Sunday, February 19, 2012
Saturday, February 11, 2012
Wing nation, factory food.
Beyond the attention to the normal misogynistic, patriotically tinged and otherwise money wasting commercials that tend to dominate the non-football related reporting following the 'big game,' the next most analyzed item was the fare consumed during the game. Beer, yes, we know that one...and wings yes, we know that one too.
But how many wings exactly?
Apparently, according to officials, folks in the U.S. ate 1.25 billion chicken wings (100 million pounds). That's a lot of chickens. And that is only a portion of what is consumed on average in a year (roughly 25 billion total).
Prepare to get sudsy, because here is where I stand on the soapbox. The enormous amount of seasoning, barbeque sauce, hot sauce and dips masks an incredibly unsustainable food production system. Destructive to the environment and economically, socially and morally untenable; the large-scale industrial farming of chicken is only fed (forgive the pun) by moments of intense consumption such as this. A side-note: the same could be said about turkeys in November.
The industrially produced chicken is one of the most manipulated livestock products in the U.S. Engineered and selected for particular traits, from birth chicks are selected, beaks soldered off (to avoid pecking in tight conditions), fed a diet of hormones, antibiotics, GMO soy and corn and offal. Bred in a contained atmosphere and given only weeks to mature, many become sick and die. The economic burden and risk is on the producer. The environmental externalities are taken on by the consumer.
And so on.
But how many wings exactly?
Apparently, according to officials, folks in the U.S. ate 1.25 billion chicken wings (100 million pounds). That's a lot of chickens. And that is only a portion of what is consumed on average in a year (roughly 25 billion total).
Prepare to get sudsy, because here is where I stand on the soapbox. The enormous amount of seasoning, barbeque sauce, hot sauce and dips masks an incredibly unsustainable food production system. Destructive to the environment and economically, socially and morally untenable; the large-scale industrial farming of chicken is only fed (forgive the pun) by moments of intense consumption such as this. A side-note: the same could be said about turkeys in November.
The industrially produced chicken is one of the most manipulated livestock products in the U.S. Engineered and selected for particular traits, from birth chicks are selected, beaks soldered off (to avoid pecking in tight conditions), fed a diet of hormones, antibiotics, GMO soy and corn and offal. Bred in a contained atmosphere and given only weeks to mature, many become sick and die. The economic burden and risk is on the producer. The environmental externalities are taken on by the consumer.
And so on.
Monday, February 06, 2012
Sunday, February 05, 2012
The ads....
I object.
The institutional memory is faulty.
AB's insistence that "they say a man's work is never done" is an insult.
That phrase comes from the 'working' woman.
The institutional memory is faulty.
AB's insistence that "they say a man's work is never done" is an insult.
That phrase comes from the 'working' woman.
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