Free Republic

...we need to go back to when agriculture was inefficient. Good idea. There are too many proles anyway, right? Time to thin the herd. ... Climate change hysteria is a magic force in the hands of an elite that has been preaching deindustrialization and mass culling of human beings since the early 1960s. What was once a fringe movement led by the truly insane Club of Rome and Paul Ehrlich has gone mainstream, at least among the Leftists who are at the top of the social pyramid these days. The UN, WEF, IPCC, MSM, and of course the EU and...

Toast a thin slice of bread. Butter two slices of bread and sprinkle with salt and pepper to taste. Place the toast between the two slices of bread-and-butter to form a sandwich. British Dietetic Association spokeswoman Melissa Little said there were ways to make the toast sandwich much better for not that much more money. Ms Little said: "You can add an egg for 8p, it's not much and it would give you some protein and keep you fuller for longer - and it would make it taste much better. "Half a can of sardines for 19p would provide good...

THREE more products from China have been found tainted with melamine, including one meant for manufacturing use, the Agri-food and Veterinary Authority (AVA) said yesterday. They are Cadbury Choclairs in the coffee and blueberry flavours, and Panda Dairy Whole Milk Powder. The AVA gave the assurance that the levels of melamine detected in the tainted products were very low and should not cause ill heath unless consumed in very large quantities. It said the Choclairs had melamine concentrations of 21.4 to 92.3 parts per million (ppm) and a 60kg adult can consume between 108 and 292 pieces of the candy...

In 1973 Richard Nixon, US president, under political pressure be­cause of rising domestic food prices, banned the export of soyabeans. The policy had predictably dire results, but today, with the world in the grip of another bout of food price inf­lation, governments worldwide are rushing to distort the market with subsidies and quotas, price controls and export taxes. They should stop. In the run-up to its presidential election, Russia has imposed price controls on basic foodstuffs, and plans an export tariff on wheat. China already controls prices; other importers, including Egypt, Jordan, Bangladesh and Morocco, are increasing subsidies or fiddling...

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- October 12, 2003 THE WAY WE LIVE NOW The (Agri)Cultural Contradictions of Obesity By MICHAEL POLLAN ometimes even complicated social problems turn out to be simpler than they look. Take America's ''obesity epidemic,'' arguably the most serious public-health problem facing the country. Three of every five Americans are now overweight, and some researchers predict that today's children will be the first generation of Americans whose life expectancy will actually be shorter than that of their parents. The culprit, they say, is the health problems associated with obesity. You hear several explanations. Big food companies are pushing supersize portions of...