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It seems to have both long-term and short-term addictive properties. I'm not

a sugar addict in the sense that I *never* crave sugar. But if I eat some

ice cream because I'm bored, I often find myself unable to stop eating it.

That isn't to say I'm utterly helpless, but it takes an enormous amount of

willpower to do so, much like it does to not smoke a cigarette when one is in

nicotine withdrawals.

If the anti-candida diet I tried did anything for me, it got me out of the

habit of eating ice cream when I'm bored. If I never start, I have no

problem. Now my added sugar amounts to a tablespoon or two of raw honey a

week, for the most part.

Chris

In a message dated 5/19/03 6:49:23 PM Eastern Daylight Time,

Idol@... writes:

> I'm pretty sure there's actual clinical data demonstrating that sugar is

> addictive, though I don't have any on hand and I'm sure many people would

> ridicule the idea. At any rate, I know from my own personal experience

> that sugar is extremely addictive for me. It's basically like being an

> alcoholic -- once an alcoholic always an alcoholic, even if you stop being

> a drunk. (Though supposedly some former alcoholics can eventually drink in

>

> moderation, I'm definitely not one of them when it comes to sugar.)

" To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are

to stand by the president, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and

servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public. " --Theodore

Roosevelt

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I'm with you on this one, . I too was raised in a

hippie-absolutely-no-junkfood household and I spent a large portion of my

allowance on candy from the 7-11 every week from grades 5-12. I was obsessed.

I think sugar is totally addictive--why did any traditional culture switch over

to the " foods of modern commerce " if this weren't the case???

Re: Re: oreos

Mike-

I was raised without sugar, and from my personal experience and from

watching other people like me I can assure you that's just not true.

>Children raised

>without sugar generally don't like sugar.

-

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-

I'm pretty sure there's actual clinical data demonstrating that sugar is

addictive, though I don't have any on hand and I'm sure many people would

ridicule the idea. At any rate, I know from my own personal experience

that sugar is extremely addictive for me. It's basically like being an

alcoholic -- once an alcoholic always an alcoholic, even if you stop being

a drunk. (Though supposedly some former alcoholics can eventually drink in

moderation, I'm definitely not one of them when it comes to sugar.)

>I too was raised in a hippie-absolutely-no-junkfood household and I spent

>a large portion of my allowance on candy from the 7-11 every week from

>grades 5-12. I was obsessed. I think sugar is totally addictive--why did

>any traditional culture switch over to the " foods of modern commerce " if

>this weren't the case???

-

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In a message dated 5/22/2003 9:44:25 PM Pacific Daylight Time, bwp@...

writes:

> Hello All!

> I hadn't been following the " oreos " thread, but I just read through it,

> and I wanted to say a few things.

>

> First of all, a resounding thanks to everyone who put so much thought and

> effort into the posts, especially to and Heidi for their incredibly

> thorough and insightful deconstructions of DMM's ridiculous and

> knuckle-headed posts.

>

> I'd like to re-state one of Heidi's crucial points: get the corporate

> influence out of the schools! It is completely unethical unadvertising.

> This is a huge idea that deserves to be pursued by parents with great

> aggression at all possible levels, local, state, federal, etc. If I

> become a parent someday and it hasn't been done yet, I'd certainly

> participate in a coordinated campaign to produce and disseminate focused

> documents arguing against any promotion of junk food in schools. It

> couldn't be too difficult for a group of people to pool together their

> resources and make a concise presentation of the evidence for a link

> between these junk foods and negative trends in the physical,

> intellectual, and social development of children. If the evidence was

> gathered and clearly presented in several formats of varying levels of

> detail, etc, and a group of parents in scattered locations hammered their

> local school boards with this, I could imagine a lot of simultaneous

> local successes that would reinforce each other and build an incredible

> momentum. The appeal of an anti-sugar/flour/soda/hydrogenation campaign

> would cross the boundaries of the various nutritional ideologies (low-fat

> v high-fat, plant v animal, lipid hypothesis v NT, low-carb v high-carb);

> it's hard to imagine any parent who would have an argument for the value

> of these things, unless they somehow have a lot in stake at a major food

> corporation. There would be some who don't care, and some who like junk

> food too much to imagine giving it up or witholding it from their

> children, but this would not constitute a defense of the junk food, only a

> lack of support for an anti-junk food agenda.

>

> The whole line about " individual responsibility " and " critical thinking "

> is a joke. If no mainstream media provide information about the dangers

> of PHVO and large numbers of one's peer group consume PHVO-laden products

> without any evidence linking PHVO to any short-term health problems, then

> there could easily be many parents who take " individual responsibility " in

> many other matters and " think critically " about many other things, but

> lack any stimulus that would lead them to even consider PHVO a topic to

> think about at all, much less take a stance on when there are dozens of

> other worthwhile and pressing issues affecting what they believe to be

> the health and well-being of their children.

>

> Saying the " bottom line " is that corrupt corporations would go out of

> business if people stopped buying their products is a sad cop-out in this

> case, a clean, mono-dimensional, blinkered, smug theoretical gambit that

> is of trivial theoretical relevance and no practical relevance.

> It's like saying that there would never be wars if each individual

> soldier took individual responsibility and refused to participate (makes me

> think of

> the Donovan song...), ignoring the reasons why this would simply NEVER

> HAPPEN

> in practice, i.e. a certain subset of the human population will always

> simply

> like action, excitement, risk, killing, etc, and for any

> individual-soldier decision-context there will be bearers of values in the

> immediate

> socio-cultural context (parents, peers, government, etc) that will provide

> moral justification for the soldier's participation. Something that

> won't happen in practice is of no practical relevance. In the case of

> PHVO-laden snacks, I can't see any possible micro-level basis for a

> sufficient number of people suddenly taking " individual responsibility "

> about an issue they have virtually no knowledge of or exposure to. I

> don't think it's within the bounds of " individual responsibility " to spend

> countless hours scouring the internet and books for information about

> topics of no self-evident significance, as the incredibly tiny subset of

> the human population represented on this email group does. Any

> conceivable mechanism for positive change regarding the consumption of

> PHVO-laden snacks by children would come from the macro-level of

> informational politics and governmental regulation. Both of these systems

> could be successfully exploited by a lawsuit. The Oreos suit was a GREAT

> idea, and I hope further attempts are made along these lines.

>

> To strengthen this argument, I will use myself as an example. Without

> wanting to simply serve my ego, I would claim myself as a paragon of

> " individual responsibility " and " critical thinking " , yet I can cite

> examples where I acted with a sense of " individual responsibility " and

> " critical thought " while being insalubriously manipulated by the media and

> government. About a year-and-a-half ago, at the age of 25, I began to

> think about health and nutrition for the FIRST TIME IN MY LIFE. Prior to

> this, I never thought about the nutritional aspects of what I ate; I never

> thought about trans fats; I never thought about how much sugar I

> ate; I never thought about where my food came from or how it was made.

> The following two concepts that now seem glaringly self-evident NEVER

> OCCURRED TO ME AT ALL:

> 1) There is a connection between health and happiness

> 2) There is a connection between food and health

> I repeat, these concepts DID NOT EXIST IN MY BRAIN. Now, I'd wager that

> there are a lot of people both under and over 25 who have also never had

> these thoughts materialize in their brains at any time in their lives.

> I'm at pains here to convey the severity of the contrast between a brain

> with these concepts and without these concepts, and the plausibility that

> there are a great many brains of both types in the population. It's the

> same severity of contrast between a brain with a certain religious belief

> and a brain with a specific rejection of that religious belief. There can

> be many brains of both types, and their operators can be equally

> accomplished practitioners of " individual responsibility " and " critical

> thought " . In my 25 years before gaining implementations of the above two

> important concepts, I had done graduate studies in mathematics; conducted

> original research challenging current theories in linguistics; evaluated,

> rejected, revised, or invented replacements for a large chunk of the

> global philosophical and aesthetic canon as a non-vocational pleasure;

> forgone television and any mainstream news media for about 10 years; and

> done other things that could be considered prototypical of " individual

> responsibility " and " critical thinking " . I've also never consumed an

> alcoholic beverage, smoked a cigarette, smoked marijuana, or tried any

> drug (except for the occasional cup of coffee or tea). I think these

> facts show that even a model practitioner of " individual responsibility "

> and " critical thought " may fail to apply these virtues to certain domains,

> such as food. Considering that many people under the age of 25 are

> parents with children in school, I can very easily imagine someone who

> exercises great " individual responsibility " and " critical thought " yet for

> whom PHVO (or sugar, or flour, or gluten, or soy formula, or healthy

> gut bacteria, or omega-6's, or AGE's, etc) is a non-issue. However, if

> the government (of which the legal system is one part) stepped in and gave

> them a reason to take it seriously, then I can also very easily imagine

> them making sensible decisions involving the consumption of PHVO by

> themselves and their children.

>

> Furthermore, even when a person has taken it upon themselves to address an

> issue in their life, " personal responsibility " and " critical thinking "

> doesn't necessarily translate into beneficial choices. Think about how

> many people have expended tremendous " personal responsibility " and

> " critical thinking " in choosing veganism, or, more to the point, in

> choosing margarine instead of butter. When I first started my (probably

> never-ending) odyssey into the domain of food and health a

> year-and-half-ago, I read a few mediocre books whose content was a direct

> product of corporate and government practices, and which led me straight

> into a low-fat, zero-cholesterol vegetarian diet centered around

> unfermented soy foods. I remember picking up a can of tuna and seeing the

> tiny but non-zero amount of cholesterol and thinking " this can't be

> an optimal food choice, so I shouldn't even consider it " . I also stewed

> over the miniscule amount of cholesterol in non-fat powdered milk (!!!).

> Neither the label nor the books I had read said anything about denatured

> amino acids, oxidized cholesterol, nutritional losses due to

> pasteurization and processing, the value of butterfat, the influence

> of the diet of the cow, etc, just " cholesterol " . I felt like a

> well-informed consumer guaranteeing my future health by reading the

> label, yet I was completely clueless and duped by the informational

> climate created by powerful corporations and the government. I was

> certainly exercising " personal responsibility " and " critical thinking " ,

> and what about all the other people who have had the same exact experience

> but didn't have the dumb fortune to stumble across the WAPF website during

> some obscure websearch a few months later? " personal responsibility " and

> " critical thinking " are not solutions to the unethical practices of powerful

> corporations. (It was Irene who made the brilliant points " I just happen to

> believe the NT stuff after being exposed to it " and " why should anyone

> believe me? "

> early in the thread. We're dealing with issues of informational politics,

> not " individual responsibility " or " critical thinking " .)

>

> A large part of " individual responsibility " is to the creation and

> maintenance of shared cultural practices and trusting certain matters to

> certain sectors of a community. This is the human norm, and I believe it

> was Heidi who pointed out the anomalous nature of an individual needing to

> invest huge amounts of their time and other resources to finding out about

> the basic healthfulness of foods widely accepted in their society. The

> derogatory term " sheeple " captures certain unfortunate human traits

> currently in mass abundance, but it also captures certain positive and

> essential human traits that allow for the existence of stable and

> harmonious societies. Many " critical thinkers " see more value in

> conforming to cultural norms than resisting them. I would have to list

> myself as of this persuasion, even if I find myself unsuited to putting

> this into practice as much as would seem desirable due to incorrigible

> eccentricities.

>

> The problems of PHVO and other unethical products of greedy and powerful

> corporations come from macro-level phenomena involving the rupture of

> community-based systems of food production and distribution, the

> production and distribution of information, the economic

> influence on government regulation, etc, and the solutions to these problems

> can be found at these levels as well, without invoking the micro-level of

> " individual responsibility " at all.

>

> Mike

>

> p.s. I just read the press release about the voluntary dismissal of the

> suit on bantransfats.com, and I couldn't help thinking the guy was

> paid-off in a BIG way by Nabisco for this dismissal and press release.

> One of the more suspicious passages:

> " There should be no more trans fat lawsuits, because everyone now knows

> about it, and if anyone files one they should consider me to be an

> opponent. The existence and danger of trans fats is now common knowledge

> as a result of the last three days of publicity and as far as I am

> concerned there is no longer any basis for suing anyone. "

> This is pretty sad, considering that there are plenty of people who still

> haven't heard about trans fats, and that many who were exposed to this

> publicity may have only caught a passing mention and quickly forgot about

> it as fast as the million other health scares they encounter in the news

> on a regular basis. If the legal action were sustained, then the depth

> and seriousness of the issue might have been exposed and it might have

> resulted in some changes more dramatic than just causing a few thousand

> people to reduce their trans fat intake.

>

>

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Hello All!

I hadn't been following the " oreos " thread, but I just read through it,

and I wanted to say a few things.

First of all, a resounding thanks to everyone who put so much thought and

effort into the posts, especially to and Heidi for their incredibly

thorough and insightful deconstructions of DMM's ridiculous and

knuckle-headed posts.

I'd like to re-state one of Heidi's crucial points: get the corporate

influence out of the schools! It is completely unethical unadvertising.

This is a huge idea that deserves to be pursued by parents with great

aggression at all possible levels, local, state, federal, etc. If I

become a parent someday and it hasn't been done yet, I'd certainly

participate in a coordinated campaign to produce and disseminate focused

documents arguing against any promotion of junk food in schools. It

couldn't be too difficult for a group of people to pool together their

resources and make a concise presentation of the evidence for a link

between these junk foods and negative trends in the physical,

intellectual, and social development of children. If the evidence was

gathered and clearly presented in several formats of varying levels of

detail, etc, and a group of parents in scattered locations hammered their

local school boards with this, I could imagine a lot of simultaneous

local successes that would reinforce each other and build an incredible

momentum. The appeal of an anti-sugar/flour/soda/hydrogenation campaign

would cross the boundaries of the various nutritional ideologies (low-fat

v high-fat, plant v animal, lipid hypothesis v NT, low-carb v high-carb);

it's hard to imagine any parent who would have an argument for the value

of these things, unless they somehow have a lot in stake at a major food

corporation. There would be some who don't care, and some who like junk

food too much to imagine giving it up or witholding it from their

children, but this would not constitute a defense of the junk food, only a

lack of support for an anti-junk food agenda.

The whole line about " individual responsibility " and " critical thinking "

is a joke. If no mainstream media provide information about the dangers

of PHVO and large numbers of one's peer group consume PHVO-laden products

without any evidence linking PHVO to any short-term health problems, then

there could easily be many parents who take " individual responsibility " in

many other matters and " think critically " about many other things, but

lack any stimulus that would lead them to even consider PHVO a topic to

think about at all, much less take a stance on when there are dozens of

other worthwhile and pressing issues affecting what they believe to be

the health and well-being of their children.

Saying the " bottom line " is that corrupt corporations would go out of

business if people stopped buying their products is a sad cop-out in this

case, a clean, mono-dimensional, blinkered, smug theoretical gambit that

is of trivial theoretical relevance and no practical relevance.

It's like saying that there would never be wars if each individual

soldier took individual responsibility and refused to participate (makes me

think of

the Donovan song...), ignoring the reasons why this would simply NEVER HAPPEN

in practice, i.e. a certain subset of the human population will always simply

like action, excitement, risk, killing, etc, and for any

individual-soldier decision-context there will be bearers of values in the

immediate

socio-cultural context (parents, peers, government, etc) that will provide

moral justification for the soldier's participation. Something that

won't happen in practice is of no practical relevance. In the case of

PHVO-laden snacks, I can't see any possible micro-level basis for a

sufficient number of people suddenly taking " individual responsibility "

about an issue they have virtually no knowledge of or exposure to. I

don't think it's within the bounds of " individual responsibility " to spend

countless hours scouring the internet and books for information about

topics of no self-evident significance, as the incredibly tiny subset of

the human population represented on this email group does. Any

conceivable mechanism for positive change regarding the consumption of

PHVO-laden snacks by children would come from the macro-level of

informational politics and governmental regulation. Both of these systems

could be successfully exploited by a lawsuit. The Oreos suit was a GREAT

idea, and I hope further attempts are made along these lines.

To strengthen this argument, I will use myself as an example. Without

wanting to simply serve my ego, I would claim myself as a paragon of

" individual responsibility " and " critical thinking " , yet I can cite

examples where I acted with a sense of " individual responsibility " and

" critical thought " while being insalubriously manipulated by the media and

government. About a year-and-a-half ago, at the age of 25, I began to

think about health and nutrition for the FIRST TIME IN MY LIFE. Prior to

this, I never thought about the nutritional aspects of what I ate; I never

thought about trans fats; I never thought about how much sugar I

ate; I never thought about where my food came from or how it was made.

The following two concepts that now seem glaringly self-evident NEVER

OCCURRED TO ME AT ALL:

1) There is a connection between health and happiness

2) There is a connection between food and health

I repeat, these concepts DID NOT EXIST IN MY BRAIN. Now, I'd wager that

there are a lot of people both under and over 25 who have also never had

these thoughts materialize in their brains at any time in their lives.

I'm at pains here to convey the severity of the contrast between a brain

with these concepts and without these concepts, and the plausibility that

there are a great many brains of both types in the population. It's the

same severity of contrast between a brain with a certain religious belief

and a brain with a specific rejection of that religious belief. There can

be many brains of both types, and their operators can be equally

accomplished practitioners of " individual responsibility " and " critical

thought " . In my 25 years before gaining implementations of the above two

important concepts, I had done graduate studies in mathematics; conducted

original research challenging current theories in linguistics; evaluated,

rejected, revised, or invented replacements for a large chunk of the

global philosophical and aesthetic canon as a non-vocational pleasure;

forgone television and any mainstream news media for about 10 years; and

done other things that could be considered prototypical of " individual

responsibility " and " critical thinking " . I've also never consumed an

alcoholic beverage, smoked a cigarette, smoked marijuana, or tried any

drug (except for the occasional cup of coffee or tea). I think these

facts show that even a model practitioner of " individual responsibility "

and " critical thought " may fail to apply these virtues to certain domains,

such as food. Considering that many people under the age of 25 are

parents with children in school, I can very easily imagine someone who

exercises great " individual responsibility " and " critical thought " yet for

whom PHVO (or sugar, or flour, or gluten, or soy formula, or healthy

gut bacteria, or omega-6's, or AGE's, etc) is a non-issue. However, if

the government (of which the legal system is one part) stepped in and gave

them a reason to take it seriously, then I can also very easily imagine

them making sensible decisions involving the consumption of PHVO by

themselves and their children.

Furthermore, even when a person has taken it upon themselves to address an

issue in their life, " personal responsibility " and " critical thinking "

doesn't necessarily translate into beneficial choices. Think about how

many people have expended tremendous " personal responsibility " and

" critical thinking " in choosing veganism, or, more to the point, in

choosing margarine instead of butter. When I first started my (probably

never-ending) odyssey into the domain of food and health a

year-and-half-ago, I read a few mediocre books whose content was a direct

product of corporate and government practices, and which led me straight

into a low-fat, zero-cholesterol vegetarian diet centered around

unfermented soy foods. I remember picking up a can of tuna and seeing the

tiny but non-zero amount of cholesterol and thinking " this can't be

an optimal food choice, so I shouldn't even consider it " . I also stewed

over the miniscule amount of cholesterol in non-fat powdered milk (!!!).

Neither the label nor the books I had read said anything about denatured

amino acids, oxidized cholesterol, nutritional losses due to

pasteurization and processing, the value of butterfat, the influence

of the diet of the cow, etc, just " cholesterol " . I felt like a

well-informed consumer guaranteeing my future health by reading the

label, yet I was completely clueless and duped by the informational

climate created by powerful corporations and the government. I was

certainly exercising " personal responsibility " and " critical thinking " ,

and what about all the other people who have had the same exact experience

but didn't have the dumb fortune to stumble across the WAPF website during

some obscure websearch a few months later? " personal responsibility " and

" critical thinking " are not solutions to the unethical practices of powerful

corporations. (It was Irene who made the brilliant points " I just happen to

believe the NT stuff after being exposed to it " and " why should anyone believe

me? "

early in the thread. We're dealing with issues of informational politics,

not " individual responsibility " or " critical thinking " .)

A large part of " individual responsibility " is to the creation and

maintenance of shared cultural practices and trusting certain matters to

certain sectors of a community. This is the human norm, and I believe it

was Heidi who pointed out the anomalous nature of an individual needing to

invest huge amounts of their time and other resources to finding out about

the basic healthfulness of foods widely accepted in their society. The

derogatory term " sheeple " captures certain unfortunate human traits

currently in mass abundance, but it also captures certain positive and

essential human traits that allow for the existence of stable and

harmonious societies. Many " critical thinkers " see more value in

conforming to cultural norms than resisting them. I would have to list

myself as of this persuasion, even if I find myself unsuited to putting

this into practice as much as would seem desirable due to incorrigible

eccentricities.

The problems of PHVO and other unethical products of greedy and powerful

corporations come from macro-level phenomena involving the rupture of

community-based systems of food production and distribution, the

production and distribution of information, the economic

influence on government regulation, etc, and the solutions to these problems

can be found at these levels as well, without invoking the micro-level of

" individual responsibility " at all.

Mike

p.s. I just read the press release about the voluntary dismissal of the

suit on bantransfats.com, and I couldn't help thinking the guy was

paid-off in a BIG way by Nabisco for this dismissal and press release.

One of the more suspicious passages:

" There should be no more trans fat lawsuits, because everyone now knows

about it, and if anyone files one they should consider me to be an

opponent. The existence and danger of trans fats is now common knowledge

as a result of the last three days of publicity and as far as I am

concerned there is no longer any basis for suing anyone. "

This is pretty sad, considering that there are plenty of people who still

haven't heard about trans fats, and that many who were exposed to this

publicity may have only caught a passing mention and quickly forgot about

it as fast as the million other health scares they encounter in the news

on a regular basis. If the legal action were sustained, then the depth

and seriousness of the issue might have been exposed and it might have

resulted in some changes more dramatic than just causing a few thousand

people to reduce their trans fat intake.

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>The following two concepts that now seem glaringly self-evident NEVER

>OCCURRED TO ME AT ALL:

>1) There is a connection between health and happiness

>2) There is a connection between food and health

>I repeat, these concepts DID NOT EXIST IN MY BRAIN.

--> I really like that. Your revelation occured much earlier than mine! I

suffered for 20 years with ongoing anxiety/depression, which are now just

an unhappy memory. Spent much money on therapists. One thing the therapists

did teach me: to THINK.

" . I felt like a

well-informed consumer guaranteeing my future health by reading the

label, yet I was completely clueless and duped by the informational

climate created by powerful corporations and the government. I was

certainly exercising " personal responsibility " and " critical thinking " ,

and what about all the other people who have had the same exact experience

but didn't have the dumb fortune to stumble across the WAPF website during

some obscure websearch a few months later?

--> Well put, and a nice post. I really agree -- humans really are not

designed to " stand alone " and when you read history, a lot of very

intelligent and responsible people were quite willing to participate in

this or that atrocity deemed necessary at the time. I think " Snow Crash " by

Neal son puts this well.

-- Heidi

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In a message dated 5/23/03 12:44:12 AM Eastern Daylight Time, bwp@...

writes:

> " There should be no more trans fat lawsuits, because everyone now knows

> about it, and if anyone files one they should consider me to be an

> opponent. The existence and danger of trans fats is now common knowledge

> as a result of the last three days of publicity and as far as I am

> concerned there is no longer any basis for suing anyone. "

> This is pretty sad, considering that there are plenty of people who still

> haven't heard about trans fats, and that many who were exposed to this

> publicity may have only caught a passing mention and quickly forgot about

> it as fast as the million other health scares they encounter in the news

> on a regular basis. If the legal action were sustained, then the depth

> and seriousness of the issue might have been exposed and it might have

> resulted in some changes more dramatic than just causing a few thousand

> people to reduce their trans fat intake.

My God!!! I didn't read the release. We should swarm him with hate mail!!!

>:-0

chris

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It just occurred to me after reading that ridiculous and anger-inducing quote

from the trans fat suit press release that there are other possibilities than

pay-off as well. I know someone who started receiving death threats when he

started cutting in to a certain

all-natural-ice-cream-now-owned-by-former-apartheid-supporting-soap-company's

market.

Chris

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Mike-

>I just read the press release about the voluntary dismissal of the

>suit on bantransfats.com, and I couldn't help thinking the guy was

>paid-off in a BIG way by Nabisco for this dismissal and press release.

I'm not sure he was paid, and it might not have been Nabisco, but there was

almost certainly some kind of intervention, whether a bribe, a threat,

extortion, blackmail, or something else, and whether by Nabisco or some

other entity. The about-face is just too dramatic to explain otherwise.

-

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do tell so I can avoid it...thanks,

******************

I know someone who started receiving death threats when he

started cutting in to a certain

all-natural-ice-cream-now-owned-by-former-apartheid-supporting-soap-company's

market.

Chris

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In a message dated 5/23/03 12:18:01 PM Eastern Daylight Time, jc137@...

writes:

> do tell so I can avoid it...thanks,

The threats were anonymous so who knows where they were coming from, but

there is basically one king of the all-natural ice cream market... good ol' B &

J's-- who are, btw, now owned by Unilever.

Chris

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I haven't been following this thread either, but I thought this

extremely long post deserved a response. See comments below

On Fri, 23 May 2003 00:42:19 -0400 (EDT)

Anton <bwp@...> wrote:

> Hello All!

> I hadn't been following the " oreos " thread, but I just read through it,

> and I wanted to say a few things.

>

> First of all, a resounding thanks to everyone who put so much thought and

> effort into the posts, especially to and Heidi for their incredibly

> thorough and insightful deconstructions of DMM's ridiculous and

> knuckle-headed posts.

I take it you and DMM aren't on very friendly terms, or is this

kind of language normal here in describing someone's post?

>

> I'd like to re-state one of Heidi's crucial points: get the corporate

> influence out of the schools! It is completely unethical unadvertising.

Not a bad idea. But why stop there? Why is corporate America and its

influence the big bad bully on the block? Why not be consistent and get

government influence out of our schools? Why is corporate advertising

unethical but gov't " advertising " is not? The gov't nutritional message

is clearly at odds with just about everything this email group stands

for, so why does it get a free pass?

At least the corporations have to pay to get some influence while the

gov't has a " free " subsidized shot at our kids 8 hours a day 5 days a

week. Thus, why not separate school from state entirely?

http://www.sepschool.org/

That way, if in our own estimation regarding our kids, some undue

corporate or gov't influence overtakes our preferred school we can

simply remove our kids.

> This is a huge idea that deserves to be pursued by parents with great

> aggression at all possible levels, local, state, federal, etc. If I

> become a parent someday and it hasn't been done yet, I'd certainly

> participate in a coordinated campaign to produce and disseminate focused

> documents arguing against any promotion of junk food in schools. It

> couldn't be too difficult for a group of people to pool together their

> resources and make a concise presentation of the evidence for a link

> between these junk foods and negative trends in the physical,

> intellectual, and social development of children. If the evidence was

> gathered and clearly presented in several formats of varying levels of

> detail, etc, and a group of parents in scattered locations hammered their

> local school boards with this, I could imagine a lot of simultaneous

> local successes that would reinforce each other and build an incredible

> momentum.

Remove gov't control of schools and you would not have to go through all

the gyrations above. You could, as a third party information center, inform

people of the best nutritional choices for their children. People could

then can make their own choices, however arrived at, without having

someone else's nutritional ideas forced upon them by the strong arm of

gov't. And if someone didn't particularly like a particular schools

policy or choice, they could vote with their feet, in the absence of

gov't coercion and taxation for that black hole known as public education.

The appeal of an anti-sugar/flour/soda/hydrogenation campaign

> would cross the boundaries of the various nutritional ideologies (low-fat

> v high-fat, plant v animal, lipid hypothesis v NT, low-carb v high-carb);

> it's hard to imagine any parent who would have an argument for the value

> of these things, unless they somehow have a lot in stake at a major food

> corporation. There would be some who don't care, and some who like junk

> food too much to imagine giving it up or witholding it from their

> children, but this would not constitute a defense of the junk food, only a

> lack of support for an anti-junk food agenda.

Seriously? There are a number of people who don't think food is

that big of a deal, no matter how much evidence you trot out, unless

they are directly impacted by the hazards of junk food.

>

> The whole line about " individual responsibility " and " critical thinking "

> is a joke. If no mainstream media provide information about the dangers

> of PHVO and large numbers of one's peer group consume PHVO-laden products

> without any evidence linking PHVO to any short-term health problems, then

> there could easily be many parents who take " individual responsibility " in

> many other matters and " think critically " about many other things, but

> lack any stimulus that would lead them to even consider PHVO a topic to

> think about at all, much less take a stance on when there are dozens of

> other worthwhile and pressing issues affecting what they believe to be

> the health and well-being of their children.

There will always be people who will not think critically or assume your

mantle or definition of individual responsibility. People always have

differing agendas and differing degrees of priority related to their

agendas, which may or may not be in line with yours.

And to suggest that someone will only be informed if they get their info

from the " mainstream " media, is...well...kind of...well lets just say its not

true.

One of the great things about today is that one can be fully informed without

ever once

traversing the establishment media.

And there will always be misinformed people no matter how ideal the

situation. We are talking humans here, not automatons.

>

> Saying the " bottom line " is that corrupt corporations would go out of

> business if people stopped buying their products is a sad cop-out in this

> case,

How so? No market, no money. No money, no profit. No profit, no business.

I don't see a cop out here, just stating a reality.

Contrary to popular opinion, if you do not meet a perceived need in the

marketplace, you *will* go out of business, unless, by political (i.e.

gov't coercion), you rig the market in your favor (like creating

barriers to entry your competitors can't meet and still have a

reasonably priced product - or just flat out making it illegal - can

anyone say raw dairy?)

a clean, mono-dimensional, blinkered, smug theoretical gambit that

> is of trivial theoretical relevance and no practical relevance.

> It's like saying that there would never be wars if each individual

> soldier took individual responsibility and refused to participate (makes me

think of

> the Donovan song...), ignoring the reasons why this would simply NEVER HAPPEN

> in practice, i.e. a certain subset of the human population will always simply

> like action, excitement, risk, killing, etc,

This doesn't seem to make sense. First, what you consider irresponsible

(being a soldier) others think is responsible. There are some people who

want to be soldiers for reasons they consider moral and responsible, not

just for some macho high. While those reasons might be utterly

incomprehensible to you, given your own particular worldview, they

certainly make sense to them, within their own particular worldview.

In other words, not everyone soldiers for the reasons you suggest.

Second, you are again showing a blind eye to gov't involvement, while

ready to pounce on the corporate villains. Many soldiers in a time of

war are conscripted, often against their will, into warfare, because

their " superiors " in gov't think they know what is best. Thus, even if

they wanted to be " responsible " , as you define it, they could not,

without risking imprisonment or worse.

So comparing warfare to the marketplace is a poor analogy. No one buys

food under the threat of losing their freedom. There is an element of

choice involved in the market that is not involved in the military

complex, even with a " voluntary " armed forces.

and for any

> individual-soldier decision-context there will be bearers of values in the

immediate

> socio-cultural context (parents, peers, government, etc) that will provide

> moral justification for the soldier's participation.

This is true of *any* decision we make, so I fail to see your point.

Something that

> won't happen in practice is of no practical relevance. In the case of

> PHVO-laden snacks, I can't see any possible micro-level basis for a

> sufficient number of people suddenly taking " individual responsibility "

> about an issue they have virtually no knowledge of or exposure to. I

> don't think it's within the bounds of " individual responsibility " to spend

> countless hours scouring the internet and books for information about

> topics of no self-evident significance, as the incredibly tiny subset of

> the human population represented on this email group does. Any

> conceivable mechanism for positive change regarding the consumption of

> PHVO-laden snacks by children would come from the macro-level of

> informational politics and governmental regulation. Both of these systems

> could be successfully exploited by a lawsuit. The Oreos suit was a GREAT

> idea, and I hope further attempts are made along these lines.

Lets hope not. That is the problem with this line of reasoning, it wants

to substitute " governmantal " influence for " corporate " influence. People

are too stupid and dumb to decide for themselves so the " elite " of

society has to bring to bear, at the point of a gun, the right solution

for the " dumb " masses.

Of course, there is nothing preventing these folks from making their

case, and persuading folks as to the better way, but that is often a

difficult and time consuming process, given the nature of people.

Lacking such resolve, they would rather replace one would be set of gods

with their own set of gods by seeking a gov't mandate for everyone.

Never mind all the ridiculous nutritional advice the gov't has always

given us.

And its just the strangest thing that the very thing which is blamed as

the root of the problem, informational politics and government

regulation (sounds like a redundancy to me) is looked to as the

*solution* to the problem. As you state earlier, " any conceivable

mechanism for positive change...would come from the macro-level of

informational politics and governmental regulation. "

Strange indeed

>

> To strengthen this argument, I will use myself as an example. Without

> wanting to simply serve my ego, I would claim myself as a paragon of

> " individual responsibility " and " critical thinking " , yet I can cite

> examples where I acted with a sense of " individual responsibility " and

> " critical thought " while being insalubriously manipulated by the media and

> government.

First, despite your claims, we have no way of knowing whether you were a

paragon of individual responsibility and critical thinking, or what that

even might mean. While I have no reason to doubt you believe this is

true, for all I know you might be totally delusional about your previous

state of mind.

Second, there is a huge block of people who somehow seem to

manage to not be manipulated by the media. For example,

in the face of a very pro-war media, left and right, there emerged the

largest antiwar movement of all time. Somehow a lot of folks missed the media

" manipulation " regarding the war.

And here in my own state, raw milk became so popuar that the gov't had

to step in and " regulate " it. Interesting, since no mainstream media source is

tauting the benefits of raw dairy. Quite the contrary. Of course that regulation

effectively put the retail producers of raw milk out of business.

This " blame it on the media " , IMO, is, to borrow your own words " a clean,

mono-dimensional, blinkered, smug theoretical gambit that is of trivial

theoretical relevance and no practical relevance. "

And third, you want to turn for a solution to - gov't - the very

institution that you say is the problem, since you admit to " being

insalubriously manipulated by the media and *government*. "

About a year-and-a-half ago, at the age of 25, I began to

> think about health and nutrition for the FIRST TIME IN MY LIFE. Prior to

> this, I never thought about the nutritional aspects of what I ate; I never

> thought about trans fats; I never thought about how much sugar I

> ate; I never thought about where my food came from or how it was made.

> The following two concepts that now seem glaringly self-evident NEVER

> OCCURRED TO ME AT ALL:

> 1) There is a connection between health and happiness

> 2) There is a connection between food and health

> I repeat, these concepts DID NOT EXIST IN MY BRAIN.

This is a nice testimonial. I had a similar revelation a couple of years

before you did, but it took a nearly life stealing illness to bring me

around. And while I never gave it any thought until that moment, once I got

on that road it became apparent that contrary info was available, just

not in the media centers which, by my own volition, I had come to trust

and believe.

Now, I'd wager that

> there are a lot of people both under and over 25 who have also never had

> these thoughts materialize in their brains at any time in their lives.

> I'm at pains here to convey the severity of the contrast between a brain

> with these concepts and without these concepts, and the plausibility that

> there are a great many brains of both types in the population. It's the

> same severity of contrast between a brain with a certain religious belief

> and a brain with a specific rejection of that religious belief. There can

> be many brains of both types, and their operators can be equally

> accomplished practitioners of " individual responsibility " and " critical

> thought " .

Right, which is the problem with gov't imposition of someone's idea of

individual responsibility in the area of health (and many other

areas). Freedom demands that people be able to willingly reject your

view, even if you think its stupid.

And the religious analogy fails, simply because you posit yourself as

having no nutritional concepts in your brain, but the

religious/unreligious folk you speak of do have a concept, one leading

to affirmation of belief, the other leading to rejection of such belief.

On the other hand, I find it difficult to believe that anyone in America

doesn't think there is some connection between food and health. They may

not think it is as connected as we do, and don't have the convictions

that we do, but total unawareness? Hard to swallow. But short of any

evidence to the contrary I will have to take your word that it was true

in your case.

..

This strikes me as the same line of argumentation that smokers use

saying they didn't know cigs had a bad effect on health. This despite

the fact that as far back as the 16th century, people like King

were writing on the evils of smoking and tobacco. Such claims, while

maybe true, do strain credulity.

In my 25 years before gaining implementations of the above two

> important concepts, I had done graduate studies in mathematics; conducted

> original research challenging current theories in linguistics; evaluated,

> rejected, revised, or invented replacements for a large chunk of the

> global philosophical and aesthetic canon as a non-vocational pleasure;

> forgone television and any mainstream news media for about 10 years; and

> done other things that could be considered prototypical of " individual

> responsibility " and " critical thinking " .

While that might qualify as critical thinking in your individual

endeavors, that doesn't mean you were a model of individual responsibility

or critical thinking in other life matters. We all know people who are

quite adept at their vocation but clueless in many other areas

I've also never consumed an

> alcoholic beverage, smoked a cigarette, smoked marijuana, or tried any

> drug (except for the occasional cup of coffee or tea). I think these

> facts show that even a model practitioner of " individual responsibility "

> and " critical thought " may fail to apply these virtues to certain domains,

> such as food.

Well I don't think non-consumption of alcohol qualifies as a model of

individual responsibility or that food (like coffee or tea) qualifies as

a drug, or even that moderate smoking can be, without qualification,

thought of as irresponsible. Which illustrates my point: there may be

many who don't agree with your 'puritanical " approach to individual

responsibility; and yet you want more regulation to make what you think

is correct a reality? Spare us more of the nanny state, please.

Considering that many people under the age of 25 are

> parents with children in school, I can very easily imagine someone who

> exercises great " individual responsibility " and " critical thought " yet for

> whom PHVO (or sugar, or flour, or gluten, or soy formula, or healthy

> gut bacteria, or omega-6's, or AGE's, etc) is a non-issue. However, if

> the government (of which the legal system is one part) stepped in and gave

> them a reason to take it seriously, then I can also very easily imagine

> them making sensible decisions involving the consumption of PHVO by

> themselves and their children.

see all responses above

>

> Furthermore, even when a person has taken it upon themselves to address an

> issue in their life, " personal responsibility " and " critical thinking "

> doesn't necessarily translate into beneficial choices. Think about how

> many people have expended tremendous " personal responsibility " and

> " critical thinking " in choosing veganism, or, more to the point, in

> choosing margarine instead of butter.

So you come in, by virtue of your " critical thinking " and " personal

responsibility " and by law mandate the proper choice. Hmmm...I know

what I want to say but I will refrain for the moment.

When I first started my (probably

> never-ending) odyssey into the domain of food and health a

> year-and-half-ago, I read a few mediocre books whose content was a direct

> product of corporate and government practices, and which led me straight

> into a low-fat, zero-cholesterol vegetarian diet centered around

> unfermented soy foods.

And I say again, what is good for the goose is good for the gander.

Since the content of these mediocre books was as you say " a direct product of

corporate and government practices, " why just stop with throwing the

corporations

out on their kester? Lets throw the gov't out on their kester as well

regarding health *and* education.

I remember picking up a can of tuna and seeing the

> tiny but non-zero amount of cholesterol and thinking " this can't be

> an optimal food choice, so I shouldn't even consider it " . I also stewed

> over the miniscule amount of cholesterol in non-fat powdered milk (!!!).

> Neither the label nor the books I had read said anything about denatured

> amino acids, oxidized cholesterol, nutritional losses due to

> pasteurization and processing, the value of butterfat, the influence

> of the diet of the cow, etc, just " cholesterol " . I felt like a

> well-informed consumer guaranteeing my future health by reading the

> label,

I can sympathize with your plight, having been there myself, but just

because we think we are something, doesn't mean that we actually are, in

this case a well informed consumer. One of the marks of genuine

scholarship is to be extremely conversant with the other side of an

issue. And given the high model of responsibility you have made yourself

out to be in this post, I would say this is a failure, not an example,

of individual responsibility and critical thinking on your part.

Now we might not expect this from an average joe, but given your

background there seems to be no excuse for you not having engaged the

issue more fully.

yet I was completely clueless and duped by the informational

> climate created by powerful corporations and the government. I was

> certainly exercising " personal responsibility " and " critical thinking " ,

see above

> and what about all the other people who have had the same exact experience

> but didn't have the dumb fortune to stumble across the WAPF website during

> some obscure websearch a few months later?

Hmmm...well I just walked into a health food bookstore. It didn't take

long to realize that people were all over the map on the health issue

and that it was going to take some critical thinking on my part to make

heads or tails of this stuff.

" personal responsibility " and

> " critical thinking " are not solutions to the unethical practices of powerful

> corporations.

Huh? Don't I need critical thinking and a sense of personal

responsibility to determine that something is unethical in the first

place? Not to mention a standard by which " unethical " is measured?

" Personal responsibility " and " critical thinking " are the very things

called for. To say otherwise is philosophical nonsense.

(It was Irene who made the brilliant points " I just happen to

> believe the NT stuff after being exposed to it " and " why should anyone believe

me? "

> early in the thread. We're dealing with issues of informational politics,

> not " individual responsibility " or " critical thinking " .)

If informational politics is the problem, then lets remove the political

influence from our schools, not just the corporate influence. And the

way you do that is to separate the school from the state *at all levels*

Lets finally admit that politics and education don't mix.

>

> A large part of " individual responsibility " is to the creation and

> maintenance of shared cultural practices and trusting certain matters to

> certain sectors of a community.

This is always true, even if the current cultural practice is to ignore

the wisdom of the ancients and bow down to supposed academic and

scientific experts. They become the " certain sectors of a community "

that we trust.

This is the human norm, and I believe it

> was Heidi who pointed out the anomalous nature of an individual needing to

> invest huge amounts of their time and other resources to finding out about

> the basic healthfulness of foods widely accepted in their society.

Unfortunately, this is the nature of the case when a paradigm shift is

going on. The succeeding generations do not have to put in such a huge

investment.

The

> derogatory term " sheeple " captures certain unfortunate human traits

> currently in mass abundance, but it also captures certain positive and

> essential human traits that allow for the existence of stable and

> harmonious societies. Many " critical thinkers " see more value in

> conforming to cultural norms than resisting them. I would have to list

> myself as of this persuasion, even if I find myself unsuited to putting

> this into practice as much as would seem desirable due to incorrigible

> eccentricities.

>

> The problems of PHVO and other unethical products of greedy and powerful

> corporations come from macro-level phenomena involving the rupture of

> community-based systems of food production and distribution, the

> production and distribution of information, the economic

> influence on government regulation, etc, and the solutions to these problems

> can be found at these levels as well, without invoking the micro-level of

> " individual responsibility " at all.

This is, again to borrow your own words, " ridiculous and knuckle-headed. "

The macro-level phenomena is caused by an overzealous and interventionist

bunch of do-gooders who have the power of force at their command,

represent themselves as unbiased and objective without any undue

influence, a replacement for our ancient community traditions (by virtue of

their superior education,

and tend to squash through political (and often quite subtle) means any

dissenting opinions. In other words gov't and those corporate and

individual concerns who invoke government and seek to manipulate it to achieve

their desired ends..

They often eventually run into problems because people, at a micro-level,

begin to take them on, question the prevailing dogma, and slowly,

sometimes uncertainly, expose the emperor as having no clothes.

It may take more than individual responsibility to bring about ultimate change,

i.e perhaps a community of individuals (after all that is what any group

ultimately is - including the folks in the halls of gov't, with their

*own* personal agendas which don't disappear when they assume their post)

but it certainly doesn't require any less.

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Hmmm...this post seems to have been cut off, so here is the second half.

On Fri, 23 May 2003 00:42:19 -0400 (EDT)

Anton <bwp@...> wrote:

Now, I'd wager that

> there are a lot of people both under and over 25 who have also never had

> these thoughts materialize in their brains at any time in their lives.

> I'm at pains here to convey the severity of the contrast between a brain

> with these concepts and without these concepts, and the plausibility that

> there are a great many brains of both types in the population. It's the

> same severity of contrast between a brain with a certain religious belief

> and a brain with a specific rejection of that religious belief. There can

> be many brains of both types, and their operators can be equally

> accomplished practitioners of " individual responsibility " and " critical

> thought " .

Right, which is the problem with gov't imposition of someone's idea of

individual responsibility in the area of health (and many other

areas). Freedom demands that people be able to willingly reject your

view, even if you think its stupid.

And the religious analogy fails, simply because you posit yourself as

having no nutritional concepts in your brain, but the

religious/unreligious folk you speak of do have a concept, one leading

to affirmation of belief, the other leading to rejection of such belief.

On the other hand, I find it difficult to believe that anyone in America

doesn't think there is some connection between food and health. They may

not think it is as connected as we do, and don't have the convictions

that we do, but total unawareness? Hard to swallow. But short of any

evidence to the contrary I will have to take your word that it was true

in your case.

..

This strikes me as the same line of argumentation that smokers use

saying they didn't know cigs had a bad effect on health. This despite

the fact that as far back as the 16th century, people like King

were writing on the evils of smoking and tobacco. Such claims, while

maybe true, do strain credulity.

In my 25 years before gaining implementations of the above two

> important concepts, I had done graduate studies in mathematics; conducted

> original research challenging current theories in linguistics; evaluated,

> rejected, revised, or invented replacements for a large chunk of the

> global philosophical and aesthetic canon as a non-vocational pleasure;

> forgone television and any mainstream news media for about 10 years; and

> done other things that could be considered prototypical of " individual

> responsibility " and " critical thinking " .

While that might qualify as critical thinking in your individual

endeavors, that doesn't mean you were a model of individual responsibility

or critical thinking in other life matters. We all know people who are

quite adept at their vocation but clueless in many other areas

I've also never consumed an

> alcoholic beverage, smoked a cigarette, smoked marijuana, or tried any

> drug (except for the occasional cup of coffee or tea). I think these

> facts show that even a model practitioner of " individual responsibility "

> and " critical thought " may fail to apply these virtues to certain domains,

> such as food.

Well I don't think non-consumption of alcohol qualifies as a model of

individual responsibility or that food (like coffee or tea) qualifies as

a drug, or even that moderate smoking can be, without qualification,

thought of as irresponsible. Which illustrates my point: there may be

many who don't agree with your 'puritanical " approach to individual

responsibility; and yet you want more regulation to make what you think

is correct a reality? Spare us more of the nanny state, please.

Considering that many people under the age of 25 are

> parents with children in school, I can very easily imagine someone who

> exercises great " individual responsibility " and " critical thought " yet for

> whom PHVO (or sugar, or flour, or gluten, or soy formula, or healthy

> gut bacteria, or omega-6's, or AGE's, etc) is a non-issue. However, if

> the government (of which the legal system is one part) stepped in and gave

> them a reason to take it seriously, then I can also very easily imagine

> them making sensible decisions involving the consumption of PHVO by

> themselves and their children.

see all responses above

>

> Furthermore, even when a person has taken it upon themselves to address an

> issue in their life, " personal responsibility " and " critical thinking "

> doesn't necessarily translate into beneficial choices. Think about how

> many people have expended tremendous " personal responsibility " and

> " critical thinking " in choosing veganism, or, more to the point, in

> choosing margarine instead of butter.

So you come in, by virtue of your " critical thinking " and " personal

responsibility " and by law mandate the proper choice. Hmmm...I know

what I want to say but I will refrain for the moment.

When I first started my (probably

> never-ending) odyssey into the domain of food and health a

> year-and-half-ago, I read a few mediocre books whose content was a direct

> product of corporate and government practices, and which led me straight

> into a low-fat, zero-cholesterol vegetarian diet centered around

> unfermented soy foods.

And I say again, what is good for the goose is good for the gander.

Since the content of these mediocre books was as you say " a direct product of

corporate and government practices, " why just stop with throwing the

corporations

out on their kester? Lets throw the gov't out on their kester as well

regarding health *and* education.

I remember picking up a can of tuna and seeing the

> tiny but non-zero amount of cholesterol and thinking " this can't be

> an optimal food choice, so I shouldn't even consider it " . I also stewed

> over the miniscule amount of cholesterol in non-fat powdered milk (!!!).

> Neither the label nor the books I had read said anything about denatured

> amino acids, oxidized cholesterol, nutritional losses due to

> pasteurization and processing, the value of butterfat, the influence

> of the diet of the cow, etc, just " cholesterol " . I felt like a

> well-informed consumer guaranteeing my future health by reading the

> label,

I can sympathize with your plight, having been there myself, but just

because we think we are something, doesn't mean that we actually are, in

this case a well informed consumer. One of the marks of genuine

scholarship is to be extremely conversant with the other side of an

issue. And given the high model of responsibility you have made yourself

out to be in this post, I would say this is a failure, not an example,

of individual responsibility and critical thinking on your part.

Now we might not expect this from an average joe, but given your

background there seems to be no excuse for you not having engaged the

issue more fully.

yet I was completely clueless and duped by the informational

> climate created by powerful corporations and the government. I was

> certainly exercising " personal responsibility " and " critical thinking " ,

see above

> and what about all the other people who have had the same exact experience

> but didn't have the dumb fortune to stumble across the WAPF website during

> some obscure websearch a few months later?

Hmmm...well I just walked into a health food bookstore. It didn't take

long to realize that people were all over the map on the health issue

and that it was going to take some critical thinking on my part to make

heads or tails of this stuff.

" personal responsibility " and

> " critical thinking " are not solutions to the unethical practices of powerful

> corporations.

Huh? Don't I need critical thinking and a sense of personal

responsibility to determine that something is unethical in the first

place? Not to mention a standard by which " unethical " is measured?

" Personal responsibility " and " critical thinking " are the very things

called for. To say otherwise is philosophical nonsense.

(It was Irene who made the brilliant points " I just happen to

> believe the NT stuff after being exposed to it " and " why should anyone believe

me? "

> early in the thread. We're dealing with issues of informational politics,

> not " individual responsibility " or " critical thinking " .)

If informational politics is the problem, then lets remove the political

influence from our schools, not just the corporate influence. And the

way you do that is to separate the school from the state *at all levels*

Lets finally admit that politics and education don't mix.

>

> A large part of " individual responsibility " is to the creation and

> maintenance of shared cultural practices and trusting certain matters to

> certain sectors of a community.

This is always true, even if the current cultural practice is to ignore

the wisdom of the ancients and bow down to supposed academic and

scientific experts. They become the " certain sectors of a community "

that we trust.

This is the human norm, and I believe it

> was Heidi who pointed out the anomalous nature of an individual needing to

> invest huge amounts of their time and other resources to finding out about

> the basic healthfulness of foods widely accepted in their society.

Unfortunately, this is the nature of the case when a paradigm shift is

going on. The succeeding generations do not have to put in such a huge

investment.

The

> derogatory term " sheeple " captures certain unfortunate human traits

> currently in mass abundance, but it also captures certain positive and

> essential human traits that allow for the existence of stable and

> harmonious societies. Many " critical thinkers " see more value in

> conforming to cultural norms than resisting them. I would have to list

> myself as of this persuasion, even if I find myself unsuited to putting

> this into practice as much as would seem desirable due to incorrigible

> eccentricities.

>

> The problems of PHVO and other unethical products of greedy and powerful

> corporations come from macro-level phenomena involving the rupture of

> community-based systems of food production and distribution, the

> production and distribution of information, the economic

> influence on government regulation, etc, and the solutions to these problems

> can be found at these levels as well, without invoking the micro-level of

> " individual responsibility " at all.

This is, again to borrow your own words, " ridiculous and knuckle-headed. "

The macro-level phenomena is caused by an overzealous and interventionist

bunch of do-gooders who have the power of force at their command,

represent themselves as unbiased and objective without any undue

influence, a replacement for our ancient community traditions (by virtue of

their superior education,

and tend to squash through political (and often quite subtle) means any

dissenting opinions. In other words gov't and those corporate and

individual concerns who invoke government and seek to manipulate it to achieve

their desired ends..

They often eventually run into problems because people, at a micro-level,

begin to take them on, question the prevailing dogma, and slowly,

sometimes uncertainly, expose the emperor as having no clothes.

It may take more than individual responsibility to bring about ultimate change,

i.e perhaps a community of individuals (after all that is what any group

ultimately is - including the folks in the halls of gov't, with their

*own* personal agendas which don't disappear when they assume their post)

but it certainly doesn't require any less.

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In a message dated 5/23/2003 4:34:36 PM Pacific Daylight Time,

slethnobotanist@... writes:

> I haven't been following this thread either, but I thought this

> extremely long post deserved a response. See comments below

>

>

> On Fri, 23 May 2003 00:42:19 -0400 (EDT)

> Anton <bwp@...> wrote:

>

> >Hello All!

> >I hadn't been following the " oreos " thread, but I just read through it,

> >and I wanted to say a few things.

> >

> >First of all, a resounding thanks to everyone who put so much thought and

> >effort into the posts, especially to and Heidi for their incredibly

> >thorough and insightful deconstructions of DMM's ridiculous and

> >knuckle-headed posts.

>

>

> I take it you and DMM aren't on very friendly terms, or is this

> kind of language normal here in describing someone's post?

>

>

>

>

>

> >

> >I'd like to re-state one of Heidi's crucial points: get the corporate

> >influence out of the schools! It is completely unethical unadvertising.

>

>

> Not a bad idea. But why stop there? Why is corporate America and its

> influence the big bad bully on the block? Why not be consistent and get

> government influence out of our schools? Why is corporate advertising

> unethical but gov't " advertising " is not? The gov't nutritional message

> is clearly at odds with just about everything this email group stands

> for, so why does it get a free pass?

>

> At least the corporations have to pay to get some influence while the

> gov't has a " free " subsidized shot at our kids 8 hours a day 5 days a

> week. Thus, why not separate school from state entirely?

> http://www.sepschool.org/

>

> That way, if in our own estimation regarding our kids, some undue

> corporate or gov't influence overtakes our preferred school we can

> simply remove our kids.

>

>

>

> >This is a huge idea that deserves to be pursued by parents with great

> >aggression at all possible levels, local, state, federal, etc. If I

> >become a parent someday and it hasn't been done yet, I'd certainly

> >participate in a coordinated campaign to produce and disseminate focused

> >documents arguing against any promotion of junk food in schools. It

> >couldn't be too difficult for a group of people to pool together their

> >resources and make a concise presentation of the evidence for a link

> >between these junk foods and negative trends in the physical,

> >intellectual, and social development of children. If the evidence was

> >gathered and clearly presented in several formats of varying levels of

> >detail, etc, and a group of parents in scattered locations hammered their

> >local school boards with this, I could imagine a lot of simultaneous

> >local successes that would reinforce each other and build an incredible

> >momentum.

>

>

> Remove gov't control of schools and you would not have to go through all

> the gyrations above. You could, as a third party information center, inform

> people of the best nutritional choices for their children. People could

> then can make their own choices, however arrived at, without having

> someone else's nutritional ideas forced upon them by the strong arm of

> gov't. And if someone didn't particularly like a particular schools

> policy or choice, they could vote with their feet, in the absence of

> gov't coercion and taxation for that black hole known as public education.

>

>

>

>

>

> The appeal of an anti-sugar/flour/soda/hydrogenation campaign

> >would cross the boundaries of the various nutritional ideologies (low-fat

> >v high-fat, plant v animal, lipid hypothesis v NT, low-carb v high-carb);

> >it's hard to imagine any parent who would have an argument for the value

> >of these things, unless they somehow have a lot in stake at a major food

> >corporation. There would be some who don't care, and some who like junk

> >food too much to imagine giving it up or witholding it from their

> >children, but this would not constitute a defense of the junk food, only a

> >lack of support for an anti-junk food agenda.

>

>

> Seriously? There are a number of people who don't think food is

> that big of a deal, no matter how much evidence you trot out, unless

> they are directly impacted by the hazards of junk food.

>

>

>

>

> >

> >The whole line about " individual responsibility " and " critical thinking "

> >is a joke. If no mainstream media provide information about the dangers

> >of PHVO and large numbers of one's peer group consume PHVO-laden products

> >without any evidence linking PHVO to any short-term health problems, then

> >there could easily be many parents who take " individual responsibility " in

> >many other matters and " think critically " about many other things, but

> >lack any stimulus that would lead them to even consider PHVO a topic to

> >think about at all, much less take a stance on when there are dozens of

> >other worthwhile and pressing issues affecting what they believe to be

> >the health and well-being of their children.

>

>

> There will always be people who will not think critically or assume your

> mantle or definition of individual responsibility. People always have

> differing agendas and differing degrees of priority related to their

> agendas, which may or may not be in line with yours.

>

> And to suggest that someone will only be informed if they get their info

> from the " mainstream " media, is...well...kind of...well lets just say its

> not true.

> One of the great things about today is that one can be fully informed

> without ever once

> traversing the establishment media.

>

> And there will always be misinformed people no matter how ideal the

> situation. We are talking humans here, not automatons.

>

>

>

>

>

> >

> >Saying the " bottom line " is that corrupt corporations would go out of

> >business if people stopped buying their products is a sad cop-out in this

> >case,

>

>

> How so? No market, no money. No money, no profit. No profit, no business.

> I don't see a cop out here, just stating a reality.

>

> Contrary to popular opinion, if you do not meet a perceived need in the

> marketplace, you *will* go out of business, unless, by political (i.e.

> gov't coercion), you rig the market in your favor (like creating

> barriers to entry your competitors can't meet and still have a

> reasonably priced product - or just flat out making it illegal - can

> anyone say raw dairy?)

>

>

> a clean, mono-dimensional, blinkered, smug theoretical gambit that

> >is of trivial theoretical relevance and no practical relevance.

> >It's like saying that there would never be wars if each individual

> >soldier took individual responsibility and refused to participate (makes me

> think of

> >the Donovan song...), ignoring the reasons why this would simply NEVER

> HAPPEN

> >in practice, i.e. a certain subset of the human population will always

> simply

> >like action, excitement, risk, killing, etc,

>

>

> This doesn't seem to make sense. First, what you consider irresponsible

> (being a soldier) others think is responsible. There are some people who

> want to be soldiers for reasons they consider moral and responsible, not

> just for some macho high. While those reasons might be utterly

> incomprehensible to you, given your own particular worldview, they

> certainly make sense to them, within their own particular worldview.

> In other words, not everyone soldiers for the reasons you suggest.

>

> Second, you are again showing a blind eye to gov't involvement, while

> ready to pounce on the corporate villains. Many soldiers in a time of

> war are conscripted, often against their will, into warfare, because

> their " superiors " in gov't think they know what is best. Thus, even if

> they wanted to be " responsible " , as you define it, they could not,

> without risking imprisonment or worse.

>

> So comparing warfare to the marketplace is a poor analogy. No one buys

> food under the threat of losing their freedom. There is an element of

> choice involved in the market that is not involved in the military

> complex, even with a " voluntary " armed forces.

>

>

>

>

> and for any

> >individual-soldier decision-context there will be bearers of values in the

> immediate

> >socio-cultural context (parents, peers, government, etc) that will provide

> >moral justification for the soldier's participation.

>

>

> This is true of *any* decision we make, so I fail to see your point.

>

>

>

> Something that

> >won't happen in practice is of no practical relevance. In the case of

> >PHVO-laden snacks, I can't see any possible micro-level basis for a

> >sufficient number of people suddenly taking " individual responsibility "

> >about an issue they have virtually no knowledge of or exposure to. I

> >don't think it's within the bounds of " individual responsibility " to spend

> >countless hours scouring the internet and books for information about

> >topics of no self-evident significance, as the incredibly tiny subset of

> >the human population represented on this email group does. Any

> >conceivable mechanism for positive change regarding the consumption of

> >PHVO-laden snacks by children would come from the macro-level of

> >informational politics and governmental regulation. Both of these systems

> >could be successfully exploited by a lawsuit. The Oreos suit was a GREAT

> >idea, and I hope further attempts are made along these lines.

>

>

> Lets hope not. That is the problem with this line of reasoning, it wants

> to substitute " governmantal " influence for " corporate " influence. People

> are too stupid and dumb to decide for themselves so the " elite " of

> society has to bring to bear, at the point of a gun, the right solution

> for the " dumb " masses.

>

> Of course, there is nothing preventing these folks from making their

> case, and persuading folks as to the better way, but that is often a

> difficult and time consuming process, given the nature of people.

> Lacking such resolve, they would rather replace one would be set of gods

> with their own set of gods by seeking a gov't mandate for everyone.

> Never mind all the ridiculous nutritional advice the gov't has always

> given us.

>

> And its just the strangest thing that the very thing which is blamed as

> the root of the problem, informational politics and government

> regulation (sounds like a redundancy to me) is looked to as the

> *solution* to the problem. As you state earlier, " any conceivable

> mechanism for positive change...would come from the macro-level of

> informational politics and governmental regulation. "

>

> Strange indeed

>

>

>

>

>

> >

> >To strengthen this argument, I will use myself as an example. Without

> >wanting to simply serve my ego, I would claim myself as a paragon of

> > " individual responsibility " and " critical thinking " , yet I can cite

> >examples where I acted with a sense of " individual responsibility " and

> > " critical thought " while being insalubriously manipulated by the media and

> >government.

>

>

> First, despite your claims, we have no way of knowing whether you were a

> paragon of individual responsibility and critical thinking, or what that

> even might mean. While I have no reason to doubt you believe this is

> true, for all I know you might be totally delusional about your previous

> state of mind.

>

> Second, there is a huge block of people who somehow seem to

> manage to not be manipulated by the media. For example,

> in the face of a very pro-war media, left and right, there emerged the

> largest antiwar movement of all time. Somehow a lot of folks missed the

> media

> " manipulation " regarding the war.

>

> And here in my own state, raw milk became so popuar that the gov't had

> to step in and " regulate " it. Interesting, since no mainstream media source

> is

> tauting the benefits of raw dairy. Quite the contrary. Of course that

> regulation

> effectively put the retail producers of raw milk out of business.

>

> This " blame it on the media " , IMO, is, to borrow your own words " a clean,

> mono-dimensional, blinkered, smug theoretical gambit that is of trivial

> theoretical relevance and no practical relevance. "

>

> And third, you want to turn for a solution to - gov't - the very

> institution that you say is the problem, since you admit to " being

> insalubriously manipulated by the media and *government*. "

>

>

>

>

> About a year-and-a-half ago, at the age of 25, I began to

> >think about health and nutrition for the FIRST TIME IN MY LIFE. Prior to

> >this, I never thought about the nutritional aspects of what I ate; I never

> >thought about trans fats; I never thought about how much sugar I

> >ate; I never thought about where my food came from or how it was made.

> >The following two concepts that now seem glaringly self-evident NEVER

> >OCCURRED TO ME AT ALL:

> >1) There is a connection between health and happiness

> >2) There is a connection between food and health

> >I repeat, these concepts DID NOT EXIST IN MY BRAIN.

>

> This is a nice testimonial. I had a similar revelation a couple of years

> before you did, but it took a nearly life stealing illness to bring me

> around. And while I never gave it any thought until that moment, once I got

> on that road it became apparent that contrary info was available, just

> not in the media centers which, by my own volition, I had come to trust

> and believe.

>

>

>

>

> Now, I'd wager that

> >there are a lot of people both under and over 25 who have also never had

> >these thoughts materialize in their brains at any time in their lives.

> >I'm at pains here to convey the severity of the contrast between a brain

> >with these concepts and without these concepts, and the plausibility that

> >there are a great many brains of both types in the population. It's the

> >same severity of contrast between a brain with a certain religious belief

> >and a brain with a specific rejection of that religious belief. There can

> >be many brains of both types, and their operators can be equally

> >accomplished practitioners of " individual responsibility " and " critical

> >thought " .

>

>

> Right, which is the problem with gov't imposition of someone's idea of

> individual responsibility in the area of health (and many other

> areas). Freedom demands that people be able to willingly reject your

> view, even if you think its stupid.

>

> And the religious analogy fails, simply because you posit yourself as

> having no nutritional concepts in your brain, but the

> religious/unreligious folk you speak of do have a concept, one leading

> to affirmation of belief, the other leading to rejection of such belief.

>

> On the other hand, I find it difficult to believe that anyone in America

> doesn't think there is some connection between food and health. They may

> not think it is as connected as we do, and don't have the convictions

> that we do, but total unawareness? Hard to swallow. But short of any

> evidence to the contrary I will have to take your word that it was true

> in your case.

> .

> This strikes me as the same line of argumentation that smokers use

> saying they didn't know cigs had a bad effect on health. This despite

> the fact that as far back as the 16th century, people like King

> were writing on the evils of smoking and tobacco. Such claims, while

> maybe true, do strain credulity.

>

>

>

> In my 25 years before gaining implementations of the above two

> >important concepts, I had done graduate studies in mathematics; conducted

> >original research challenging current theories in linguistics; evaluated,

> >rejected, revised, or invented replacements for a large chunk of the

> >global philosophical and aesthetic canon as a non-vocational pleasure;

> >forgone television and any mainstream news media for about 10 years; and

> >done other things that could be considered prototypical of " individual

> >responsibility " and " critical thinking " .

>

>

> While that might qualify as critical thinking in your individual

> endeavors, that doesn't mean you were a model of individual responsibility

> or critical thinking in other life matters. We all know people who are

> quite adept at their vocation but clueless in many other areas

>

>

> I've also never consumed an

> >alcoholic beverage, smoked a cigarette, smoked marijuana, or tried any

> >drug (except for the occasional cup of coffee or tea). I think these

> >facts show that even a model practitioner of " individual responsibility "

> >and " critical thought " may fail to apply these virtues to certain domains,

> >such as food.

>

>

>

> Well I don't think non-consumption of alcohol qualifies as a model of

> individual responsibility or that food (like coffee or tea) qualifies as

> a drug, or even that moderate smoking can be, without qualification,

> thought of as irresponsible. Which illustrates my point: there may be

> many who don't agree with your 'puritanical " approach to individual

> responsibility; and yet you want more regulation to make what you think

> is correct a reality? Spare us more of the nanny state, please.

>

>

>

>

> Considering that many people under the age of 25 are

> >parents with children in school, I can very easily imagine someone who

> >exercises great " individual responsibility " and " critical thought " yet for

> >whom PHVO (or sugar, or flour, or gluten, or soy formula, or healthy

> >gut bacteria, or omega-6's, or AGE's, etc) is a non-issue. However, if

> >the government (of which the legal system is one part) stepped in and gave

> >them a reason to take it seriously, then I can also very easily imagine

> >them making sensible decisions involving the consumption of PHVO by

> >themselves and their children.

>

>

> see all responses above

>

>

>

> >

> >Furthermore, even when a person has taken it upon themselves to address an

> >issue in their life, " personal responsibility " and " critical thinking "

> >doesn't necessarily translate into beneficial choices. Think about how

> >many people have expended tremendous " personal responsibility " and

> > " critical thinking " in choosing veganism, or, more to the point, in

> >choosing margarine instead of butter.

>

>

> So you come in, by virtue of your " critical thinking " and " personal

> responsibility " and by law mandate the proper choice. Hmmm...I know

> what I want to say but I will refrain for the moment.

>

>

>

> When I first started my (probably

> >never-ending) odyssey into the domain of food and health a

> >year-and-half-ago, I read a few mediocre books whose content was a direct

> >product of corporate and government practices, and which led me straight

> >into a low-fat, zero-cholesterol vegetarian diet centered around

> >unfermented soy foods.

>

>

> And I say again, what is good for the goose is good for the gander.

> Since the content of these mediocre books was as you say " a direct product

> of

> corporate and government practices, " why just stop with throwing the

> corporations

> out on their kester? Lets throw the gov't out on their kester as well

> regarding health *and* education.

>

>

>

> I remember picking up a can of tuna and seeing the

> >tiny but non-zero amount of cholesterol and thinking " this can't be

> >an optimal food choice, so I shouldn't even consider it " . I also stewed

> >over the miniscule amount of cholesterol in non-fat powdered milk (!!!).

> >Neither the label nor the books I had read said anything about denatured

> >amino acids, oxidized cholesterol, nutritional losses due to

> >pasteurization and processing, the value of butterfat, the influence

> >of the diet of the cow, etc, just " cholesterol " . I felt like a

> >well-informed consumer guaranteeing my future health by reading the

> >label,

>

>

> I can sympathize with your plight, having been there myself, but just

> because we think we are something, doesn't mean that we actually are, in

> this case a well informed consumer. One of the marks of genuine

> scholarship is to be extremely conversant with the other side of an

> issue. And given the high model of responsibility you have made yourself

> out to be in this post, I would say this is a failure, not an example,

> of individual responsibility and critical thinking on your part.

>

> Now we might not expect this from an average joe, but given your

> background there seems to be no excuse for you not having engaged the

> issue more fully.

>

>

>

> yet I was completely clueless and duped by the informational

> >climate created by powerful corporations and the government. I was

> >certainly exercising " personal responsibility " and " critical thinking " ,

>

> see above

>

>

>

> >and what about all the other people who have had the same exact experience

> >but didn't have the dumb fortune to stumble across the WAPF website during

> >some obscure websearch a few months later?

>

>

> Hmmm...well I just walked into a health food bookstore. It didn't take

> long to realize that people were all over the map on the health issue

> and that it was going to take some critical thinking on my part to make

> heads or tails of this stuff.

>

>

>

> " personal responsibility " and

> > " critical thinking " are not solutions to the unethical practices of

> powerful

> >corporations.

>

>

> Huh? Don't I need critical thinking and a sense of personal

> responsibility to determine that something is unethical in the first

> place? Not to mention a standard by which " unethical " is measured?

> " Personal responsibility " and " critical thinking " are the very things

> called for. To say otherwise is philosophical nonsense.

>

>

>

> (It was Irene who made the brilliant points " I just happen to

> >believe the NT stuff after being exposed to it " and " why should anyone

> believe me? "

> >early in the thread. We're dealing with issues of informational politics,

> >not " individual responsibility " or " critical thinking " .)

>

>

> If informational politics is the problem, then lets remove the political

> influence from our schools, not just the corporate influence. And the

> way you do that is to separate the school from the state *at all levels*

> Lets finally admit that politics and education don't mix.

>

>

>

> >

> >A large part of " individual responsibility " is to the creation and

> >maintenance of shared cultural practices and trusting certain matters to

> >certain sectors of a community.

>

>

> This is always true, even if the current cultural practice is to ignore

> the wisdom of the ancients and bow down to supposed academic and

> scientific experts. They become the " certain sectors of a community "

> that we trust.

>

>

>

> This is the human norm, and I believe it

> >was Heidi who pointed out the anomalous nature of an individual needing to

> >invest huge amounts of their time and other resources to finding out about

> >the basic healthfulness of foods widely accepted in their society.

>

>

> Unfortunately, this is the nature of the case when a paradigm shift is

> going on. The succeeding generations do not have to put in such a huge

> investment.

>

>

> The

> >derogatory term " sheeple " captures certain unfortunate human traits

> >currently in mass abundance, but it also captures certain positive and

> >essential human traits that allow for the existence of stable and

> >harmonious societies. Many " critical thinkers " see more value in

> >conforming to cultural norms than resisting them. I would have to list

> >myself as of this persuasion, even if I find myself unsuited to putting

> >this into practice as much as would seem desirable due to incorrigible

> >eccentricities.

> >

> >The problems of PHVO and other unethical products of greedy and powerful

> >corporations come from macro-level phenomena involving the rupture of

> >community-based systems of food production and distribution, the

> >production and distribution of information, the economic

> >influence on government regulation, etc, and the solutions to these

> problems

> >can be found at these levels as well, without invoking the micro-level of

> > " individual responsibility " at all.

>

>

> This is, again to borrow your own words, " ridiculous and knuckle-headed. "

> The macro-level phenomena is caused by an overzealous and interventionist

> bunch of do-gooders who have the power of force at their command,

> represent themselves as unbiased and objective without any undue

> influence, a replacement for our ancient community traditions (by virtue of

> their superior education,

> and tend to squash through political (and often quite subtle) means any

> dissenting opinions. In other words gov't and those corporate and

> individual concerns who invoke government and seek to manipulate it to

> achieve

> their desired ends..

>

> They often eventually run into problems because people, at a micro-level,

> begin to take them on, question the prevailing dogma, and slowly,

> sometimes uncertainly, expose the emperor as having no clothes.

>

> It may take more than individual responsibility to bring about ultimate

> change,

> i.e perhaps a community of individuals (after all that is what any group

> ultimately is - including the folks in the halls of gov't, with their

> *own* personal agendas which don't disappear when they assume their post)

> but it certainly doesn't require any less.

>

>

>

>

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I get the digest on this list and looking at this post there is around 500

lines of untrimmed post with absolutely NO new material. Still i am forced

to scroll through the whole worthless lot.....Do you have any idea of what

it is like to go through many posts like this??

Kathy A

Oregon

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Re: Re: oreos

I haven't been following this thread either, but I thought this

extremely long post deserved a response. See comments below

On Fri, 23 May 2003 00:42:19 -0400 (EDT)

Anton <bwp@...> wrote:

> Hello All!

> I hadn't been following the " oreos " thread, but I just read through it,

> and I wanted to say a few things.

>

> First of all, a resounding thanks to everyone who put so much thought and

> effort into the posts, especially to and Heidi for their incredibly

> thorough and insightful deconstructions of DMM's ridiculous and

> knuckle-headed posts.

**** I, and obviously others, disagree with your longwinded, egotistical and

overly dramatic statements and solutions. Thanks at

slethnobotanist@... for responding to this socialistic nonsense.

Larry

" Strict constitutionalism, isolationism, laissez-faire capitalism, individual

rights, and republicanism. Pass laws against us; we will not obey. Regulate our

activities;we will not comply. Legislate our behavior; we will not consent. We

are freemen (and are responsible for ourselves.) We will not be subjugated. We

have the guns to prove it. " Anonymous: The Register

I take it you and DMM aren't on very friendly terms, or is this

kind of language normal here in describing someone's post?

>

> I'd like to re-state one of Heidi's crucial points: get the corporate

> influence out of the schools! It is completely unethical unadvertising.

Not a bad idea. But why stop there? Why is corporate America and its

influence the big bad bully on the block? Why not be consistent and get

government influence out of our schools? Why is corporate advertising

unethical but gov't " advertising " is not? The gov't nutritional message

is clearly at odds with just about everything this email group stands

for, so why does it get a free pass?

At least the corporations have to pay to get some influence while the

gov't has a " free " subsidized shot at our kids 8 hours a day 5 days a

week. Thus, why not separate school from state entirely?

http://www.sepschool.org/

That way, if in our own estimation regarding our kids, some undue

corporate or gov't influence overtakes our preferred school we can

simply remove our kids.

> This is a huge idea that deserves to be pursued by parents with great

> aggression at all possible levels, local, state, federal, etc. If I

> become a parent someday and it hasn't been done yet, I'd certainly

> participate in a coordinated campaign to produce and disseminate focused

> documents arguing against any promotion of junk food in schools. It

> couldn't be too difficult for a group of people to pool together their

> resources and make a concise presentation of the evidence for a link

> between these junk foods and negative trends in the physical,

> intellectual, and social development of children. If the evidence was

> gathered and clearly presented in several formats of varying levels of

> detail, etc, and a group of parents in scattered locations hammered their

> local school boards with this, I could imagine a lot of simultaneous

> local successes that would reinforce each other and build an incredible

> momentum.

Remove gov't control of schools and you would not have to go through all

the gyrations above. You could, as a third party information center, inform

people of the best nutritional choices for their children. People could

then can make their own choices, however arrived at, without having

someone else's nutritional ideas forced upon them by the strong arm of

gov't. And if someone didn't particularly like a particular schools

policy or choice, they could vote with their feet, in the absence of

gov't coercion and taxation for that black hole known as public education.

The appeal of an anti-sugar/flour/soda/hydrogenation campaign

> would cross the boundaries of the various nutritional ideologies (low-fat

> v high-fat, plant v animal, lipid hypothesis v NT, low-carb v high-carb);

> it's hard to imagine any parent who would have an argument for the value

> of these things, unless they somehow have a lot in stake at a major food

> corporation. There would be some who don't care, and some who like junk

> food too much to imagine giving it up or witholding it from their

> children, but this would not constitute a defense of the junk food, only a

> lack of support for an anti-junk food agenda.

Seriously? There are a number of people who don't think food is

that big of a deal, no matter how much evidence you trot out, unless

they are directly impacted by the hazards of junk food.

>

> The whole line about " individual responsibility " and " critical thinking "

> is a joke. If no mainstream media provide information about the dangers

> of PHVO and large numbers of one's peer group consume PHVO-laden products

> without any evidence linking PHVO to any short-term health problems, then

> there could easily be many parents who take " individual responsibility " in

> many other matters and " think critically " about many other things, but

> lack any stimulus that would lead them to even consider PHVO a topic to

> think about at all, much less take a stance on when there are dozens of

> other worthwhile and pressing issues affecting what they believe to be

> the health and well-being of their children.

There will always be people who will not think critically or assume your

mantle or definition of individual responsibility. People always have

differing agendas and differing degrees of priority related to their

agendas, which may or may not be in line with yours.

And to suggest that someone will only be informed if they get their info

from the " mainstream " media, is...well...kind of...well lets just say its not

true.

One of the great things about today is that one can be fully informed without

ever once

traversing the establishment media.

And there will always be misinformed people no matter how ideal the

situation. We are talking humans here, not automatons.

>

> Saying the " bottom line " is that corrupt corporations would go out of

> business if people stopped buying their products is a sad cop-out in this

> case,

How so? No market, no money. No money, no profit. No profit, no business.

I don't see a cop out here, just stating a reality.

Contrary to popular opinion, if you do not meet a perceived need in the

marketplace, you *will* go out of business, unless, by political (i.e.

gov't coercion), you rig the market in your favor (like creating

barriers to entry your competitors can't meet and still have a

reasonably priced product - or just flat out making it illegal - can

anyone say raw dairy?)

a clean, mono-dimensional, blinkered, smug theoretical gambit that

> is of trivial theoretical relevance and no practical relevance.

> It's like saying that there would never be wars if each individual

> soldier took individual responsibility and refused to participate (makes me

think of

> the Donovan song...), ignoring the reasons why this would simply NEVER

HAPPEN

> in practice, i.e. a certain subset of the human population will always

simply

> like action, excitement, risk, killing, etc,

This doesn't seem to make sense. First, what you consider irresponsible

(being a soldier) others think is responsible. There are some people who

want to be soldiers for reasons they consider moral and responsible, not

just for some macho high. While those reasons might be utterly

incomprehensible to you, given your own particular worldview, they

certainly make sense to them, within their own particular worldview.

In other words, not everyone soldiers for the reasons you suggest.

Second, you are again showing a blind eye to gov't involvement, while

ready to pounce on the corporate villains. Many soldiers in a time of

war are conscripted, often against their will, into warfare, because

their " superiors " in gov't think they know what is best. Thus, even if

they wanted to be " responsible " , as you define it, they could not,

without risking imprisonment or worse.

So comparing warfare to the marketplace is a poor analogy. No one buys

food under the threat of losing their freedom. There is an element of

choice involved in the market that is not involved in the military

complex, even with a " voluntary " armed forces.

and for any

> individual-soldier decision-context there will be bearers of values in the

immediate

> socio-cultural context (parents, peers, government, etc) that will provide

> moral justification for the soldier's participation.

This is true of *any* decision we make, so I fail to see your point.

Something that

> won't happen in practice is of no practical relevance. In the case of

> PHVO-laden snacks, I can't see any possible micro-level basis for a

> sufficient number of people suddenly taking " individual responsibility "

> about an issue they have virtually no knowledge of or exposure to. I

> don't think it's within the bounds of " individual responsibility " to spend

> countless hours scouring the internet and books for information about

> topics of no self-evident significance, as the incredibly tiny subset of

> the human population represented on this email group does. Any

> conceivable mechanism for positive change regarding the consumption of

> PHVO-laden snacks by children would come from the macro-level of

> informational politics and governmental regulation. Both of these systems

> could be successfully exploited by a lawsuit. The Oreos suit was a GREAT

> idea, and I hope further attempts are made along these lines.

Lets hope not. That is the problem with this line of reasoning, it wants

to substitute " governmantal " influence for " corporate " influence. People

are too stupid and dumb to decide for themselves so the " elite " of

society has to bring to bear, at the point of a gun, the right solution

for the " dumb " masses.

Of course, there is nothing preventing these folks from making their

case, and persuading folks as to the better way, but that is often a

difficult and time consuming process, given the nature of people.

Lacking such resolve, they would rather replace one would be set of gods

with their own set of gods by seeking a gov't mandate for everyone.

Never mind all the ridiculous nutritional advice the gov't has always

given us.

And its just the strangest thing that the very thing which is blamed as

the root of the problem, informational politics and government

regulation (sounds like a redundancy to me) is looked to as the

*solution* to the problem. As you state earlier, " any conceivable

mechanism for positive change...would come from the macro-level of

informational politics and governmental regulation. "

Strange indeed

>

> To strengthen this argument, I will use myself as an example. Without

> wanting to simply serve my ego, I would claim myself as a paragon of

> " individual responsibility " and " critical thinking " , yet I can cite

> examples where I acted with a sense of " individual responsibility " and

> " critical thought " while being insalubriously manipulated by the media and

> government.

First, despite your claims, we have no way of knowing whether you were a

paragon of individual responsibility and critical thinking, or what that

even might mean. While I have no reason to doubt you believe this is

true, for all I know you might be totally delusional about your previous

state of mind.

Second, there is a huge block of people who somehow seem to

manage to not be manipulated by the media. For example,

in the face of a very pro-war media, left and right, there emerged the

largest antiwar movement of all time. Somehow a lot of folks missed the media

" manipulation " regarding the war.

And here in my own state, raw milk became so popuar that the gov't had

to step in and " regulate " it. Interesting, since no mainstream media source is

tauting the benefits of raw dairy. Quite the contrary. Of course that

regulation

effectively put the retail producers of raw milk out of business.

This " blame it on the media " , IMO, is, to borrow your own words " a clean,

mono-dimensional, blinkered, smug theoretical gambit that is of trivial

theoretical relevance and no practical relevance. "

And third, you want to turn for a solution to - gov't - the very

institution that you say is the problem, since you admit to " being

insalubriously manipulated by the media and *government*. "

About a year-and-a-half ago, at the age of 25, I began to

> think about health and nutrition for the FIRST TIME IN MY LIFE. Prior to

> this, I never thought about the nutritional aspects of what I ate; I never

> thought about trans fats; I never thought about how much sugar I

> ate; I never thought about where my food came from or how it was made.

> The following two concepts that now seem glaringly self-evident NEVER

> OCCURRED TO ME AT ALL:

> 1) There is a connection between health and happiness

> 2) There is a connection between food and health

> I repeat, these concepts DID NOT EXIST IN MY BRAIN.

This is a nice testimonial. I had a similar revelation a couple of years

before you did, but it took a nearly life stealing illness to bring me

around. And while I never gave it any thought until that moment, once I got

on that road it became apparent that contrary info was available, just

not in the media centers which, by my own volition, I had come to trust

and believe.

Now, I'd wager that

> there are a lot of people both under and over 25 who have also never had

> these thoughts materialize in their brains at any time in their lives.

> I'm at pains here to convey the severity of the contrast between a brain

> with these concepts and without these concepts, and the plausibility that

> there are a great many brains of both types in the population. It's the

> same severity of contrast between a brain with a certain religious belief

> and a brain with a specific rejection of that religious belief. There can

> be many brains of both types, and their operators can be equally

> accomplished practitioners of " individual responsibility " and " critical

> thought " .

Right, which is the problem with gov't imposition of someone's idea of

individual responsibility in the area of health (and many other

areas). Freedom demands that people be able to willingly reject your

view, even if you think its stupid.

And the religious analogy fails, simply because you posit yourself as

having no nutritional concepts in your brain, but the

religious/unreligious folk you speak of do have a concept, one leading

to affirmation of belief, the other leading to rejection of such belief.

On the other hand, I find it difficult to believe that anyone in America

doesn't think there is some connection between food and health. They may

not think it is as connected as we do, and don't have the convictions

that we do, but total unawareness? Hard to swallow. But short of any

evidence to the contrary I will have to take your word that it was true

in your case.

This strikes me as the same line of argumentation that smokers use

saying they didn't know cigs had a bad effect on health. This despite

the fact that as far back as the 16th century, people like King

were writing on the evils of smoking and tobacco. Such claims, while

maybe true, do strain credulity.

In my 25 years before gaining implementations of the above two

> important concepts, I had done graduate studies in mathematics; conducted

> original research challenging current theories in linguistics; evaluated,

> rejected, revised, or invented replacements for a large chunk of the

> global philosophical and aesthetic canon as a non-vocational pleasure;

> forgone television and any mainstream news media for about 10 years; and

> done other things that could be considered prototypical of " individual

> responsibility " and " critical thinking " .

While that might qualify as critical thinking in your individual

endeavors, that doesn't mean you were a model of individual responsibility

or critical thinking in other life matters. We all know people who are

quite adept at their vocation but clueless in many other areas

I've also never consumed an

> alcoholic beverage, smoked a cigarette, smoked marijuana, or tried any

> drug (except for the occasional cup of coffee or tea). I think these

> facts show that even a model practitioner of " individual responsibility "

> and " critical thought " may fail to apply these virtues to certain domains,

> such as food.

Well I don't think non-consumption of alcohol qualifies as a model of

individual responsibility or that food (like coffee or tea) qualifies as

a drug, or even that moderate smoking can be, without qualification,

thought of as irresponsible. Which illustrates my point: there may be

many who don't agree with your 'puritanical " approach to individual

responsibility; and yet you want more regulation to make what you think

is correct a reality? Spare us more of the nanny state, please.

Considering that many people under the age of 25 are

> parents with children in school, I can very easily imagine someone who

> exercises great " individual responsibility " and " critical thought " yet for

> whom PHVO (or sugar, or flour, or gluten, or soy formula, or healthy

> gut bacteria, or omega-6's, or AGE's, etc) is a non-issue. However, if

> the government (of which the legal system is one part) stepped in and gave

> them a reason to take it seriously, then I can also very easily imagine

> them making sensible decisions involving the consumption of PHVO by

> themselves and their children.

see all responses above

>

> Furthermore, even when a person has taken it upon themselves to address an

> issue in their life, " personal responsibility " and " critical thinking "

> doesn't necessarily translate into beneficial choices. Think about how

> many people have expended tremendous " personal responsibility " and

> " critical thinking " in choosing veganism, or, more to the point, in

> choosing margarine instead of butter.

So you come in, by virtue of your " critical thinking " and " personal

responsibility " and by law mandate the proper choice. Hmmm...I know

what I want to say but I will refrain for the moment.

When I first started my (probably

> never-ending) odyssey into the domain of food and health a

> year-and-half-ago, I read a few mediocre books whose content was a direct

> product of corporate and government practices, and which led me straight

> into a low-fat, zero-cholesterol vegetarian diet centered around

> unfermented soy foods.

And I say again, what is good for the goose is good for the gander.

Since the content of these mediocre books was as you say " a direct product of

corporate and government practices, " why just stop with throwing the

corporations

out on their kester? Lets throw the gov't out on their kester as well

regarding health *and* education.

I remember picking up a can of tuna and seeing the

> tiny but non-zero amount of cholesterol and thinking " this can't be

> an optimal food choice, so I shouldn't even consider it " . I also stewed

> over the miniscule amount of cholesterol in non-fat powdered milk (!!!).

> Neither the label nor the books I had read said anything about denatured

> amino acids, oxidized cholesterol, nutritional losses due to

> pasteurization and processing, the value of butterfat, the influence

> of the diet of the cow, etc, just " cholesterol " . I felt like a

> well-informed consumer guaranteeing my future health by reading the

> label,

I can sympathize with your plight, having been there myself, but just

because we think we are something, doesn't mean that we actually are, in

this case a well informed consumer. One of the marks of genuine

scholarship is to be extremely conversant with the other side of an

issue. And given the high model of responsibility you have made yourself

out to be in this post, I would say this is a failure, not an example,

of individual responsibility and critical thinking on your part.

Now we might not expect this from an average joe, but given your

background there seems to be no excuse for you not having engaged the

issue more fully.

yet I was completely clueless and duped by the informational

> climate created by powerful corporations and the government. I was

> certainly exercising " personal responsibility " and " critical thinking " ,

see above

> and what about all the other people who have had the same exact experience

> but didn't have the dumb fortune to stumble across the WAPF website during

> some obscure websearch a few months later?

Hmmm...well I just walked into a health food bookstore. It didn't take

long to realize that people were all over the map on the health issue

and that it was going to take some critical thinking on my part to make

heads or tails of this stuff.

" personal responsibility " and

> " critical thinking " are not solutions to the unethical practices of powerful

> corporations.

Huh? Don't I need critical thinking and a sense of personal

responsibility to determine that something is unethical in the first

place? Not to mention a standard by which " unethical " is measured?

" Personal responsibility " and " critical thinking " are the very things

called for. To say otherwise is philosophical nonsense.

(It was Irene who made the brilliant points " I just happen to

> believe the NT stuff after being exposed to it " and " why should anyone

believe me? "

> early in the thread. We're dealing with issues of informational politics,

> not " individual responsibility " or " critical thinking " .)

If informational politics is the problem, then lets remove the political

influence from our schools, not just the corporate influence. And the

way you do that is to separate the school from the state *at all levels*

Lets finally admit that politics and education don't mix.

>

> A large part of " individual responsibility " is to the creation and

> maintenance of shared cultural practices and trusting certain matters to

> certain sectors of a community.

This is always true, even if the current cultural practice is to ignore

the wisdom of the ancients and bow down to supposed academic and

scientific experts. They become the " certain sectors of a community "

that we trust.

This is the human norm, and I believe it

> was Heidi who pointed out the anomalous nature of an individual needing to

> invest huge amounts of their time and other resources to finding out about

> the basic healthfulness of foods widely accepted in their society.

Unfortunately, this is the nature of the case when a paradigm shift is

going on. The succeeding generations do not have to put in such a huge

investment.

The

> derogatory term " sheeple " captures certain unfortunate human traits

> currently in mass abundance, but it also captures certain positive and

> essential human traits that allow for the existence of stable and

> harmonious societies. Many " critical thinkers " see more value in

> conforming to cultural norms than resisting them. I would have to list

> myself as of this persuasion, even if I find myself unsuited to putting

> this into practice as much as would seem desirable due to incorrigible

> eccentricities.

>

> The problems of PHVO and other unethical products of greedy and powerful

> corporations come from macro-level phenomena involving the rupture of

> community-based systems of food production and distribution, the

> production and distribution of information, the economic

> influence on government regulation, etc, and the solutions to these problems

> can be found at these levels as well, without invoking the micro-level of

> " individual responsibility " at all.

This is, again to borrow your own words, " ridiculous and knuckle-headed. "

The macro-level phenomena is caused by an overzealous and interventionist

bunch of do-gooders who have the power of force at their command,

represent themselves as unbiased and objective without any undue

influence, a replacement for our ancient community traditions (by virtue of

their superior education,

and tend to squash through political (and often quite subtle) means any

dissenting opinions. In other words gov't and those corporate and

individual concerns who invoke government and seek to manipulate it to achieve

their desired ends..

They often eventually run into problems because people, at a micro-level,

begin to take them on, question the prevailing dogma, and slowly,

sometimes uncertainly, expose the emperor as having no clothes.

It may take more than individual responsibility to bring about ultimate

change,

i.e perhaps a community of individuals (after all that is what any group

ultimately is - including the folks in the halls of gov't, with their

*own* personal agendas which don't disappear when they assume their post)

but it certainly doesn't require any less.

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>Legislate our behavior; we will not consent. We are freemen (and are

>responsible for ourselves.) We will not be subjugated. We have the guns to

>prove it. " Anonymous: The Register

I find it entirely unsurprising, if still disheartening, that the threat of

armed resistance is raised in response to the suggestion that a poisonous

non-food item currently used by industry to boost profits at the expense of

gross injuries to health be banned from the market.

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> I take it you and DMM aren't on very friendly terms, or is this

> kind of language normal here in describing someone's post?

MPMPMPMPMPMPMPMP:

No such scenario, just expressing an opinion about someone's posts.

Seems like normal discourse to me.

> There will always be people who will not think critically or assume your

> mantle or definition of individual responsibility. People always have

> differing agendas and differing degrees of priority related to their

> agendas, which may or may not be in line with yours.

MPMPMPMPMPMPMPMP:

My point was that individual responsibility is not enough, regardless of

whose definition we choose. It was precisely my point as well that these

differing agendas exist, and so we can't expect important health issues

like PHVO to fall under everyone's agenda. Your tone is antagonistic

here, but you are making the same points I made.

> And to suggest that someone will only be informed if they get their info

> from the " mainstream " media, is...well...kind of...well lets just say its not

true.

> One of the great things about today is that one can be fully informed without

ever once

> traversing the establishment media.

>

> And there will always be misinformed people no matter how ideal the

> situation. We are talking humans here, not automatons.

MPMPMPMPMPMPMPMPMPMPMP:

Of course there are non-establishment media, but (as an inherent property)

there are lots of people who don't avail themselves of them. These are

the people under discussion, and they don't deserve to be victims of

unethical business practices like selling PHVO.

> > Saying the " bottom line " is that corrupt corporations would go out of

> > business if people stopped buying their products is a sad cop-out in this

> > case,

>

>

> How so? No market, no money. No money, no profit. No profit, no business.

> I don't see a cop out here, just stating a reality.

>

> Contrary to popular opinion, if you do not meet a perceived need in the

> marketplace, you *will* go out of business, unless, by political (i.e.

> gov't coercion), you rig the market in your favor (like creating

> barriers to entry your competitors can't meet and still have a

> reasonably priced product - or just flat out making it illegal - can

> anyone say raw dairy?)

MPMPMPMPMPMPMPMPMPM:

It is a cop-out to state a fact of no relevance and pretend it is the

answer to a problem.

> a clean, mono-dimensional, blinkered, smug theoretical gambit that

> > is of trivial theoretical relevance and no practical relevance.

> > It's like saying that there would never be wars if each individual

> > soldier took individual responsibility and refused to participate (makes me

think of

> > the Donovan song...), ignoring the reasons why this would simply NEVER

HAPPEN

> > in practice, i.e. a certain subset of the human population will always

simply

> > like action, excitement, risk, killing, etc,

>

>

> This doesn't seem to make sense. First, what you consider irresponsible

> (being a soldier) others think is responsible. There are some people who

> want to be soldiers for reasons they consider moral and responsible, not

> just for some macho high. While those reasons might be utterly

> incomprehensible to you, given your own particular worldview, they

> certainly make sense to them, within their own particular worldview.

> In other words, not everyone soldiers for the reasons you suggest.

>

> Second, you are again showing a blind eye to gov't involvement, while

> ready to pounce on the corporate villains. Many soldiers in a time of

> war are conscripted, often against their will, into warfare, because

> their " superiors " in gov't think they know what is best. Thus, even if

> they wanted to be " responsible " , as you define it, they could not,

> without risking imprisonment or worse.

>

> So comparing warfare to the marketplace is a poor analogy. No one buys

> food under the threat of losing their freedom. There is an element of

> choice involved in the market that is not involved in the military

> complex, even with a " voluntary " armed forces.

MPMPMPMPMPMPMPMPMPMPM:

I'll restate the point of my comparison, since it appears to have been

missed. Unethical food corporations will never go out business solely

because enough consumers make the effort to figure out why they shouldn't

buy their products. Wars will never stop solely because enough soldiers

decide not to participate. In both cases a complex macro-phenomenon will

not be eliminated solely by the parallel actions of individuals. It's a

very tight comparison. Additionally, I was simply giving examples of some

reasons why there will always be soldiers who will participate; I was not

attempting to provide an exhaustive list of such reasons. You have added

some possible reasons to the list, which reinforces my point.

> and for any

> > individual-soldier decision-context there will be bearers of values in the

immediate

> > socio-cultural context (parents, peers, government, etc) that will provide

> > moral justification for the soldier's participation.

>

>

> This is true of *any* decision we make, so I fail to see your point.

MPMPMPMPMPMPMPMPMPMPMPMPMP:

The point was that this was another example of a reason why there will

always be soldiers who will participate. It is a particularly perspicuous

example too, since it shows the influence of macro-phenomena on individual

decisions.

> Something that

> > won't happen in practice is of no practical relevance. In the case of

> > PHVO-laden snacks, I can't see any possible micro-level basis for a

> > sufficient number of people suddenly taking " individual responsibility "

> > about an issue they have virtually no knowledge of or exposure to. I

> > don't think it's within the bounds of " individual responsibility " to spend

> > countless hours scouring the internet and books for information about

> > topics of no self-evident significance, as the incredibly tiny subset of

> > the human population represented on this email group does. Any

> > conceivable mechanism for positive change regarding the consumption of

> > PHVO-laden snacks by children would come from the macro-level of

> > informational politics and governmental regulation. Both of these systems

> > could be successfully exploited by a lawsuit. The Oreos suit was a GREAT

> > idea, and I hope further attempts are made along these lines.

>

>

> Lets hope not. That is the problem with this line of reasoning, it wants

> to substitute " governmantal " influence for " corporate " influence. People

> are too stupid and dumb to decide for themselves so the " elite " of

> society has to bring to bear, at the point of a gun, the right solution

> for the " dumb " masses.

>

> Of course, there is nothing preventing these folks from making their

> case, and persuading folks as to the better way, but that is often a

> difficult and time consuming process, given the nature of people.

> Lacking such resolve, they would rather replace one would be set of gods

> with their own set of gods by seeking a gov't mandate for everyone.

> Never mind all the ridiculous nutritional advice the gov't has always

> given us.

>

> And its just the strangest thing that the very thing which is blamed as

> the root of the problem, informational politics and government

> regulation (sounds like a redundancy to me) is looked to as the

> *solution* to the problem. As you state earlier, " any conceivable

> mechanism for positive change...would come from the macro-level of

> informational politics and governmental regulation. "

>

> Strange indeed

MPMPMPMPMPMPMPMPMPMPMPMPMP:

You are adopting a fatalistic view of government policy and saying it can

never be a solution to certain problems. On the other hand, I am saying

that the problems exist only because of government policy, and I see no

reason why government policy can't be changed to eliminate the problems it

created. I'm saying that x is the root of the problem, and that changing

x is the solution. This is not strange.

You are objecting to the idea of a small group of people (the " elite " )

forcing an ideology on a large group of people (the " masses " ). That is a

sensible objection, but it is not relevant to the discussion. My point

was that a large group of people are victims of unethical business

practices and government policy. Attempting to redress such ethical

violations within the constraints of existing social and governmental

structures is not the same thing as forcing an ideology on a large group

of people. It may be pointed out that any government policy is a form of

such elitist ideological coercion, and that regulations pertaining to

health are based on a small group of people, namely scientists. However,

a certain degree of such influence of a small group of people on a large

group of people is inherent in any social system, so it is necessary to

make more fine-grained distinctions between various instances of such

influence. Protecting people from unethical practices is an example of

such influence that I would find acceptable.

> First, despite your claims, we have no way of knowing whether you were a

> paragon of individual responsibility and critical thinking, or what that

> even might mean. While I have no reason to doubt you believe this is

> true, for all I know you might be totally delusional about your previous

> state of mind.

MPMPMPMPMPMPMPMPMPMPMPMPMP:

By citing examples of what I meant, I made the argument that a particular

person exhibited behavior that most native English-speakers would describe

as demonstrating " individual responsibility " and " critical thinking " . In

response to your claim " we have no way of knowing... " , you clearly do have

a way of knowing: you can take the behavioral data and your intuition as a

native speaker and decide if this description is accurate. This is not a

mystery of someone's inaccessible " state of mind " ; it is a simple

description of someone's behavior using everyday language.

> Second, there is a huge block of people who somehow seem to

> manage to not be manipulated by the media. For example,

> in the face of a very pro-war media, left and right, there emerged the

> largest antiwar movement of all time. Somehow a lot of folks missed the media

> " manipulation " regarding the war.

MPMPMMPMPMPMPMPMPMPMPMPMPMP:

I don't see any relevance here. The existence of different political

ideologies and their expression through different media of varying power

and influence is a good example of healthy " free speech " .

> And here in my own state, raw milk became so popuar that the gov't had

> to step in and " regulate " it. Interesting, since no mainstream media source is

> tauting the benefits of raw dairy. Quite the contrary. Of course that

regulation

> effectively put the retail producers of raw milk out of business.

MPMPMPMPMPMPMPMPMPMPMPMPMPMP:

Again, you are making the same point you've made above several times, that

non-mainstream media exists. This is great news, but not relevant.

> This " blame it on the media " , IMO, is, to borrow your own words " a clean,

> mono-dimensional, blinkered, smug theoretical gambit that is of trivial

> theoretical relevance and no practical relevance. "

MPMPMPMPMPMPMPMPMPMPMPMPMPMP:

I have not suggested blame lies solely with " the media " . I also blame

unethical businesses and public policy. This is not a clean viewpoint,

because there are dozens of different types of informational media based

on different epistemic criteria, economic affiliation, etc. The issue of

informational media is messy and dirty. This is not a mono-dimensional

viewpoint, because informational media themselves are multi-dimensional.

Epistemic and economic dimensions are two already mentioned. My

viewpoint is also not mono-dimensional because it involves other things

besides informational media, like the ethics of policymakers and

businessmen. This is not a blinkered viewpoint, because it acknowledges

the interplay of various current social realities, instead of hiding

behind the pristine abstraction of " personal responsibility " . This is not

a smug viewpoint, because it acknowledges the complexity of the issues

without making prescriptive judgements about the rest of the population.

There is nothing trivial about the content and influence of informational

media, or the interplay of business structures and government. Finally, I

submit that the practical relevance is too clear to warrant defense.

> And third, you want to turn for a solution to - gov't - the very

> institution that you say is the problem, since you admit to " being

> insalubriously manipulated by the media and *government*. "

MPMPMMPMPMPMPMPMPMPM:

if x has an influence on our lives and x is not eliminable, then why not

try to make x as good as possible? if there's something objectionable

about x, why not try to change x?

> And the religious analogy fails, simply because you posit yourself as

> having no nutritional concepts in your brain, but the

> religious/unreligious folk you speak of do have a concept, one leading

> to affirmation of belief, the other leading to rejection of such belief.

MPMPMPMPMPMPMPMPMPMP:

It's a great analogy, because in both cases people's mental content is

radically incommensurable, as if they are living on different planets.

There are things that divide people that strongly.

> While that might qualify as critical thinking in your individual

> endeavors, that doesn't mean you were a model of individual responsibility

> or critical thinking in other life matters. We all know people who are

> quite adept at their vocation but clueless in many other areas

>

>

> I've also never consumed an

> > alcoholic beverage, smoked a cigarette, smoked marijuana, or tried any

> > drug (except for the occasional cup of coffee or tea). I think these

> > facts show that even a model practitioner of " individual responsibility "

> > and " critical thought " may fail to apply these virtues to certain domains,

> > such as food.

>

>

>

> Well I don't think non-consumption of alcohol qualifies as a model of

> individual responsibility or that food (like coffee or tea) qualifies as

> a drug, or even that moderate smoking can be, without qualification,

> thought of as irresponsible. Which illustrates my point: there may be

> many who don't agree with your 'puritanical " approach to individual

> responsibility; and yet you want more regulation to make what you think

> is correct a reality? Spare us more of the nanny state, please.

MPMPMPMPMPMPMPMPMPMP:

The point is that a person is questioning common practices and making

their own choices. It's not the actual choices that signify individual

responsibility or critical thinking, but rather the process

necessary to arrive at those choices. Nowhere did I suggest that my

personal choices should be forced on other people or that they are correct

or even wise. The content of my choices, and whether they are puritanical

or not is completely irrelevant. Again, the point was to give

evidence of a particular person exercising personal responsibility

and critical thinking in a wide range of domains (far beyond just

vocational domains) yet completely failing to do so in the food domain.

> > Furthermore, even when a person has taken it upon themselves to address an

> > issue in their life, " personal responsibility " and " critical thinking "

> > doesn't necessarily translate into beneficial choices. Think about how

> > many people have expended tremendous " personal responsibility " and

> > " critical thinking " in choosing veganism, or, more to the point, in

> > choosing margarine instead of butter.

>

>

> So you come in, by virtue of your " critical thinking " and " personal

> responsibility " and by law mandate the proper choice. Hmmm...I know

> what I want to say but I will refrain for the moment.

MPMPMPMPMPMPMPMPMPMPMPMP:

Um, huh? Nowhere in my post did I suggest that my choices are proper or

that they should be mandated for others. The point of the personal

example was to show an extreme case in which basic considerations about

diet were absent, lending support for the idea that there are huge numbers

of other people for whom this is true, yet who are not the hapless

" sheeple " of DMM's posts.

If you're objecting to the use of existing legal and governmental mechanisms

to counteract unethical practices that threaten public health, then I suspect

your judgement is clouded by an existing bias in political philosophy, i.e. fear

of some or

another " -ism " .

> And I say again, what is good for the goose is good for the gander.

> Since the content of these mediocre books was as you say " a direct product of

> corporate and government practices, " why just stop with throwing the

corporations

> out on their kester? Lets throw the gov't out on their kester as well

> regarding health *and* education.

MPMPMPMPMPMPMPMPMPMPMP:

This is a very interesting and radical viewpoint, and it is stimulating to

hear it expressed. I don't have any opinions in these matters of utopian

future conceptualizations, but I appreciate that others are willing to

examine extreme possibilities.

> I can sympathize with your plight, having been there myself, but just

> because we think we are something, doesn't mean that we actually are, in

> this case a well informed consumer. One of the marks of genuine

> scholarship is to be extremely conversant with the other side of an

> issue. And given the high model of responsibility you have made yourself

> out to be in this post, I would say this is a failure, not an example,

> of individual responsibility and critical thinking on your part.

>

> Now we might not expect this from an average joe, but given your

> background there seems to be no excuse for you not having engaged the

> issue more fully.

MPMPMPMPMMPMPMPMPMPMPMP:

Again, individual responsibility and critical thinking are behavioral

PROCESSES, not sets of correct CONTENT. We have to distinguish between a

person trying to make positive and healthy choices based on the accepted

wisdom of their social context, and being a scholar who invests the great

effort necessary to determine the validity of the accepted wisdom of their

social context. The latter simply cannot be expected of everyone. As

with most on this list, I have no vocational commitment to the domain of

diet and health, and I'd much rather spend my time on other things.

However, unfortunately, the informational content of our social context

favors lifestyle choices that lead to poor health and degenerative

illness, requiring great effort to steer one's life elsewhere. Since it

is not reasonable to expect everyone to spend much of their free time

acting as hobbyist scholars of nutrition, we should seek improvement in

the informational content of our social context, a macro-phenomenon of

absurd complexity in which government and business are key players.

In using myself as an example, I was giving plausibility to a

generalization about a large chunk of the population, from whom we cannot

expect scholarship about diet and health. It is in poor

taste to dwell on features of my personal example that do not pertain to

this generalization. It is certainly irrelevant whether my incipient

attempts at exercising personal responsibility and critical thinking in

the domain of food reflected quality scholarship or were commensurate with

any information-processing advantages over an " average joe " . Please

comment on the topic, not the author.

> " personal responsibility " and

> > " critical thinking " are not solutions to the unethical practices of powerful

> > corporations.

>

>

> Huh? Don't I need critical thinking and a sense of personal

> responsibility to determine that something is unethical in the first

> place? Not to mention a standard by which " unethical " is measured?

> " Personal responsibility " and " critical thinking " are the very things

> called for. To say otherwise is philosophical nonsense.

MPMPMPMPMMPMPMPMPMPMMP:

The determination of ethicality is something accomplished by specialized

subsets of society according to the domain. In the domain of long-term

food safety, the task falls to scientists and policymakers of various

stripes, not to each and every member of society. Personal responsibility

and critical thinking on the part of each and every member of society is

not sufficient to accomplish this task. My next-door neighbor is not

going to conduct research on the effects of trans-fats on intercellular

transport.

> If informational politics is the problem, then lets remove the political

> influence from our schools, not just the corporate influence. And the

> way you do that is to separate the school from the state *at all levels*

> Lets finally admit that politics and education don't mix.

MPMPMPMPMPMPMPMPMPMPMP:

Let's remove carbon from our food supply. I see you equate political

influence with governmental political influence. Politics is an inherent

property of all social domains, not just government. You can change the

sources of political influence in schools, but you cannot eliminate it.

Additionally, eliminating governmental influence on schools would be

tantamount to eliminating government. This clarification aside, your

point is well taken: separating school from state is an interesting and

meaningful proposition. I don't have an opinion on the matter, but I hope

you and others pursue the articulation of such possibilities.

> > A large part of " individual responsibility " is to the creation and

> > maintenance of shared cultural practices and trusting certain matters to

> > certain sectors of a community.

>

>

> This is always true, even if the current cultural practice is to ignore

> the wisdom of the ancients and bow down to supposed academic and

> scientific experts. They become the " certain sectors of a community "

> that we trust.

MPMPMPMPMPMPMPMPMP:

I think that people accept information from many sources, not just

academic and scientific experts. I'm aware of many people who trust the

wisdom (and follies) of literary works from thousands of years ago.

By the way, the " wisdom of the ancients " can only be accessed through the

filter of academic specialists.

> The

> > derogatory term " sheeple " captures certain unfortunate human traits

> > currently in mass abundance, but it also captures certain positive and

> > essential human traits that allow for the existence of stable and

> > harmonious societies. Many " critical thinkers " see more value in

> > conforming to cultural norms than resisting them. I would have to list

> > myself as of this persuasion, even if I find myself unsuited to putting

> > this into practice as much as would seem desirable due to incorrigible

> > eccentricities.

> >

> > The problems of PHVO and other unethical products of greedy and powerful

> > corporations come from macro-level phenomena involving the rupture of

> > community-based systems of food production and distribution, the

> > production and distribution of information, the economic

> > influence on government regulation, etc, and the solutions to these problems

> > can be found at these levels as well, without invoking the micro-level of

> > " individual responsibility " at all.

>

>

> This is, again to borrow your own words, " ridiculous and knuckle-headed. "

> The macro-level phenomena is caused by an overzealous and interventionist

> bunch of do-gooders who have the power of force at their command,

> represent themselves as unbiased and objective without any undue

> influence, a replacement for our ancient community traditions (by virtue of

their superior

> education,

> and tend to squash through political (and often quite subtle) means any

> dissenting opinions. In other words gov't and those corporate and

> individual concerns who invoke government and seek to manipulate it to achieve

> their desired ends..

MPMPMPMPMPMPMP:

Until you can reinstate the structure of these ancient communities, you

might want to recognize and evaluate the options available within the

constraints of current social structures. I don't see any inherent

problem with government and its manipulation to achieve desired ends. It

depends on the specific means and ends. Your desired ends of educational

deregulation are yet another example of a political faction.

Your statement " the macro-level phenomena is [sic] caused by y " suggests

that such macro-level phenomena would not exist if y didn't exist. To the

contrary, the macro-level phenomena (e.g. informational media content

influencing food choices) would simply be different if y didn't

exist, perhaps being influenced by z instead. The macro-level phenomena

are inherent in our social structure. If x is the problem, modify x.

Saying that x shouldn't exist doesn't help anything.

Mike

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In a message dated 5/27/2003 5:06:35 AM Pacific Daylight Time, bwp@...

writes:

> If x is the problem, modify x.

> Saying that x shouldn't exist doesn't help anything

Mike,

I think that is what some of us are suggesting. Modification through

reduction of influence, and exist with a simpler purpose.

Theresa

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Joe-

>The way I see it, the do-gooders who have used the force of the

>government (which is ironically the enforced threat of fines and

>prison VIA THE USE OF ARMS)

The sad irony is that you (and others of your political stripe) seem caught

by the idea that all these problems have been caused by well-meaning

inadvertent villains -- " do-gooders " as you all call them -- when in fact

that practically couldn't be further from the truth. At most, some

misinformed do-gooders were recruited to the cause early on, but the real

prime movers couldn't have cared less about any kind of public good. They

only used the rhetoric of health and safety to cover their true purpose.

Are you familiar with the expression " follow the money " ? This is one of

its best possible applications.

>I like to think of milk. the do-gooders " saved " us from

>unpasteurized milk.

Not at all. Industry was faced by a problem: raw milk required local

production and local distribution, but huge, concentrated profits required

centralized production and centralized, wide-scale distribution. Bogus and

incomplete science was marshalled to create a perception of a need for

pasteurization, and the march towards factory farming of milk was

underway. So-called " do-gooders " didn't start the transition, they were

mere tools of those who did.

>Problem 2 - no one knows everything, not even do gooders

>They thought they were doing us a favor. " We know the right diet,

>one high in carbs and low in fat. "

Again, " do-gooders " were at most peripheral to the problem, recruited to

the cause -- they didn't create it themselves. And again, follow the

money. A high-carb diet is much more amenable to industrial production and

distribution than a high-fat one, and a high-carb diet is also much more

amenable to massive centralized profits. Where, after all, do you think

the money to promote and " prove " the virtues of a high-carb low-fat diet

came from?

And the same is true of hydrogenated oils. Hydrogenation allowed expensive

lower-profit animal fats and tropical oils to be replaced by cheap domestic

vegetable oils and an inexpensive industrial process.

Admittedly, these ideas were easy to foster and attracted strident

proponents in part because of a puritanical sense that anything tasty or

enjoyable must be bad for you (IOW the ideas created many do-gooders, not

the other way around) but note that expensive, labor-intensive and

low-profit foods like fat and milk fell under that gun while equally tasty

but highly profitable, low-overhead foods like sugar didn't.

I strongly urge you to read _Trust Us, We're Experts_, which describes how

PR is used to deceive and to deform public attitudes on a massively wide

scale. Yes, corrupting our government is one technique the perpetrators

use, the illegality of raw milk in most areas being a good example of the

fruits of that corruption, but it's far from their only technique, and

government is the only macro-scale tool we as individual citizens possess

to fight the macro-scale influence of industry. Rather than trying to rid

ourselves of our one tool -- a phenomenon which itself is an incredible

accomplishment of industry PR -- we should do our utmost to purge it of

corruption and return its full function and power to our hands.

-

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Actually, in all fairness to the current posters, I wasn't following the

thread, saw one post by , responded, and thus began the

current crop of responses.

On Tue, 27 May 2003 17:55:02 -0000

" Dr. Marasco " <mmarasco@...> wrote:

> I can't believe this.

>

> This is like the evil demonic thread that wouldn't die. We might

> need to call ghostbusters or get a priest in here or something.

>

> I've been gone over a week and you guys are still beating this horse.

>

> Well I suppose some credit needs to be given for the sheer

> willingness and determination to resolve these two polar ideologies

> that have plagued mankind for nearly its entire history.

> On a discussion group no less.

>

> Bravo!

>

> DMM

>

>

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On Tue, 27 May 2003 13:26:29 -0400

Idol <Idol@...> wrote:

> Joe-

>

> >The way I see it, the do-gooders who have used the force of the

> >government (which is ironically the enforced threat of fines and

> >prison VIA THE USE OF ARMS)

>

> The sad irony is that you (and others of your political stripe) seem caught

> by the idea that all these problems have been caused by well-meaning

> inadvertent villains -- " do-gooders " as you all call them -- when in fact

> that practically couldn't be further from the truth. At most, some

> misinformed do-gooders were recruited to the cause early on, but the real

> prime movers couldn't have cared less about any kind of public good. They

> only used the rhetoric of health and safety to cover their true purpose.

,

Of course this doesn't vitiate the initial point, in fact it only

confirms it. No matter who we argue as being the cause, they still are

using the power of gov't (armed by the way) to force everyone to do the

bidding of some. If in fact it as you say, all the more reason to keep

gov't from micromanaging our lives. It matters not whether it was

initiated by " do gooders " or " evil doers " , by those with good intentions

or bad intentions, the point still stands.

>

> Are you familiar with the expression " follow the money " ? This is one of

> its best possible applications.

>

> >I like to think of milk. the do-gooders " saved " us from

> >unpasteurized milk.

>

> Not at all. Industry was faced by a problem: raw milk required local

> production and local distribution, but huge, concentrated profits required

> centralized production and centralized, wide-scale distribution. Bogus and

> incomplete science was marshalled to create a perception of a need for

> pasteurization, and the march towards factory farming of milk was

> underway. So-called " do-gooders " didn't start the transition, they were

> mere tools of those who did.

Well my understanding is that nearly all dairy farmers initially opposed

pasteurization, and that politics was the initial impetus behind this

push. The perception was that people were dying from tainted milk, so

politically speaking something had to be done. Once that process was

underway I'm sure some realized there might be some advantages to this

scheme after all.

An analogous example would be the organic foods movement, which invited

the federal gov't in to create standards. Despite initial opposition

there were some who realized this scheme could be profitable after all,

and now, IMO, organic is simply useless as a concept.

But as I noted above, the argument doesn't rest on who initiated the

whole process. And if you are correct, it gives my argument more juice

anyway.

>

> >Problem 2 - no one knows everything, not even do gooders

> >They thought they were doing us a favor. " We know the right diet,

> >one high in carbs and low in fat. "

>

> Again, " do-gooders " were at most peripheral to the problem, recruited to

> the cause -- they didn't create it themselves. And again, follow the

> money. A high-carb diet is much more amenable to industrial production and

> distribution than a high-fat one, and a high-carb diet is also much more

> amenable to massive centralized profits. Where, after all, do you think

> the money to promote and " prove " the virtues of a high-carb low-fat diet

> came from?

Doesn't matter about do gooders versus evil doers, this is a straw man

and tangential to the argument. The fact is no one knows everything, as Joe

pointed out, including us traditional food types. So to give any side an

official gov't imprimatur by the rule of law is foolish, and assumes a

level of knowledge only God would have.

Which is the problem with gov't and markets of any sort, food or

otherwise, they can't know everything. Omniscience is not the trademark

of gov't and never will be, which is what you need to legislate in

markets without causing a host of unintended consequences.

>

> And the same is true of hydrogenated oils. Hydrogenation allowed expensive

> lower-profit animal fats and tropical oils to be replaced by cheap domestic

> vegetable oils and an inexpensive industrial process.

>

> Admittedly, these ideas were easy to foster and attracted strident

> proponents in part because of a puritanical sense that anything tasty or

> enjoyable must be bad for you (IOW the ideas created many do-gooders, not

> the other way around) but note that expensive, labor-intensive and

> low-profit foods like fat and milk fell under that gun while equally tasty

> but highly profitable, low-overhead foods like sugar didn't.

Surely you jest! Do you realize the enormous amount of laws and

regulations that are a part of these industries? They are there, albeit

different from the high overhead crowd. They are able to make a profit

in spite of the gun because of the low overhead of their products. And

they often use gov't to keep " healthier " competitors out.

>

> I strongly urge you to read _Trust Us, We're Experts_, which describes how

> PR is used to deceive and to deform public attitudes on a massively wide

> scale. Yes, corrupting our government is one technique the perpetrators

> use, the illegality of raw milk in most areas being a good example of the

> fruits of that corruption, but it's far from their only technique, and

> government is the only macro-scale tool we as individual citizens possess

> to fight the macro-scale influence of industry. Rather than trying to rid

> ourselves of our one tool -- a phenomenon which itself is an incredible

> accomplishment of industry PR -- we should do our utmost to purge it of

> corruption and return its full function and power to our hands.

You last sentence in the above paragraph suggests either an unfamiliarity

with history or a good piece of PR on your part :-) Amongst other things,

big government and big business are bosom buddies, and feed off each other quite

well.

And any big business ignores paying gov't tribute at their own peril (ask Bill

Gates).

And I wouldn't feel any more safe having the unconstitutional regulatory

function of our current gov't

in your hands or anyone else's. But rather than list a bunch of links I

dare say it might be best to acknowledge that on this point, we are just

going to have to agree to disagree.

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-

Actually, in all fairness to the current posters, I wasn't following the

thread, saw one post by , responded, and thus began the

current crop of responses.

On Tue, 27 May 2003 17:55:02 -0000

" Dr. Marasco " <mmarasco@...> wrote:

> I can't believe this.

>

> This is like the evil demonic thread that wouldn't die. We might

> need to call ghostbusters or get a priest in here or something.

>

> I've been gone over a week and you guys are still beating this horse.

>

> Well I suppose some credit needs to be given for the sheer

> willingness and determination to resolve these two polar ideologies

> that have plagued mankind for nearly its entire history.

> On a discussion group no less.

>

> Bravo!

>

> DMM

>

>

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see comments below

On Tue, 27 May 2003 13:26:29 -0400

Idol <Idol@...> wrote:

> Joe-

>

> >The way I see it, the do-gooders who have used the force of the

> >government (which is ironically the enforced threat of fines and

> >prison VIA THE USE OF ARMS)

>

> The sad irony is that you (and others of your political stripe) seem caught

> by the idea that all these problems have been caused by well-meaning

> inadvertent villains -- " do-gooders " as you all call them -- when in fact

> that practically couldn't be further from the truth. At most, some

> misinformed do-gooders were recruited to the cause early on, but the real

> prime movers couldn't have cared less about any kind of public good. They

> only used the rhetoric of health and safety to cover their true purpose.

,

Of course this doesn't vitiate the initial point, in fact it only

confirms it. No matter who we argue as being the cause, they still are

using the power of gov't (armed by the way) to force everyone to do the

bidding of some. If in fact it as you say, all the more reason to keep

gov't from micromanaging our lives. It matters not whether it was

initiated by " do gooders " or " evil doers " , by those with good intentions

or bad intentions, the point still stands.

>

> Are you familiar with the expression " follow the money " ? This is one of

> its best possible applications.

>

> >I like to think of milk. the do-gooders " saved " us from

> >unpasteurized milk.

>

> Not at all. Industry was faced by a problem: raw milk required local

> production and local distribution, but huge, concentrated profits required

> centralized production and centralized, wide-scale distribution. Bogus and

> incomplete science was marshalled to create a perception of a need for

> pasteurization, and the march towards factory farming of milk was

> underway. So-called " do-gooders " didn't start the transition, they were

> mere tools of those who did.

Well my understanding is that nearly all dairy farmers initially opposed

pasteurization, and that politics was the initial impetus behind this

push. The perception was that people were dying from tainted milk, so

politically speaking something had to be done. Once that process was

underway I'm sure some realized there might be some advantages to this

scheme after all.

An analogous example would be the organic foods movement, which invited

the federal gov't in to create standards. Despite initial opposition

there were some who realized this scheme could be profitable after all,

and now, IMO, organic is simply useless as a concept.

But as I noted above, the argument doesn't rest on who initiated the

whole process. And if you are correct, it gives my argument more juice

anyway.

>

> >Problem 2 - no one knows everything, not even do gooders

> >They thought they were doing us a favor. " We know the right diet,

> >one high in carbs and low in fat. "

>

> Again, " do-gooders " were at most peripheral to the problem, recruited to

> the cause -- they didn't create it themselves. And again, follow the

> money. A high-carb diet is much more amenable to industrial production and

> distribution than a high-fat one, and a high-carb diet is also much more

> amenable to massive centralized profits. Where, after all, do you think

> the money to promote and " prove " the virtues of a high-carb low-fat diet

> came from?

Doesn't matter about do gooders versus evil doers, this is a straw man

and tangential to the argument. The fact is no one knows everything, as Joe

pointed out, including us traditional food types. So to give any side an

official gov't imprimatur by the rule of law is foolish, and assumes a

level of knowledge only God would have.

Which is the problem with gov't and markets of any sort, food or

otherwise, they can't know everything. Omniscience is not the trademark

of gov't and never will be, which is what you need to legislate in

markets without causing a host of unintended consequences.

>

> And the same is true of hydrogenated oils. Hydrogenation allowed expensive

> lower-profit animal fats and tropical oils to be replaced by cheap domestic

> vegetable oils and an inexpensive industrial process.

>

> Admittedly, these ideas were easy to foster and attracted strident

> proponents in part because of a puritanical sense that anything tasty or

> enjoyable must be bad for you (IOW the ideas created many do-gooders, not

> the other way around) but note that expensive, labor-intensive and

> low-profit foods like fat and milk fell under that gun while equally tasty

> but highly profitable, low-overhead foods like sugar didn't.

Surely you jest! Do you realize the enormous amount of laws and

regulations that are a part of these industries? They are there, albeit

different from the high overhead crowd. They are able to make a profit

in spite of the " gun " because of the low overhead of their products. And

they often use gov't to keep " healthier " competitors out.

>

> I strongly urge you to read _Trust Us, We're Experts_, which describes how

> PR is used to deceive and to deform public attitudes on a massively wide

> scale. Yes, corrupting our government is one technique the perpetrators

> use, the illegality of raw milk in most areas being a good example of the

> fruits of that corruption, but it's far from their only technique, and

> government is the only macro-scale tool we as individual citizens possess

> to fight the macro-scale influence of industry. Rather than trying to rid

> ourselves of our one tool -- a phenomenon which itself is an incredible

> accomplishment of industry PR -- we should do our utmost to purge it of

> corruption and return its full function and power to our hands.

You last sentence in the above paragraph suggests either an unfamiliarity

with history or a good piece of PR on your part :-) Amongst other things,

big government and big business are bosom buddies, and feed off each other quite

well.

And any big business ignores paying due gov't tribute at their own peril

(ask Bill Gates).

And I wouldn't feel any more safe having the unconstitutional regulatory

function of our current gov't

in your hands or anyone else's. But rather than list a bunch of links I

dare say it might be best to acknowledge that on this point, we are just

going to have to agree to disagree.

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HI,

I'm jumping into the middle of this discussion. Haven't had time to look at

native nutrition email for weeks. Sure it's true that parents must take

responsibility for their children, but does that mean we just abandon the

children whose parents won't or who don't know any better. We certainly have

a responsibility as citizens to do what we can to improve life for all our

children, although admittedly that's hard. I'm thinking of the school in

Wisconsin that instituted a healthy cafeteria program, and the change in

behavior in the school was amazing. That's good for everyone. See:

http://www.stratiawire.com/article.asp?id=655

Peace,

Kris , gardening in harmony with nature in northwest Ohio

If you want to hear the good news about butter check out this Web site:

http://www.westonaprice.org/know_your_fats/know_your_fats.html

To learn more check out our Web site:

http://home.woh.rr.com/billkrisjohnson/

..

Re: oreos

> I disagree. I see children all the time smart enough or

> possibly respectful or scared enough of their parents to know

> better. The responsibility lies squarely with the parents to instill

> the appropriate behavior in their kid and in addition get their

> butts in the school and get the vending machine evicted or filled

> with something better. It's high time " everybody " else stops

> getting blamed and the consumers and their offspring take

> responsibility for what's theirs.

>

> DMM

>

>

>

> > Mike-

> >

> > I certainly agree that parents need to take a lot more

> responsibility than

> > they are, but I don't think that's enough. How can a parent stop

> a kid

> > from getting a package of oreos from a vending machine at school,

> for

> > example? That's why I think a ban on selling them to minors makes

> > sense. It doesn't infringe on the right of adults to pick their

> poison,

> > but it protects kids. It's not the perfect strategy, but what

> is? I don't

> > know, but this seems like a workable compromise between various

> > ideals. It's better than having sick kids sue their parents once

> they

> > become sick adults, or telling ignorant children to take

> responsibility for

> > their health.

> >

> >

> >

> > -

>

>

>

>

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