Feeding the Fires of Our Own Destruction

The more I read about it, the more it seems to me that food and water will be the more important issues facing humanity in coming decades.  Certainly the environment is up there, too, and in fact is naturally intricately linked with the nutrition problem, as what we eat and how we grow it have everything to do with how we treat the earth.

Just today this article in the Health Section of the NYTimes writes about findings that being overweight is associated with increased cancer risks.  To that I'll add what I've read in The China Study about high consumption of animal proteins also being linked with cancer and heart disease.  Finally, our general high consumption in the west of processed, refined foods means that we're overall getting tons of fat, protein, and simple carbohydrates, and few vitamins and minerals that we need, which come largely from plants.

Now contrast that with malnourished and starving people around the world -- where in many places they depend on food aid from the US and other countries, which, at least from the US, is all more of the highly processed, corn and potato based foods that aren't even feeding Americans properly.  Couple that with the fact that farmers in other countries who grow cash crops can't even independently feed themselves if they wanted to, and there you have a double-edged sword where all the food going in is barely better than the foods/crops going out.  

So, in rich countries we're not taking care of ourselves so we are getting degenerative diseases, while people in poor countries are starving and trying to live off of measly donations from the rich countries in the form of the same nutritionally-poor foods with which we are stuffing our faces.  We get tons of calories, they get none.  We get cancer and heart disease.  They are weak for life.

All of this is so far related just to physical health.  Now, consider that proper nutrition is also linked to mental development, alertness, brainpower, and mood.  How we feel and think has everything to do with what we eat.  When we're hungry we're in a bad mood.  Even when we're full but are deprived nutritionally we can be in bad moods.  Admittedly, my comments in this paragraph really need to be held off until I look some more stuff up, but I think my intuitions are at least reasonable.  Think about it -- the poorest neighborhoods in the US tend also to be the ones with the highest crime rates.  Certainly desperation for resources, lack of education, having young adults with no job or school to go to all contribute greatly to that violence.  

But, consider also that these are the communities who are the worst fed in the country (if you don't believe me, go to a grocery store in Manhattan and then go to one just over the river in Brooklyn, where everything is suddenly bright white and packaged and what little fruit there is is waxy and unappealing).  Maybe, just maybe, the poor nutrition has something to do with the tensions and quick tempers that spur on violent behavior.  Again, so far it's just a suspicion I have, but I bet that if we tweaked the diets of Americans, especially in our poorest communities, we'd see better behaved kids in school, more patient parents, and fewer angry teens.  I suppose the problem is that changes in diet have subtle background effects on people's lives (hell, that's why dieting is hard for people -- no immediate results!!), so it would be hard to convince, say, the Government to sponsor such a program.  And it would be hard, even if they did sponsor it, to keep it going, because the results might take a long time coming in -- which would only increase opportunities for the interference of other variables.

(For the record, I have read here and there about the effects of food on mood and cognition -- that part's less speculative -- it's more that I have no idea what kinds of effects community-wide dietary tweaking might have on our many society-wide challenges.)

Finally, the environment.  Ah, the environment, how we destroy you with our factories and terrible land-destroying farming practices.  Grow more fruits and vegetables properly (without genetic modification, without pesticides, and with a focus on keeping our soil rich), and watch a lot of our environmental problems go away.  Oh, and, I suppose, stop flying all these planes, driving cars everywhere, and pumping out crazy chemicals from non-food factories ... uh, ok ... baby steps!  

Well, that's enough of my tirade for today.  Sorry to dampen the mood.  Just don't say I didn't warn you.

P.S. No, I did not make it to my noon appointment today.  I have another one at 3 that I, frankly, have no choice but to go to.  Also there's the added advantage that I'm already awake, so all signs point to actually making one commitment this week.  Stay tuned, friends!