Hey, I like this class very much. These people are bringing really great information to the class, and we all get to know more about these important topics. Tonight's class was fascinating.
Jerry, the coffee expert, brought some good iced coffee to share with everyone. More importantly, he had the lowdown on those little numbers that appear in a triangle, on the bottom of various plastic items. This is an important little number to watch. I'm hoping he'll send me the link to his very useful guide, but for now the word is:
DON'T USE NUMBER 7 PLASTIC FOR FOOD OR DRINK.
It can release BPA, a harmful chemical that replaces human hormones and causes birth defects and prostate trouble in men. Unfortunately, it's been released into the ocean by tons and tons of plastic garbage, especially in the Great Plastic Garbage Patch:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLrVCI4N67M
(The patch is actually smaller than the movie says, but it's twice the size of France, which is pretty big.) Also see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_Garbage_Patch
(Click for Chinese version on the left, if the English is too hard.)
Barrett told us that a Canadian company has some kind of plan to harvest all the plastic in the Great Patch and use it to make shelters for the homeless. If it works, that's great! (If they run out of plastic and want more, they can come here.)
Then Kiki showed us a very powerful short film, Chicken a la carte, about hunger in the world. It won first prize at the Berlin Film Festival, and the filmmaker wrote and pefrormed the song. See it here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1bOteXhwrw
Kiki went on to point out that food aid is sometimes a political tool, which harms a country while pretending to help it. Hunger and poverty are political problems, and they reinforce each other. A hungry person has a hard time getting a job, working hard, and rising out of poverty. A poor person has a hard time eating. So it's a vicious cycle.
May shared some organic mulberry jam, and told us that her way of helping make a better world was to support organic farmers. She buys lots of fruits or vegetables from them, then gives these away to her friends. What a great gift! She says she'll have bags of organic sweet potatoes at 100 NT each, in the future. I want at least one bag.
Jonas had quite a few statistics about poverty. He says nearly half a billion kids do not have access to clean water, one in seven people in the world do not get enough nutrition, and 30% of the world's women have their first child before age 18. Wow. He also told a story about the "green city" being built in the Arabian desert, in Abu Dhabi. It's called Masdar City, and you can see it here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8V7UpFOm8w0
Notice how few trees are in the Green City. Jonas tells us it will also cost 22 billion USD to build, and only about 100,000 people will live there. My, with 7 billion people, we'll have to build quite a few of these! "Solutions" like this give people confidence in the future for NO GOOD REASON.
Just at the end of class, Ammar told us about Operation Green Hunt, in which the government of India has declared war on Maoists, and killed 16,000 of them since 2004. The Maoists have apparently killed 6000 in return. Seems it is extreme poverty that motivates the people to throw in with the Maoists, in the hopes that they can share the wealth of their country, which is now dominated by a fairly small group of people. Six out of 24 Indian states are affected by this conflict. Ammar will give us more on that next week.
This is a very good class. I am learning so much. We all are.
Thursday, April 15, 2010
Saturday, April 3, 2010
Food and Hunger
I won't always do this, but here's a summary of what people had to say last Thursday, on the subject of food. The idea is to let people see what we do in the class. If you feel I have misrepresented your presentation, you can click on comments , at the bottom of this post.
Jonas spoke about food waste. He read that the UK wastes 8.3 million tons of food per year. People order too much, cook too much, don't use food in time (before it goes bad) and do not know how to use leftovers intelligently. In addition, he pointed out that legal issues cause food producers to throw out - rather than give away - huge quantities of food. All this wasted food has an impact on fertilizer supply, energy use and the availability of food to poor people. So don't waste food.
Kiki had done some research on Fair Trade, a system by which consumers are informed that the price of a product includes a fair wage to the workers and a fair profit to the local producers. Kiki mentioned the FLO mark (Fair Trade Labeling Organization, International), which apparently is a pretty good guarantee of producer-friendly goods. She also passed around a pamphlet from Okogreen Café in Taipei, which serves Fair Trade coffee at Hangzhou S. Rd. Sec. 1 Lane 14 # 16 (1F). Call 02-2322-2225. This is a topic on which we should all get more information.
Jerry continued the discussion about coffee, noting that not all "Fair Trade" is the same. Oxfam, who began organizing Fair Trade coffee many years ago, truly worked to insure that a good part of the retail cost of coffee went to the workers and producers. Starbucks, on the other hand, developed their own "Fair Trade" system, which was hard for outsiders to monitor (so we don't really know how fair it is). He went on to give a very detailed talk about his favorite beverage. He informed us that 50% of the coffee in the world is controlled by 4 huge companies: Nestle, Proctor & Gamble, Sarah Lee and Kraft. (These are huge companies, which care little about the environment, the livelihood of coffee producers, nor for the health of their consumers.) Jerry apparently has more connoisseur connections for his beans, which he roasts himself. There are two types of coffee plants: Arabica (sweeter, less caffeine) and Robusta (bigger seed, high caffeine). Here in Taiwan, we can grow Robusta, which likes lowlands and hot weather. The Arabica beans like cool, mountain climates.
What was super cool about Jerry's talk was that he brought a branch of his friend's tree, with both immature and mature coffee beans. Donald and I both got some seeds (beans) to plant in our gardens! One mature tree will produce a pound of coffee cherry per harvest, which works out to a quarter pound of dried coffee beans, and maybe 1 / 5 pound of roasted coffee. So we had better plant a lot.
Barrett talked about how to lose fat. Although nobody in the room was fat, he noted that we might have friends or family, or later be in the position to need this information ourselves. I hope not. He gave the calorie intake recommendations for various types of people, and stated that a 50 year old woman should take in 1620 calories per day, on average. However, he noted that nobody measures their calories very carefully, and "super-size" portions are common. This combines with a cultural norm to "eat everything on your plate". In addition, fast food (so common today) tends to be very high in calories. He gave a table of "correct portions "which indicated how much of each food it is appropriate to consume at one time. Butter was recommended at" the size of a postage stamp ", which is probably right for the overweight - but I might use two postage stamps if I'm mailing a large piece bread.
Susana was next, with a talk on Food Security, which is different than Food Safety. The latter term involves whether or not harmful ingredients are showing up in food, as in the melamine scare last year. Food Security is about knowing that you will have nutritious food for your family - today, tomorrow and next week. Apparently 230 million people wake up not knowing if they will get any food at all that day. Some of the reasons for food insecurity are: rising fuel and fertilizer costs, the use of food crops and farmland to make biofuel, and problems associated with climate change (such as drought). The price of nutritious food sometimes puts it out of reach for the poorest people. Other problems include production interruptions and problems with distribution. Susana also responded to Barrett's topic by saying that very good guidelines for the diet of Taiwanese people (possibly different than those for Americans or Nigerians) have been posted on the Department of Health website.
Ammar told us that, in Nepal, modern farming methods and better seeds could boost crop production. His family's land does not produce as much as does the land in Taiwan. Someone suggested that he contact President Ma. Apparently rice is grown in Nepal, and also corn.
Patrick then told us that the poor should eat worms and bugs, to supplement their protein. He noted that when other sources of protein are not available, there might be a lot of bugs around. The poor could even have worm farms so that they could eat these creatures regularly - possibly with some tasty sauce. I asked him if he had ever eaten worms, and he hadn't. Nor does he intend to. This is just for the poor.
Donald told of his experience hoarding food during World War II. He was both a farmer's son and a Japanese soldier, yet had very little to eat. Apparently farmers had to give most of their produce to the Japanese, who kept it in storage, thinking that the war would go on for a long time. In order to eat well, the farmers would kill pigs in the middle of the night, changing their tags with those of younger pigs. The men ate rice, but the women usually only ate sweet potatoes. Some people supplemented their nutirion by buying food on the black market. Since the Japanese had to observe harvest, and take all but what they allowed the farmer's family, some farmers would harvest early, and then burn the field. It's good to hear an honest tale about what people have to do to get by in hard times. Could this happen again?
Rebecca spoke briefly about the importance of food value, meaning that we should get good nutrition from our food. Fast foods and convenience foods often do not provide adequate nutrition. She mentioned the importance of eating fresh fruits and vegetables, as well as whole grain bread and brown rice. This way we have healthier bodies. Unfortunately, we ran out of time shortly into her talk. I hope she will give us more next week.
Not everybody spoke. We'll talk about food again on Thursday, April 8. Those who were not able to present their views can begin, this time, and we'll have time for several more presentations.
Now I'd like to bring to your attention some grim facts about hunger in the world, not to scare you but to highlight the importance of our topic.
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) 2009 assessment of world hunger can be accessed here:
http://www.fao.org/docrep/012/i0876e/i0876e00.HTM
But its key points are summarized on this page:
ftp://ftp.fao.org/docrep/fao/012/i0876e/i0876e00.pdf
I'll try to summarize the key points. First, hunger was increasing - slowly, but steadily - before the recent economic crises. Now the problem has gotten much worse quite quickly. There are over a billion people not getting enough nutrition, and stunting of children (smaller size, mental deficiency, birth defects) is quite common, especially in Africa. When prices of food rise, or consumer incomes fall, people spend more of their budget on food, and less on medical care and education. This leads to long-term conditions that point to future poverty. (If you are sick and uneducated, it's hard to go out and make a good living.)
The FAO recommends that agricultural development be prioritized, even in times of financial crisis, because it is vital to protect against future malnutrition. Another recommendation is that safety nets (government help for people in distress) should be made broad and strong, though governments are trying to cut back on expenses these days. Allowing the poor to become weak and sick at this point will cause much trouble later.
Since the problem of poverty and malnutrition was not improving before the current crises, new strategies have to be devised . The old system of food aid is not working properly. These are the suggestions of the FAO:
"To lift themselves out of hunger, the food-insecure need
control over resources,
access to opportunities,
and improved governance at the international,
national and local levels. "
I'll be talking more about hunger at our next class, if we have time.
Jonas spoke about food waste. He read that the UK wastes 8.3 million tons of food per year. People order too much, cook too much, don't use food in time (before it goes bad) and do not know how to use leftovers intelligently. In addition, he pointed out that legal issues cause food producers to throw out - rather than give away - huge quantities of food. All this wasted food has an impact on fertilizer supply, energy use and the availability of food to poor people. So don't waste food.
Kiki had done some research on Fair Trade, a system by which consumers are informed that the price of a product includes a fair wage to the workers and a fair profit to the local producers. Kiki mentioned the FLO mark (Fair Trade Labeling Organization, International), which apparently is a pretty good guarantee of producer-friendly goods. She also passed around a pamphlet from Okogreen Café in Taipei, which serves Fair Trade coffee at Hangzhou S. Rd. Sec. 1 Lane 14 # 16 (1F). Call 02-2322-2225. This is a topic on which we should all get more information.
Jerry continued the discussion about coffee, noting that not all "Fair Trade" is the same. Oxfam, who began organizing Fair Trade coffee many years ago, truly worked to insure that a good part of the retail cost of coffee went to the workers and producers. Starbucks, on the other hand, developed their own "Fair Trade" system, which was hard for outsiders to monitor (so we don't really know how fair it is). He went on to give a very detailed talk about his favorite beverage. He informed us that 50% of the coffee in the world is controlled by 4 huge companies: Nestle, Proctor & Gamble, Sarah Lee and Kraft. (These are huge companies, which care little about the environment, the livelihood of coffee producers, nor for the health of their consumers.) Jerry apparently has more connoisseur connections for his beans, which he roasts himself. There are two types of coffee plants: Arabica (sweeter, less caffeine) and Robusta (bigger seed, high caffeine). Here in Taiwan, we can grow Robusta, which likes lowlands and hot weather. The Arabica beans like cool, mountain climates.
What was super cool about Jerry's talk was that he brought a branch of his friend's tree, with both immature and mature coffee beans. Donald and I both got some seeds (beans) to plant in our gardens! One mature tree will produce a pound of coffee cherry per harvest, which works out to a quarter pound of dried coffee beans, and maybe 1 / 5 pound of roasted coffee. So we had better plant a lot.
Barrett talked about how to lose fat. Although nobody in the room was fat, he noted that we might have friends or family, or later be in the position to need this information ourselves. I hope not. He gave the calorie intake recommendations for various types of people, and stated that a 50 year old woman should take in 1620 calories per day, on average. However, he noted that nobody measures their calories very carefully, and "super-size" portions are common. This combines with a cultural norm to "eat everything on your plate". In addition, fast food (so common today) tends to be very high in calories. He gave a table of "correct portions "which indicated how much of each food it is appropriate to consume at one time. Butter was recommended at" the size of a postage stamp ", which is probably right for the overweight - but I might use two postage stamps if I'm mailing a large piece bread.
Susana was next, with a talk on Food Security, which is different than Food Safety. The latter term involves whether or not harmful ingredients are showing up in food, as in the melamine scare last year. Food Security is about knowing that you will have nutritious food for your family - today, tomorrow and next week. Apparently 230 million people wake up not knowing if they will get any food at all that day. Some of the reasons for food insecurity are: rising fuel and fertilizer costs, the use of food crops and farmland to make biofuel, and problems associated with climate change (such as drought). The price of nutritious food sometimes puts it out of reach for the poorest people. Other problems include production interruptions and problems with distribution. Susana also responded to Barrett's topic by saying that very good guidelines for the diet of Taiwanese people (possibly different than those for Americans or Nigerians) have been posted on the Department of Health website.
Ammar told us that, in Nepal, modern farming methods and better seeds could boost crop production. His family's land does not produce as much as does the land in Taiwan. Someone suggested that he contact President Ma. Apparently rice is grown in Nepal, and also corn.
Patrick then told us that the poor should eat worms and bugs, to supplement their protein. He noted that when other sources of protein are not available, there might be a lot of bugs around. The poor could even have worm farms so that they could eat these creatures regularly - possibly with some tasty sauce. I asked him if he had ever eaten worms, and he hadn't. Nor does he intend to. This is just for the poor.
Donald told of his experience hoarding food during World War II. He was both a farmer's son and a Japanese soldier, yet had very little to eat. Apparently farmers had to give most of their produce to the Japanese, who kept it in storage, thinking that the war would go on for a long time. In order to eat well, the farmers would kill pigs in the middle of the night, changing their tags with those of younger pigs. The men ate rice, but the women usually only ate sweet potatoes. Some people supplemented their nutirion by buying food on the black market. Since the Japanese had to observe harvest, and take all but what they allowed the farmer's family, some farmers would harvest early, and then burn the field. It's good to hear an honest tale about what people have to do to get by in hard times. Could this happen again?
Rebecca spoke briefly about the importance of food value, meaning that we should get good nutrition from our food. Fast foods and convenience foods often do not provide adequate nutrition. She mentioned the importance of eating fresh fruits and vegetables, as well as whole grain bread and brown rice. This way we have healthier bodies. Unfortunately, we ran out of time shortly into her talk. I hope she will give us more next week.
Not everybody spoke. We'll talk about food again on Thursday, April 8. Those who were not able to present their views can begin, this time, and we'll have time for several more presentations.
Now I'd like to bring to your attention some grim facts about hunger in the world, not to scare you but to highlight the importance of our topic.
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) 2009 assessment of world hunger can be accessed here:
http://www.fao.org/docrep/012/i0876e/i0876e00.HTM
But its key points are summarized on this page:
ftp://ftp.fao.org/docrep/fao/012/i0876e/i0876e00.pdf
I'll try to summarize the key points. First, hunger was increasing - slowly, but steadily - before the recent economic crises. Now the problem has gotten much worse quite quickly. There are over a billion people not getting enough nutrition, and stunting of children (smaller size, mental deficiency, birth defects) is quite common, especially in Africa. When prices of food rise, or consumer incomes fall, people spend more of their budget on food, and less on medical care and education. This leads to long-term conditions that point to future poverty. (If you are sick and uneducated, it's hard to go out and make a good living.)
The FAO recommends that agricultural development be prioritized, even in times of financial crisis, because it is vital to protect against future malnutrition. Another recommendation is that safety nets (government help for people in distress) should be made broad and strong, though governments are trying to cut back on expenses these days. Allowing the poor to become weak and sick at this point will cause much trouble later.
Since the problem of poverty and malnutrition was not improving before the current crises, new strategies have to be devised . The old system of food aid is not working properly. These are the suggestions of the FAO:
"To lift themselves out of hunger, the food-insecure need
control over resources,
access to opportunities,
and improved governance at the international,
national and local levels. "
I'll be talking more about hunger at our next class, if we have time.
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