a weaponized cultural export

Exporting a deadly piece of The new way if American life - here to the Gulf states.

And the Guardian attempts to connect some dots on what ignited the obesity epidemic. Blame part if it on Nixon ;)

 

Comments

[Roger]

The frigging fracking end is near.

United States oil production peaked 42 years ago, and the production rate has been declining ever since. Peak oil is defined as the point when about 50% of the known oil has been removed from the ground, and the second half becomes more and more difficult and expensive to extract. Now expensive new technologies have slowed down that rate of production decline and have hastened the point of full depletion. The production of natural gas in the United States peaked 39 years ago. Again, new technologies such as fracking are speeding this country toward depletion.

The world is fat because of the over abundance of inexpensive fossil fuels. We live on it. It takes ten calories of fossil fuel to produce a calorie of food. The profit margins on high calorie, low nutrient foods are much higher than on low calorie, high nutrient foods. More and more people around the world are turning away from eating healthy food to eating what tastes good. The end of sensible eating started just down the road from here in 1930 with the invention of the Twinkie. Damn, did they taste good!

"Enriched wheat flour, sugar, corn syrup, niacin, water, high fructose corn syrup, vegetable and/or animal shortening – containing one or more of partially hydrogenated soybean, cottonseed and canola oil, and beef fat, dextrose, whole eggs, modified corn starch, cellulose gum, whey, leavenings (sodium acid pyrophosphate, baking soda, monocalcium phosphate), salt, cornstarch, corn flour, corn syrup, solids, mono and diglycerides, soy lecithin, polysorbate 60, dextrin, calcium caseinate, sodium stearoyl lactylate, wheat gluten, calcium sulphate, natural and artificial flavors, caramel color, yellow #5, red #40.[7]"

What part of a Twinkie may be equated a single healthy fruit or vegetable?

Just as oil and natural gas continue to pour out of the ground, so does the expansion of world population and our waistlines. The day will come before 2100, even with continual increases in renewable energy production, when fossil fuels (including coal) will be insufficient to produce the critical fertilizers and support farming and transportation needed to adequately feed the world's burgeoning billions. The world's annual nonrenewable energy consumption is astronomical. Replacing even a small portion of that with renewal energy sources will take a massive effort that is barely beginning around the world. More and more people around the world are demanding more bodily comfort, requiring greater expenditure of energy on heating and cooling.

How much longer does the world have before that massive bubble collapses?