1

Yesterday I was watching a documentary on the food crisis in the world and how its only going to get worse in the coming years.
The western world is partly to blame for this because we here keep importing precious food from 3rd world countries to meet demand for our consumptive and unhealthy lifestyle and in turn starve the poorer countries of their precious resources. Problem is as other countries start adopting the high protein, high fat western (or more specifically American) diet, this problem is only going to get worse because growing meat requires significantly more land and water than growing vegetables. So in turn we have a world were a billion people are obese and a billion are starving to death and these numbers are increasing by the day. Couple that with global warming and the future looks very grim.

I feel it really selfish if people in the west live comfortably leeching off poorer countries resources and have no concern for the problems this is causing in the poorer world. We here are very detached from the poorer parts of the world and we do not see the suffering that goes on there for things we take for granted in this part of the world. The biggest concern arises from the fact that we in the west are responsible to a great extent for the suffering in the 3rd world because we're using up their limited resources to fuel our lifestyles.

We do have problems of our own here with corruption, debt, cut backs etc. but these are completely insignificant when you have large populations of country dying off because there has been a drought and there is no food or water for people. I see a lot of people blame this due to overpopulation in countries like India and China but that's only one small part of a global problem which we are all contributing to.

So are you concerned of the food you eat, where it's coming from and at what cost to poorer countries? Are you concerned that while people in the west which is only a small portion of the world live comfortably, majority of the people in the world continue to die in poverty? How can we live in a world like this without any conscience?

For those who are wondering, this is the documentary I watched and I highly recommend you guys to watch it as its very balanced and gives an in depth picture to the whole problem of food which is going to dominate the 21st century.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XiPuCSGo_wo

TL;DR version: We're eating more food than ever before and that is having a great impact on the lives of billions of people across the world. While we in the west can sit and complain about everything getting expensive, there are growing populations in the poorer parts of the world who are dying of hunger and starvation. Food is a much greater problem world wide than we in the west may perceive it to be. So are you concerned about how much of the world's precious resources you are consuming?

Boombastic · 13-10-2012 8:40am

I am concerned about where my food comes from - mostly about what chemical etc are put on it

We send millions(billions?) to the third world - most of which is spent by corrupt governments who prefer to buy weapons than to feed their own people.

You can't help people who won't help themselves. Maybe if we cut off aid totally, they would learn how to be self sufficient but as along as the money keeps pouring in they have no incentive to do so

af_thefragile · 13-10-2012 8:50am

Boombastic wrote: »

I am concerned about where my food comes from - mostly about what chemical etc are put on it

We send millions(billions?) to the third world - most of which is spent by corrupt governments who prefer to buy weapons than to feed their own people.

You can't help people who won't help themselves. Maybe if we cut off aid totally, they would learn how to be self sufficient but as along as the money keeps pouring in they have no incentive to do so

Problem is not just about money. Its about resources.
Pumping money into a country quickly being starved of its natural resources is going to do little to solve its problem and its going to have a global impact as these countries are also some of the largest exporters of food worldwide.

This is a complex problem and there are many elements to it and definitely corruption is another major part of it. While at the top you have greedy politicians who want all for themselves and greedy corporations who exploit cheap labour and resources in poor countries, at the bottom of it you have the poor farmers trying to feed a growing population while their natural resources are being drained away producing food for these greedy corporations and food that is exported to richer countries, all while trying to deal with the effects of global warming which are a lot more profound in the poorer tropical parts of the world than they are in the richer temperate world.

And you can't just let them sort it out for themselves because once again remember a large portion of our food comes from these poor countries. The UK imports 50% of the food it consumes.

We are consuming more than we need to, which in turn is driving our imports, which is driving the exports of the poor countries, which is using up their precious land and resources growing food for our consumption while they need it more, but we have more money, which in turn leads to more food shortages in the country, more poverty and more of the problems that are associated with poorer countries.

We need to realise our role at the top of the cycle driving this system.

Boombastic · 13-10-2012 8:58am

Yep and if the resources they have were properly managed there wouldn't be this issue

Until corrupt governments are sorted out, we can pump all the money we like in to those countries and it won't make a difference

jugger0 · 13-10-2012 9:00am

Global warming is a lot more alarming in my opinion, rising sea levels, drought and famine caused by harsh temperatures, polluted air and water... Lulz we really wrecked the place, now our grandchildren will have to kill each other(probably using robots and plasma guns) to eke out a meager existence on a dirty hot planet.

Fook.

cometogether · 13-10-2012 10:35am

We need to ban all air freighted food. Carrots from Holland. Potatoes from Egypt. It's got to stop. Lamb from NZ. Permacultures, where you use the immediate environment to grow food, should be mandatory, I really do believe that

Triangular · 13-10-2012 10:41am

I was in Turkey recently. A local restaurant had a big sign, DUBLIN BAY PRAWNS. I came home, went to Tesco...their Prawns are from Thailand.

Apparently 90% of deli chicken (Spar, O'Briens etc) is from Brazil and or Thailand.

I bought "Irish Grown Potatoes" in Tesco recently that had a "stamp of origin from France" Pics to prove also.

Sh1t is fcuked up

donegal_road · 13-10-2012 11:38am

cometogether wrote: »

We need to ban all air freighted food. Carrots from Holland. Potatoes from Egypt. It's got to stop. Lamb from NZ. Permacultures, where you use the immediate environment to grow food, should be mandatory, I really do believe that

I recently asked a local butcher about this. We are tripping over sheep in our part of Ireland, yet we continue to import from NZ. He said he can get a cut of lamb from NZ a lot cheaper than he can get it here.

Similarly in our local Super Value, the garlic is from China, I bought carrots recently from Israel, and certain tomatoes are from Holland (they are usually the ones that have been frozen and are hard, pale and tasteless)

NegativeCreep · 13-10-2012 11:39am

This is going to sound terrible but I really couldn't care less. It's not like theres anything I can do to stop it. I hardly ever eat anyway so i'm not as at fault as the rest of you :P

Run_to_da_hills · 13-10-2012 11:41am

For those of you interested in living a good healthy life with what "non toxic food" that is still available this particular website exposes everything and is a good guide. It also gives you up to date news of scandals.

Personally I would not touch Cornflakes ( or any massed produced multinational cereal ), American produced cinema Popcorn, Fast food chicken. etc

The top 10 breakfast cereals most likely to contain Monsanto's GMO corn

Michelle Obama launches new supermarket shopping guide, but no mention of GMO, aspartame, MSG

Unraveling food industry lies - Your chicken is full of liquid fillers and chemicals

Seven toxic foods, drinks, and additives to cut out of your diet for good

Kiwifruit helps kick the common cold

Sulla Felix · 13-10-2012 11:45am

Triangular wrote: »

I was in Turkey recently. A local restaurant had a big sign, DUBLIN BAY PRAWNS. I came home, went to Tesco...their Prawns are from Thailand.

Apparently 90% of deli chicken (Spar, O'Briens etc) is from Brazil and or Thailand.

I bought "Irish Grown Potatoes" in Tesco recently that had a "stamp of origin from France" Pics to prove also.

Sh1t is fcuked up

On the prawn thing. I remember reading a few years back about all the processing plants in Scotland being closed. Modern semi automatic shelling machines, they were being run on a skeleton crew with advanced machinery. Turned out even with the reduced labour costs the new machinery brought, it was cheaper to ship the catch to Thailand to get it shelled by hand and then shipped back to the domestic market. We're talking the stuff stocked in big high street UK stores, M&$ Sainsburys. They all sell North Sea shell fish true, but it's being processed the other side of the world now.

Anyway, on with the OP. I do, sometimes worry about stuff like this just like I worry about peak oil, the inflation implicit in moving away from the gold standard, stuff like that. Honestly though, then I get distracted and it could be weeks before I remember to think about it again. It's not a good thing.

Hersheys · 13-10-2012 11:46am

Triangular wrote: »

I was in Turkey recently. A local restaurant had a big sign, DUBLIN BAY PRAWNS. I came home, went to Tesco...their Prawns are from Thailand.

Apparently 90% of deli chicken (Spar, O'Briens etc) is from Brazil and or Thailand.

I bought "Irish Grown Potatoes" in Tesco recently that had a "stamp of origin from France" Pics to prove also.

Sh1t is fcuked up

Dublin bay prawns are a type of prawn, not the location they are caught.

af_thefragile · 13-10-2012 11:47am

NegativeCreep wrote: »

This is going to sound terrible but I really couldn't care less. It's not like theres anything I can do to stop it. I hardly ever eat anyway so i'm not as at fault as the rest of you :P

Its not that you can do anything to stop it because in reality none of us can do anything to stop it. But what we can do is help change it.

We need to become more educated about what we eat, where it comes from, how what we eat is having an impact on places in other parts on the earth and then do what we can to change the way we live in a way that's better than the wasteful way we do now.

Like for example if you seek out and buy local produce, you'll encourage local farmers to produce more and they won't have to compete with imports all the time. If you buy less food and eat more veg than meat, what you have will have less impact on the environment. You can grow food in your back garden so you won't have to buy them from a supermarket which have been shipped there from another part of the world. You can recycle the food you throw away into compost which will help you grow your kitchen garden better. There are many things you can do.

Only problem is people will label you a hippie and there's all the stigma that goes with it. Its easy to be lazy and continue living the way we do than to change our ways so that the little change each one of us makes can have a big impact on the large scale.

I would encourage you guys to watch the full documentary (all 3 parts of it) as it discusses all the different aspects to food production and the many ways we are trying to cope with this growing crisis. There's no one magic answer to the food problem. Its a combination of all the different answers which will help us tackle this. We all need to try and do what we can.

And I really see Ireland can build a huge economy out of this because there's so much empty land here. Ireland has perfect climate for growing food because we get plenty of rain here, the climate is perfect for grass (like in NZ), there are very few days it snows and the summers are relatively warm compared to rest of Europe. I really don't get it why Irish farmers can't stop moaning and start growing more food and build a whole industry on agriculture.

Boombastic · 13-10-2012 11:48am

Sulla Felix wrote: »

On the prawn thing. I remember reading a few years back about all the processing plants in Scotland being closed. Modern semi automatic shelling machines, they were being run on a skeleton crew with advanced machinery. Turned out even with the reduced labour costs the new machinery brought, it was cheaper to ship the catch to Thailand to get it shelled by hand and then shipped back to the domestic market. We're talking the stuff stocked in big high street UK stores, M&$ Sainsburys. They all sell North Sea shell fish true, but it's being processed the other side of the world now.

Anyway, on with the OP. I do, sometimes worry about stuff like this just like I worry about peak oil, the inflation implicit in moving away from the gold standard, stuff like that. Honestly though, then I get distracted and it could be weeks before I remember to think about it again. It's not a good thing.

Mad health, safety and quality controls are placed on Irish and other european country producers, the same can not be said of our producer friends in a lot of other countries, hence their ability to produce cheaper goods

UCDVet · 13-10-2012 11:54am

Let me get this straight.....

1.) We have overpopulation problems
2.) We have a food shortage

Hmmmm

If only there was some solution that could help with both problems.....too many people to feed.....but not enough food. Hmmmmmmmmmmmm

EDIT: EAT PEOPLE!

af_thefragile · 13-10-2012 11:56am

Boombastic wrote: »

Mad health, safety and quality controls are placed on Irish and other european country producers, the same can not be said of our producer friends in a lot of other countries, hence their ability to produce cheaper goods

Actually Part 2 of the documentary touches on this subject. About 1/3rd of all french beans in Kenya are thrown away because they won't pass the mad quality control standards EU and large supermarkets have in place. Just because a bean is a bit crooked or has some soil on it, it gets thrown away and its an awful waste.

wendell borton · 13-10-2012 11:56am

Triangular wrote: »

I was in Turkey recently. A local restaurant had a big sign, DUBLIN BAY PRAWNS. I came home, went to Tesco...their Prawns are from Thailand.

Apparently 90% of deli chicken (Spar, O'Briens etc) is from Brazil and or Thailand.

I bought "Irish Grown Potatoes" in Tesco recently that had a "stamp of origin from France" Pics to prove also.

Sh1t is fcuked up

Food is just a another commodity to be bought and sold.

"Under free trade the trader is the master and the producer the slave. Protection is but the law of nature, the law of self-preservation, of self-development, of securing the highest and best destiny of the race of man. [It is said] that protection is immoral…. Why, if protection builds up and elevates 63,000,000 [the U.S. population] of people, the influence of those 63,000,000 of people elevates the rest of the world. We cannot take a step in the pathway of progress without benefitting mankind everywhere. Well, they say, ‘Buy where you can buy the cheapest'…. Of course, that applies to labor as to everything else. Let me give you a maxim that is a thousand times better than that, and it is the protection maxim: ‘Buy where you can pay the easiest.' And that spot of earth is where labor wins its highest rewards." William McKinley (25th President of the United States)

donegal_road · 13-10-2012 11:59am

Alkaline and Acidic food chart.

cancer thrives in an acidic environment. People with cancer have a high acidic ph. You can neutralize the bodies ph level through diet.

I dont mean to drag this thread off topic, but seeing as food and diet is the topic, I thought this is an important point to mention.

af_thefragile · 13-10-2012 12:05pm

donegal_road wrote: »

Alkaline and Acidic food chart.

cancer thrives in an acidic environment. People with cancer have a high acidic ph. You can neutralize the bodies ph level through diet.

I dont mean to drag this thread off topic, but seeing as food and diet is the topic, I thought this is an important point to mention.

Looks like almost everything I eat is acidic!

Sticking with environment, there's also the growing concern on using plastics.
We today use too much plastic and it is dramatically polluting the environments. Problem with plastics is that they are not biodegradable than pretty much everything we used to use before plastics were invented, and therefore they're gonna hang around the environment polluting it forever.

Our seas are full of plastic now. Fish, birds, turtles etc. eat these plastics and die. It is a huge environmental catastrophe. Yet little is being done to reduce the amount of plastics we use and throw away.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7K-nq0xkWY

crazy cabbage · 13-10-2012 12:10pm

Yes this is going to be a majour problem in the coming years. I would argue that the fresh water problem is of more concern but that is another debate

I think with the rising food prices people will start growing some basic food themselves even if it is just a few herbs or carrots, and will start buying locally. I think if everyone bought locally it would help alot.

3rd world countries are experienceing masive food shortages.
3rd world countries are exporting tones of food to 1st world countries.
Am i the only that sees a simple (ish) solution to this problem

It is like during the famine in ireland we were exporting tons of food. What the hell was with that

UCDVet · 13-10-2012 12:13pm

crazy cabbage wrote: »

Yes this is going to be a majour problem in the coming years. I would argue that the fresh water problem is of more concern but that is another debate

I think with the rising food prices people will start growing some basic food themselves even if it is just a few herbs or carrots, and will start buying locally. I think if everyone bought locally it would help alot.

3rd world countries are experienceing masive food shortages.
3rd world countries are exporting tones of food to 1st world countries.
Am i the only that sees a simple (ish) solution to this problem

It is like during the famine in ireland we were exporting tons of food. What the hell was with that

The people who owned the food wanted money.
The people who needed the food had no money.

Thus - the people who need the food got none.
The people with the food sold it to people with money.

It's less a food problem and more a money problem.

rahmalec · 13-10-2012 12:15pm

donegal_road wrote: »

Alkaline and Acidic food chart.

cancer thrives in an acidic environment. People with cancer have a high acidic ph. You can neutralize the bodies ph level through diet.

I dont mean to drag this thread off topic, but seeing as food and diet is the topic, I thought this is an important point to mention.

I thought lemons were acidic with a ph of around 2, not 10?

dxhound2005 · 13-10-2012 12:17pm

I am not worried about the safety of food in this country. Unless people are going to grow their own food they have to rely on the stuff we buy in shops not going to poison us. People are living longer than ever so on that evidence I am reassured that I am not being poisoned. Life expectancy has increased by over 10 years since 1960.

http://www.indexmundi.com/facts/ireland/life-expectancy-at-birth

But if everyone in the world had the same fantastic level of affluence that we enjoy here (in historical terms locally and in comparison to most people living now) I would be worried about how the world would cope. Apparently in the next 40 years the world will have to produce as much food as it has in the last 8000 years to cope with increasing populations and affluence. Meanwhile here on average every household throws away around €1000 worth of food every year.

A_Sober_Paddy · 13-10-2012 12:21pm

jugger0 wrote: »

Global warming is a lot more alarming in my opinion, rising sea levels, drought and famine caused by harsh temperatures, polluted air and water... Lulz we really wrecked the place, now our grandchildren will have to kill each other(probably using robots and plasma guns) to eke out a meager existence on a dirty hot planet.

Fook.

Sounds like an awesome film

eth0 · 13-10-2012 12:22pm

Tbh I'm more worried about importing stuff that isn't food. Its (almost) impossible to find many types of electrical goods that aren't made in China.

Most electronic components come from China and a few countries in that area like Malaysia, Taiwan. We fall out with those lads we're fcuked. Even the few fabrication plants in this part of the world are most likely reliant on a steady supply of Chinese shoite to keep in business. These countries also keep getting our money due to our insatiable appetite for poor quality throw-away consumer electronic goods like iPads.

Since the industrial revolution till about 20-30 years ago Europe and the US built up massive manufacturing capacity but then we started outsourcing, started doing pretend 'administration' jobs instead, pushing money about, complying with regulations, providing various vaguely defined 'services' and 'solutions' that nobody cares about.

There are European companies that used to design and produce stuff, when China opened up they only designed it. Now they are a mere shell of their former past - an office in Slough or Reading that rakes in the money and decides which piece of fully homegrown Chinese shoite to import and stamp their brand on next but they can't keep fooling people with this scam forever.

We are cashing in on the work of Europeans over the past 150-200 years and getting a few decades of doing nothing but highly paid office dos jobs / living on the dole in return and handing the future (and everything we own) to the Chinese in the process. We'll be sorry for this in years to come, probably too late to stop it now. There are proponents who think the magical free market / globalisation will let us get away with producing nothing of value indefinitely while providing an endless supply of cheap labour, but feck it the Chinese don't even believe in the free market. They are ripping us off and taking advantage of the situation while saying "our time will come"

Ziphius · 13-10-2012 12:22pm

donegal_road wrote: »

Alkaline and Acidic food chart.

cancer thrives in an acidic environment. People with cancer have a high acidic ph. You can neutralize the bodies ph level through diet.

I dont mean to drag this thread off topic, but seeing as food and diet is the topic, I thought this is an important point to mention.

Shryke · 13-10-2012 12:25pm

crazy cabbage wrote: »

Yes this is going to be a majour problem in the coming years. I would argue that the fresh water problem is of more concern but that is another debate

I think with the rising food prices people will start growing some basic food themselves even if it is just a few herbs or carrots, and will start buying locally. I think if everyone bought locally it would help alot.

3rd world countries are experienceing masive food shortages.
3rd world countries are exporting tones of food to 1st world countries.
Am i the only that sees a simple (ish) solution to this problem

It is like during the famine in ireland we were exporting tons of food. What the hell was with that

Um, we weren't exporting it? I'm pretty sure you're messing but I've seen some silly stuff posted about this.

Food shortage isn't a static thing, as in it's not something that can be easily plotted on a line graph. Geopolitics and climate change are going to have as big an impact in the future in how food is managed as the actual amount of food produced.
Things are a mess at the moment and only seem to be accelerating toward worse things and a lot of it is down to corporations being given the proverbial keys.
I don't know how the world has drifted so far from a practical, rationalist and socialist ideology to this monstrous greed fest but here we are. Woop de doo.

Sunnyisland · 13-10-2012 12:28pm

Hersheys wrote: »

Dublin bay prawns are a type of prawn, not the location they are caught.

And I thought I was supporting the local fishermen here

af_thefragile · 13-10-2012 12:32pm

UCDVet wrote: »

The people who owned the food wanted money.
The people who needed the food had no money.

Thus - the people who need the food got none.
The people with the food sold it to people with money.

It's less a food problem and more a money problem.

Well now its rich countries like UK and Arab countries are buying huge lands in poor countries in Africa and other places so that they can ensure a year round supply of food at the expense of the local people in these poor countries. But then the poor countries need money which the rich countries pay them. But also they also need food which ends up being exported back to the rich countries so they go hungry!

SafeSurfer · 13-10-2012 12:54pm

Shryke wrote: »

Um, we weren't exporting it? I'm pretty sure you're messing but I've seen some silly stuff posted about this.

Food shortage isn't a static thing, as in it's not something that can be easily plotted on a line graph. Geopolitics and climate change are going to have as big an impact in the future in how food is managed as the actual amount of food produced.
Things are a mess at the moment and only seem to be accelerating toward worse things and a lot of it is down to corporations being given the proverbial keys.
I don't know how the world has drifted so far from a practical, rationalist and socialist ideology to this monstrous greed fest but here we are. Woop de doo.

It is a historical fact that food was exported from Ireland during the famine.

http://www.historyireland.com/volumes/volume5/issue1/features/?id=113256

Shryke · 13-10-2012 1:14pm

SafeSurfer wrote: »

It is a historical fact that food was exported from Ireland during the famine.

http://www.historyireland.com/volumes/volume5/issue1/features/?id=113256

Emphasis on the "we" there SafeSurfer...

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