nosh nook #151 - monday, october 12, 2009

where they grow our junk food (link)
10.11.09 - toronto star - by margaret webb

if there's one thing that canadians like, it's saying "ay," ay? if there's another thing that they like, it's hockey, ay? if i were to name a third thing that canadians enjoy, it's socialized medicine, ay? if there's something beyond that that's a favorite of canadians (in addition to the aforementioned first three things), it's nickelback, ay? if i was asked to name an additional thing that canadians can get behind, it's cheap junk food, ay? apparently, they can't get enough of it.

since canadians love cheap junk food so much, the toronto star's margaret webb went out in search of a junk food farm. as she notes, "such farms are not so easy to spot. no fields of dorito bags waving in the breeze, no orchards blooming with soda pop, no soil bursting with 99-cent burgers." the canadians are hiding their junk food farms just like the iranians are with their nuclear weapons program. sanctions! basically, the canadians have disguised their junk food farms as soybean & corn farms & those two crops go into a ton of crappy food. soybeans make feed for livestock which makes burgers, soy oil makes lards & corn goes into syrups, sweeteners, starches & oil. who doesn't like burgers, lard & syrups?

as the article describes, canadian farmers are under a lot of pressure. canadians want cheap food (they put less of their income toward food than any country in the world) & with globalization, farmers face a ton of competition. as a result, they have to farm every available inch of land, a practice that has its environmental impacts. one such river, the sydenham, has "turned the colour of chocolate milk." farmers such as dave ferguson have little to no choice but to grow soybean & corn. he's trying to change that by educating other farmers, but as david jenkins (a top canadian nutritional researcher) notes, without a dramatic shift in public policy, "improving our diets through education and persuasion alone will take decades." decades? that's a heck of a long time, ay?...& i thought the u.s. farm system was messed up.