These comments were posted on Robert Reich's blog post, "What Can I Do?":
John Lawrence said...
Angry,
Thanks for your reference to Food, Inc. It is playing locally. I'll try to see it.
Here's a novel idea. Why not tie rates for health insurance (whether public or private) to an individual's willingness to stay healthy? In other words incentivize healthy lifestyles by giving rate cuts on health insurance. Right now some employers are incentivizing employees to exercize. This could be increased by incentivizing healthy lifestyles. With all kinds of devices being computerized and wirelessly networked, I can imagine a teadmill, for instance, wirelessly connected to a doctor's office or a database which clocked the hours spent by a specific individual. Also scales and blood pressure measurements at home can wirelessly transmit crucial health statistics to a central database or doctor's office. Classes in nutrition could count as well as a willingness to consume healthy foods and vitamins. Food purchases could be tracked. Technology is there. This might sound a little Big Brotherish, but the gains in human health, happiness and productivity not to mention cost containment of the health care system would justify encouragement of healthy lifestyles in my opinion.
There are many ways a person's willingness to lead a healthy lifestyle regarding diet and excercise could be tracked, measured and evaluated and that data could be used to determine the rate a person should pay for health insurance. Those not willing to lead a healthy lifestyle should pay more because they will be a greater burden on the overall health care system. Obese people especially are more in danger of heart and kidney problems from Type 2 diabetes, heart attacks etc.
I think this emphasis on healthy lifestyles and incentivizing it by lowering individual rates for health insurance would do a lot for cost containment of the overall health care system and encourage individual responsibility for taking care of one's self and family.
Saturday, 04 July, 2009
Art A Layman said...
John:
This might sound a little Big Brotherish, but the gains in human health, happiness and productivity not to mention cost containment of the health care system would justify encouragement of healthy lifestyles in my opinion.
Jesus! A little?! Maybe we could expand your program to not only charging higher premiums to those not following - whose definition? - a healthy lifestyle but refusing them medical care altogether. This would save scads! The double whammy would be great too. They pay higher premiums but can't get needed care. Priceless!
I guess you're scrapping your "we're all in this together" position.
You present good ideas, from time to time, but going off the deep end might not bode well for your veracity.
P.S. Does that mean that each doctors visit will now require a breathalyzer test to see if I'm smoking?
Sunday, 05 July, 2009
Anonymous said...
Art Layman,
Excuse me. You are the one going off the deep end with a hyped up reaction to John Lawrence's well-meant reminder of the benefits of a healthful lifestyle. Even we who finished high school understand John is merely highlighting the good health positives of nutricious non-fat foods, routine exercise and less pills for every occasion. And that this will also help reduce national health care costs too. Jesus would be pleased if he saw this simple message accepted by more folks like perhaps, who knows, yourself. We can't be too serious about following healthy living habits. It'll save most of us a lot of money and discomfort in our older days.
Sunday, 05 July, 2009
John Lawrence said...
Angry, Art & Others,
I just saw the movie Food Inc. and is it an eye opener. Th number of incidences of e coli are directly related to the factory production of farm animals for slaughter in feed lots or chicken houses. First they feed the cows corn instead of hay which they evolved to eat. Corn produces bacteria in their gut including e coli whereas, if they were fed grass or hay this would not happen. Animals who eat hay produce manure which can be spread on fields as fertilizer, but animals fed corn including cows and hogs produce a toxic sludge. A hog waste pond recently threatened to pollute a major river.
My Grandfather was a farmer, and he grew the hay in his own fields which he fed to his cattle and then spread the manure back on the fields with a manure spreader. They all did this in the 1940s and 50s.
Cows in feed lots have to stand around all day in their own waste products and this translates into more e coli in the slaughterhouse. No wonder there are so many recalls of beef products! Also birds pick up the e coli and transmit it to adjacent crops like spinach.
If you saw this movie you would never eat another piece of beef or chicken from the super market and especially from a fast food place.
Industrialized meat production by just a small number of corporate giants like Smithfield and Tyson is literally killing us because it's laced with growth hormones and the FDA is staffed by former lobbyists from the industries they're supposed to regulate. Poor people can pay less for a fast food meal than if they bought vegetables at the super market, and 1 out of 3 people born since 2000 will have early onset Type 2 diabetes. If you are a minority, it will be 1 out of 2. High fructose corn syrup and industrialized meat production are major contributors to obesity especially from fast foods.
The other interesting thing is that Monsanto has added a patented gene to soybeans that lets the field be sprayed with pesticide without affecting the soybean production. Since it is a patented gene, the farmer can't save seeds for next year's crop because they legally belong to Monsanto. Monsanto sends out investigators to make sure no farmer saves seeds or else they are prosecuted. Even farmers who don't buy Monsanto's genetically modified soybean seeds can be prosecuted by Monsanto if some of the genetically modified seeds happen to cross pollinate in a non-Monsanto farmer's field.
Also posted on Will Blog For Food.
Sunday, 05 July, 2009
notsofast said...
john lawrence: what's next obesity camps in the desert? lol your authoritarian inclination is pretty typical for dems and well-meaning but completely unacceptable. personal, social and economic freedom and justice only exist when coercive power and authority are decentralized and eliminated; genuine socialism.
Monday, 06 July, 2009
Art A Layman said...
John:
If you're going to attempt to enlighten us could you be more specific? E-Coli, in and of itself, is not the problem, we all walk around with E-Coli bacteria in our intestines. It's a particular strain that is the problem, an acid-resistant strain.
The vast majority of UTIs that women get are caused by E-Coli bacteria entering the urethra.
You are tending toward paranoia
Monday, 06 July, 2009
Angry Citizen said...
John,
Glad to hear that you got out to see Food Inc. I've still got to see it; some family thing came up the other night so I couldn't go.
Re: Monsanto, yes, they've become quite a thorn in the side of farmers globally. In Mexico, they train their young to be able to spot genetically modified corn so that the plants can be removed asap. Our genetically-modified imports have been mixing with their generations-in-the-making heirloom corn and they're not so much worried about getting slapped with a lawsuit for having our garbage seeds cross-pollinate as they are having their crops infiltrated with our inferior corn and ruined for posterity. (If you've never watched "The World According to Monsanto," it's worth a watch. Many versions of it are online on both You Tube and Google video.)
People were very worried for a while about Monsanto's development of what folks called "terminator seeds." I don't know if they've stopped R & D on the seeds or not, but basically what they were meant to do was, well, self-destruct so that nobody could save the seeds and harvest them.
@Art, From what I understand, the problem with e-coli, virus strains like swine and avian flu, and factory farming is that when you've got hundreds of animals piled up on top of each other in a factory--standing in their own waste, in the waste of stillborn animals, and all of their other nasty stuff that's supposedly laying in the sludge of factory floors--and in such close-quarters and stench that the quality of air flow is atrocious, strains of all kinds of illness become much more virulent because they have the ability to spread so fast throughout the factories. With a small farm where animals are free to forage, you might still have sick animals infecting others, but the number of carriers for the illness would be much smaller, and presumably, because the animals wouldn't be constantly pumped with antibiotics and other drugs (just to stave off death!)--and their immune systems wouldn't be so incredibly weak due to factory conditions--the strains would not spread so fast or have the same kind of ability, as is true in the case of factory farming, to gain in strength as it spread through hundreds of additional animals.
I posted this article once before, but it's worth re-posting:
Boss Hog.
It's a very-well researched article about Smithfield Foods (there has been a more recent article about Smithfield... I'll have to track it down later if anyone is interested), and explains in much better detail than I can provide the answer to your question about e-coli as well as a bunch of other facts you'd probably rather not know!
@ Anon,
I choose B .
Monday, 06 July, 2009
Art A Layman said...
Angry:
Far as I know all of what you said is true but the E. coli culprit is primarily just one strain which does not affect the animals but can be bad for humans: E. coli O157:H7.
E. coli is a normal bacterium in the gastrointestinal tract of animals and humans, and most types are not harmful (See "E. coli and Cattle" fact sheet, attached). However, disease-causing strains such as E. coli O157:H7 produce toxins that cause bloody diarrhea or even kidney failure in humans. Mature cattle are unaffected by E. coli O157:H7. Only a small number of cattle (estimated at 1 to 2 percent at any one time) shed E. coli O157:H7 in their feces, a rate that is not fully explained.
When beef carcasses are accidentally contaminated by feces at slaughter, the pathogens can enter the human food supply. E. coli O157:H7 can be killed by cooking or irradiation, but the bacterium continues to pose a food-safety risk.
Cattle are fed starch-containing grains to increase growth rate and produce tender meat. Because the bovine gastrointestinal tract digests starch poorly, Russell explains, some undigested grain reaches the colon, where it is fermented. When the grain ferments -- and acetic, propionic and butyric acids accumulate in the animal's colon -- a large fraction of E. coli produced are the acid-resistant type.
"Grain does not specifically promote the growth of E. coli O157:H7, but it increases the chance that at least some E. coli could pass through the gastric stomach of humans," Russell says. "The carbohydrates of hay are not so easily fermented, and hay does not promote either the growth or acid resistance of E. coli. When we switched cattle from grain-based diets to hay for only five days, acid-resistant E. coli could no longer be detected."
In studies performed at Cornell, beef cattle fed grain-based rations typical of commercial feedlots had 1 million acid-resistant E. coli, per gram of feces, and dairy cattle fed only 60 percent grain also had high numbers of acid-resistant bacteria. In each case, the high counts could be explained by grain fermentation in the intestines.
By comparison, cattle fed hay or grass had only acid-sensitive E. coli, and these bacteria were destroyed by an "acid shock" that mimicked the human stomach, the microbiologists report in Science.
My point was that the strain is the problem not just any E. coli.
At that cooking meat thoroughly and following good hygiene practices eliminates most of the risk. Though a serious concern if we look at reported cases versus all who eat pink meat and/or fast food meat John's reaction seems slightly paranoid.
Monday, 06 July, 2009
Anonymous said...
Art Layman and Notsovast,
As I've said, Mr. Lawrence's message about preventive care is not so difficult to understand. Accusing him of paranoia is an easy excuse for not hearing the message. John is only saying, as an example, we don't have to walk around with over-exposure to E-coli bacteria for a lifetime by feeding cows corn instead of hay. The rest of the world doesn't follow this stupid practice, but we in the US are the exception. As science shows, an excess of most things clearly healthwise contradictory comes with very negative risk results. This has been proven with planting corn for ethanol and feeding corn to cows. On the other hand, Monsanto has their own inspectors to enforce by fear of lawsuits their regimen of protecting really questionably unhealthful products. This occurs routinely under heavy-lobbyist influences while John Lawrence gets personally critisized for merely revealing how US health is being endangered by feeding cows corn instead of hay. In addition to the obvious exaggerations of Mr. Lawrence's intentions, he is not calling for an 'authoritarian' response to the shams and abridgement of better-informed choices for healthful living. How cleverly we can manipulate a simple, honest viewpoint. John, is acting out of paronoia? Gibberish! Please look to yourselves, gentlemen. You get upset without any counterarguments when someone speaks common sence and cites scientific evidence about unhealthful livestyle practices. You, innocently perhaps, are blind to realization you are participating in typical Republican
fear mongering. This you do by suggesting Mr. Lawrence is calling for some high authority to enforce his pet good health practices? Get realistic, gentlemen! The Disney fantasy world can't possibly match this silliness. It's the old habits of Democrats at work again in great form, and party men in particular, of undermining each other's best intentions. Republicans just love it.
Monday, 06 July, 2009
Art A Layman said...
Anonymous:
The obscurity of your name does not allow one to know how long you've been reading John's tripe, ooops, common sense. Sorry John.
Speaking of commmon sense, I love the current definition of it. In today's world Common Sense is defined as, if you disagree with me you don't have any.
One could herald the thought that we Dems think for ourselves. Are you suggesting that we all fall in line behind the party line thoughts of the day? If I'm going to do that I might as well be a Republican.
Before you go jumping on the latest healthful news of the day you might want to review history. We have been fed so much bullshit at one time or another just to have it reversed a few years hence. Coffee was bad, now it's good. Overweight is bad, thin is good. Now we find that somewhat overweight is better and offers a better chance for longer life. Vitamin C and E, in large quantities will improve your chances of avoiding heart attacks and cancer. Well, upon review, no it won't. Saturated fats are bad. Well maybe not so much.
Notsofast is right. What John proposed is that we all be monitored - daily? hourly? - to make sure we're eating right, exercising right, doing all the "right" things. That my friend is not freedom.
At that, got any idea the problems we'll create if we all start to live to be 150? Best you follow you're healthful life and life forever and be thankful for we waywards who died sooner rather than later. And Jesus, supposedly, will love us all anyway.
Oh! And I missed the part in the warranty that said if we all do nothing but healthful things we're guaranteed a long life and a quick painless death. Have to pull that damn thing out again.
Monday, 06 July, 2009
Blurtman said...
If you give up smoking, drinking, eating fatty foods and sweets, you will not live longer. It will just seem that way.
Monday, 06 July, 2009
Anonymous said ...
blurtman : If you give up smoking, drinking, eating fatty foods and sweets, you will not live longer. It will just seem that way.
Unfortunately, my own family history conclusively proves that statement false.
Monday, 06 July, 2009
John Lawrence said ...
Art said:
My point was that the strain is the problem not just any E. coli.
At that cooking meat thoroughly and following good hygiene practices eliminates most of the risk. Though a serious concern if we look at reported cases versus all who eat pink meat and/or fast food meat John's reaction seems slightly paranoid.
Art, you just don't get it, my friend. Tell that to the woman who lost her 2 year old son in 12 days after he ate a fast food hamburger. The problem is (and you should have figured this out from reading your own posting) that cows evolved to eat hay not corn! It's the government subsidization of corn that's the primary cause of e coli in the food supply. Free range grass grazing or hay fed beef cows do not introduce e coli into the food supply.The feed lot factory farms find it more convenient and less costly to feed cows corn rather than hay and then they stand around in their own manure which gets into the slaughterhouse and hence into the food supply. The continuing incidences of e coli breakouts testify to the fact that this is a continuing problem. And you're going to solve it by getting Jack in the Box to cook their meat more thoroughly?!?!
You'd be paranoid too if you lost a 2 year old son from eating a Jack in the Box hamburger.
Tuesday, 07 July, 2009
John Lawrence said...
Art and notsofast:
Many people are already wirelessly hooked up to their doctor's office so he can monitor their blood pressure and/or other vital signs on a daily basis. This in fact might save these patients' lives without their having to come into the doctor's office on a daily basis. Many companies are encouraging their employees' to excercise and have better diets in order to cut down health care costs. Some even install gyms at the place of work. Is this authoritarian or simply good sense? You know, you can make these kind of practices out to be whatever you want them to be. What's good sense and voluntary participation to some is seen to be government intervention into our private lives by others. FYI, my suggestions are meant to be on a voluntary rather than coercive basis. Art and notsofast, please eat all the fat, sugar and salt you want, smoke all the cigarettes you want and please be as sedentary as you want. My ideal health care system would still pick up the bill for all your degenerative diseases, but it would require you to pay a little more for health insurance as compared to someone who excercised and ate healthy foods.
And thank you, Anonymous, for putting Art's and notsofast's paranoia in proper perspective.
Tuesday, 07 July, 2009
Art A Layman said...
John:
Good buddy, no I'm afraid that you just don't get it. Life is not fair. Why do things happen to some and not others? Who the hell knows? The loss of any, child especially, is heinous and who can fault the feelings of any parent who has experienced it. I'm against the death penalty but were my daughter ever raped, if left to me, the perpetrator would be pleading for death.
It's the government subsidization of corn that's the primary cause of e coli in the food supply. Free range grass grazing or hay fed beef cows do not introduce e coli into the food supply.The feed lot factory farms find it more convenient and less costly to feed cows corn rather than hay and then they stand around in their own manure which gets into the slaughterhouse and hence into the food supply. The continuing incidences of e coli breakouts testify to the fact that this is a continuing problem. And you're going to solve it by getting Jack in the Box to cook their meat more thoroughly?!?!
The subsidization of corn no doubt is a contributor but my understanding is that corn fed beef also produces less fat per pound than hay fed. That can reduce profits when the fat has to be trimmed off. Another contributing factor?
Now the rest of your comment, if not paranoia, is bullshit. Standing around in their own manure is certainly inhumane. I'm all in favor of treating animals, whatever their eventual plight, humanely. But if that's the cause of E. coli entering the food chain why do we not find E. coli infections coming from eating steak or ribs or rump roasts or even beef tongue (yuck!)?
The problem is in ground beef, more specifically hamburger. Why is that? Because it is made from the garbage residue from the cattle including intestine meat. Do you think that when a cow is slaughtered the E. coli or other bacteria die as well? In the process the intestines get ground up along with other garbage and the E. coli lives on. That's how it gets in the food chain!
The article I posted does say that the E. coli O157:H7 strain does come from the digestive, fermentation, process of the cow from eating corn rather than hay. It also goes on to say that feeding the cow hay for four or five days before slaughter eliminates that particular strain. Even hay fed cattle have E. coli in their intestines and thus, chances are, in the hamburger we eat, but our stomach acids kill all other strains so no infection ever sets in.
I have eaten fast food cheeseburgers since they've been around and never had an E. coli infection. At better restaurants and at home I prefer my cheeseburgers medium rare and have most of my life with no consequences other than getting fatter. In Raleigh, a number of years ago, a law was passed that all ground beef had to be cooked to x degrees in the center, yielding, at best, a medium well patty. If cooking thoroughly was not a solution we would have a plethora of E. coli infections here and everywhere.
Another simple solution would be irradiation in slaughter houses or restaurants but likely that's more expensive than thorough cooking.
People, men, women and children die in car accidents but we don't outlaw cars. Folks get electrocuted but we don't outlaw electricity. People die from choking to death on home garden grown vegetables but we don't outlaw food.
Get a grip John! Enlighten us if you will but give us facts not emotional rants. You saw a movie and thus you feel a need to spread fear and horror to the populace. You didn't learn that in the fine schools you attended. Sounds more like lessons from Sunday school.
Tuesday, 07 July, 2009
Art A Layman said...
John:
An addendum.
You'd be paranoid too if you lost a 2 year old son from eating a Jack in nthe Box hamburger.
I wouldn't be paranoid but I'd be damned angry.
On the other hand I wouldn't be wild about a mother who would feed her 2 y/o fast food in the first place.
Tuesday, 07 July, 2009
Art A Layman said...
John:
FYI, my suggestions are meant to be on a voluntary rather than coercive basis. Art and notsofast, please eat all the fat, sugar and salt you want, smoke all the cigarettes you want and please be as sedentary as you want. My ideal health care system would still pick up the bill for all your degenerative diseases, but it would require you to pay a little more for health insurance as compared to someone who excercised and ate healthy foods.
You presentation smacked more of coercive than voluntary. Have no problem with voluntary but if I volunteer I don't want it used to punish me.
The trade off to your valued hard earned funds is in doing all those dastardly things, notsofast and I will die sooner, perhaps yielding you a refund?
I'm on Medicare. I can live the Epicurean life to the hilt and it won't cost me a dime more than all you health food, exercise addicts.
Tuesday, 07 July, 2009
Anonymous said...
Art :I'm on Medicare. I can live the Epicurean life to the hilt and it won't cost me a dime more than all you health food, exercise addicts.
Your medicare provided lipitor is 100% free?
Tuesday, 07 July, 2009
Anonymous said...
Art Layman,
You apparently enjoy distorting other people's simple statements like, for example, about the obvious benefits of healthful living habits starting young, recognizing also it is never too late. Can one still possibly be struck by a serious illness or breakdown? Of course. Are the chances reduced? Also, of course. Can more healthful lifestyles in long term reduce health care costs? Also, of course. This is all that John Lawrence is saying. You sound like you are in not in an optimum state of physical health yourself, Mr. Layman? If true, have you thought about how you might have also contributed to your disability compared to taking refuge in the forces of bad luck, the wrong time, family genetics, or the unlucky smoker? Your amusing but exaggerated, self-convincing analysis of John Lawrence's remarks seems married to the latter cop-out excuses. Fine for you. But is this wise counsel for all the younger generations? I really don't believe John Lawrence is promoting health warranties or big brother controls or dictums of healthful lifestyles as your 'Artfully' imply. He is simply highlighting a greater awareness in our society of incentivizing and promoting (as do other advanced nations) the obvious quality of life benefits possible from focusing on delicious nutricious foods, being alert to dangerous food processing methods, routinely exercising and avoiding over-reliance on pills and drugs as automatic answers to all our physical, emotional discomforts and pains. You self-rightously appear to suggest this is all nonsense or disguised authoritorian preaching! But your comments are equally indirectly, if not directly, cocky and ironically inflexible. They amount to what I would call Mr. Art Layman's concept of healthful living nihilism. Doctors, of course, profit from people who are in stupendous denial of simple ways to improve chances for good health and longevity on this delicate environmental paradise called earth. By the way, it's a paradise also in a stage of escalating climatic diseases in major part caused by human lifestyles. I hope you are not in denial or pooh-poohing of this reality also?
Mr. Lawrence's preventive care ideas we can disagree with as to how they are formulated. But they are an extremely important part of Obama's real health care reforms which I pray will come.
Tuesday, 07 July, 2009
SMV said...
Art,
Just a couple of comments on food.
1. “The subsidization of corn no doubt is a contributor but my understanding is that corn fed beef also produces less fat per pound than hay fed. That can reduce profits when the fat has to be trimmed off. Another contributing factor?”
I believe that feeding cows corn increases the growth rate. It also increases marbling and fat % in general.
Grass and hay fed beef is leaner. Personally I do not like the taste of grass fed beef as well as grain fed beef, but that is my taste buds.
2. “Standing around in their own manure is certainly inhumane. I'm all in favor of treating animals, whatever their eventual plight, humanely. But if that's the cause of E. coli entering the food chain why do we not find E. coli infections coming from eating steak or ribs or rump roasts or even beef tongue (yuck!)?”
Manure on the outside of the cow makes contact with the meat as the hide is cleaned & removed. Cutting the meat contaminates the outside edges of the meat. High heat on the outside edge of a steak kills the E. coli. The inside of the steak remains uncontaminated.
Grinding meat mixes the E.coli into the center of the burger requiring the entire burger be heated to “X” degrees for “Y” period of time to kill the E. coli.
3. The other issue is using the infected Manure as fertilizer. If you eat vegetables raw that have been fertilized with infected manure and are not sufficiently cleaned you can get sick. (Salad anyone?)
4. Requiring irradiation in slaughter houses may be an acceptable solution, but it does give large processors an advantage over small processors. To me a better solution would be to test the meat as it leaves the processing plant. If it has high contamination them shut them down until the source of the contamination is addressed. This would allow different operations to use different methods to meet the health requirements. If cows raised on grass do not have the contamination issue then they could use lower cost methods for avoiding contamination.
I also support eliminating subsides for corn and soybeans.
Tuesday, 07 July, 2009
Art A Layman said...
Anonymous:
Gracious! I didn't realize he was that JOHN!
But is it my soul he wants to save? Or my waistline?
John doesn't say things. John preaches to us. He gives us the light, ours is but to follow it.
Optimum state of health? Besides the fact that that is relative, I don't know that I have ever known anyone who was in an "optimum state of health". Many thought so only to die of a heart attack a day later. Chances are that whatever the opposite of "optimum state of health" is, that is where you'll find me. So what? I'm alive and still kicking. Not quite as high as I used to but still kicking.
If true, have you thought about how you might have also contributed to your disability compared to taking refuge in the forces of bad luck, the wrong time, family genetics, or the unlucky smoker?
Now most here who know me will tell you that I take personal responsibility for everything that has happened to me in my life. It's nobody else's fault but my own. I need no lame excuses and I make no apologies. I will live until I die. That's it! That's all there is! In the meantime, I have loved and enjoyed my life. Heart attacks, aneurysms, broken bones, flus, acid reflux are minor blips in the grand scheme of things. I have much less a desire in living forever than enjoying what living I get to do. If the options were immortality versus mortality perhaps I'd have a different view. Alas.
If I practice x, as opposed to y, are there guarantees? If I practice y am I guaranteed poor health, a meandering painful death? No! Hence, I'll take my chances. What the hell is life without risks? Humans don't come with cocoons.
But is this wise counsel for all the younger generations?
Fine! Let him find that venue where "young" people aggregate to ponder the wisdom of their elders (good luck finding that one). Ain't a lot of "young" people here. Granted John and I are at an age where many appear as "young" people but in the vernacular most of the folks here ain't "young" people.
I really don't believe John Lawrence is promoting health warranties or big brother controls or dictums of healthful lifestyles as your 'Artfully' imply.
Now you have no idea just how comforting your beliefs are to me. As we speak I'm running them to the bank to see if I can deposit them. On the other hand, "you say either and I say neither". Whose views, beliefs, are the better informed? Even more; do I care what you believe? Does anyone, beyond John, of course, care? Authors always appreciate validation.
He is simply highlighting a greater awareness in our society of incentivizing and promoting (as do other advanced nations) the obvious quality of life benefits possible from focusing on delicious nutricious foods, being alert to dangerous food processing methods, routinely exercising and avoiding over-reliance on pills and drugs as automatic answers to all our physical, emotional discomforts and pains.
Whew! What a sentence! And this is new news? Doctors and every manner of health professional has been telling us this for most of my life, and that's a lot of years. I need John to preach to me more of conventional wisdom? Puhleese!
Continued
Tuesday, 07 July, 2009
Art A Layman said...
Anonymous:
Continuing the enlightenment...
You self-rightously appear to suggest this is all nonsense or disguised authoritorian preaching! But your comments are equally indirectly, if not directly, cocky and ironically inflexible. They amount to what I would call Mr. Art Layman's concept of healthful living nihilism. Doctors, of course, profit from people who are in stupendous denial of simple ways to improve chances for good health and longevity on this delicate environmental paradise called earth.
Wow! Are you a poet in another life? One could posit that your writing seems similar to another regular poster here. He, who shall not be named, but, no doubt should be obeyed. I self-righteously assert most of what I write here. I am a self-righteous person. However, one could make a strong argument that my self-righteousness doesn't hold a candle to John's or perhaps yours.
Actually I have not disputed John's principle concepts, rather his emphasis in subjecting us all to them and once doing so charging us for the privilege. I have also disputed his "facts" which in political parlance would be labelled spin, at best, and half-truths, at worst.
Preachers make their living by selling salvation or doom. Salvation or Hell and Damnation, take your choice. From laymen I expect a higher standard. If you want to pontificate get your facts correct and don't shortchange me. I want the whole truth! I can handle it!
One more similarity between you and the unnamed one, you both, at times, fail to read or comprehend that to which you take great exception
Tuesday, 07 July, 2009
Art A Layman said...
Anonymous:
It was good though. Took me awhile to figure it out
Tuesday, 07 July, 2009
Art A Layman said...
SMV:
I believe that feeding cows corn increases the growth rate. It also increases marbling and fat % in general.
I stand corrected. Might be I misread what I was reading. Farming is near the bottom of my knowledge base. However improving the growth rate would be an economic reason for corn feeding, which was my main point. It's not all done because the government subsidizes corn.
Manure on the outside of the cow makes contact with the meat as the hide is cleaned & removed. Cutting the meat contaminates the outside edges of the meat. High heat on the outside edge of a steak kills the E. coli. The inside of the steak remains uncontaminated.
Grinding meat mixes the E.coli into the center of the burger requiring the entire burger be heated to “X” degrees for “Y” period of time to kill the E. coli.
Thanks for the "DUH!" moment. What was the point of my assertion?
3. The other issue is using the infected Manure as fertilizer. If you eat vegetables raw that have been fertilized with infected manure and are not sufficiently cleaned you can get sick. (Salad anyone?)
Valid point. Might not tighter restrictions on manure for fetilizer be called for?
4. Requiring irradiation in slaughter houses may be an acceptable solution, but it does give large processors an advantage over small processors. To me a better solution would be to test the meat as it leaves the processing plant. If it has high contamination them shut them down until the source of the contamination is addressed. This would allow different operations to use different methods to meet the health requirements. If cows raised on grass do not have the contamination issue then they could use lower cost methods for avoiding contamination.
Is not, supposedly, the testing taking place now? Could it be that some processors ignore the test results? Surely not in a "free market" laissez-faire economy, we know that all the players follow the regs to a T.
Shut them down? And this offers no advantage to large versus small processors?
How many processors limit the cattle they buy based on feedlots? If they don't, in for a dime, in for a dollar.
Is anyone to be shocked that you would favor eliminating subsidies
Tuesday, 07 July, 2009
Art A Layman said...
SMV:
Would you care to explain or did all the lectures on healthy living make you decide to take pot shots?
Taking pot shots is new from me? Damn! All this time I've been failing.
Think a little bit and maybe you'll begin to understand, even agree
Tuesday, 07 July, 2009
SMV said...
Art,
“Is not, supposedly, the testing taking place now? Could it be that some processors ignore the test results? Surely not in a "free market" laissez-faire economy, we know that all the players follow the regs to a T.”
“Shut them down? And this offers no advantage to large versus small processors?”
One of the complaints in the literature I have read is that the regulations specify equipment and facilities rather than specifying the outcome (i.e. levels of E. coli). If you don’t set limits you cannot shut them down when the limits are exceeded.
The requirements favor the large producers verses the small processors. One requirement often noted is a separate bathroom used only by the inspector. Structuring the requirements this way limits competition and drives up profits.
Tuesday, 07 July, 2009
John Lawrence said...
Art said:
I'm on Medicare. I can live the Epicurean life to the hilt and it won't cost me a dime more than all you health food, exercise addicts.
Yes, but it will drive up the cost of Medicare. But if you don't care about systemic problems, ...
Wednesday, 08 July, 2009
John Lawrence said...
In addition to irradiation, hamburger, or processed meat that passes for hamburger, is being washed with chlorine at some meat packing plants to get rid of e coli. Before long food will bear no resemblance to what nature provided but will be an assemblage of chemicals with the proper components of salt, fat and sugar along with the appropriate "mouth feel" to satisfy consumers. It doesn't take a PhD to figure out that such artificial products loaded with preservatives and bovine growth hormone and vegetables sprayed with pesticides might not be conducive to good health in the long run. But if you're like Art and take the attitude that in the long run we're all dead so what the heck live for the moment and enjoy life while you can, you won't give a dip shit about healthy living. Bring on the cigars and brandy! Hell, bring on the dancing girls too!
Buying food locally from farmers with good farming practices might be an alternative well worth the extra money. But, alas, poor people will still find it cheaper to eat at fast food restaurants which is where most of the homeless eat
Wednesday, 08 July, 2009
Art A Layman said...
John:
Yes, but it will drive up the cost of Medicare. But if you don't care about systemic problems ...
Not if I'm the only one who doesn't follow your advice. I'll just be a drop in the bucket.
And remember I'll die sooner and Medicare costs will go back down.
Wednesday, 08 July, 2009
Art A Layman said...
John:
Bring on the cigars and brandy! Hell, bring on the dancing girls too!
Whoopee!!!! If you gotta go down, why not in flames?
My kinda guy!!!!
Wednesday, 08 July, 2009
