On Thu, Oct 8, 2009 at 2:24 PM, Asad Haider <[email protected]> wrote:
> I'm not sure how interested people are in issues like this, but I wonder if
> anyone has seen Gary Taubes' book Good Calories, Bad Calories (based on this
> epoch-making NYT article:
> http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/07/magazine/what-if-it-s-all-been-a-big-fat-lie.html?sec=health),
> which fully demolishes the vegan liberal elite's propaganda that working
> class Americans are fat because of a weakness of will or a consumerist
> mania.


The NYT article talks about the Atkins diet and other fashionable
fads, but the problems with industrialized agriculture are far more
fundamental than that and can hardly be dismissed as "vegan liberal
elite propaganda". I'd refer you to Michael Pollan who makes a very
well-argued case for diversity in our food instead of breaking
everything down into carbs, proteins, minerals and other chemical
components and then arguing about the relative importance of each:
http://www.michaelpollan.com/indefense.php



> I realize that the issue of overconsumption raised here is not really about
> eating too much food, but Arundhati's unfortunate comment is an example of
> how the highly destructive activities of capital--in this case, the
> colonization of the body--are so often ignored in favor of moralistic
> attacks on the "American" lifestyle.


Lets be clear: more than 90% of messages on PEN-L *are* moralistic
attacks on the "American" lifestyle. The only point of disagreement is
over whether it is all the fault of a tiny capitalist elite, or does
the "working class" have its issues as well.
-raghu.



-- 
Never say, "Oops!"; always say, "Ah, interesting!"
_______________________________________________
pen-l mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l

Reply via email to