Liberal pontificating at its finest

G8 summit: Gordon Brown has eight-course dinner before food crisis talks

Gordon Brown and his fellow world leaders have sparked outrage after it was disclosed they enjoyed a six-course lunch followed by an eight-course dinner at the G8 summit where the global food crisis tops the agenda.

The Prime Minister was served 24 different dishes during his first day at the summit – just hours after urging the world to reduce the “unnecessary demand” for food and calling on British families to cut back on their wasteful use of food.

I certainly hope Brown called for the reduction in the “unnecessary demand” and waste in food usage. How else could he and the other members of Napoleon and Squealer’s crew dine so sumptuously? Can’t expect them to eat slops now can we?

Mr Brown and his wife Sarah were among 15 guests at the “blessings of the earth and the sea social dinner”.

The dinner consisted of 18 dishes in eight courses including caviar, smoked salmon, Kyoto beef and a “G8 fantasy dessert”. [snip]

African leaders including the heads of Ethiopia, Tanzania and Senegal who had taken part in talks during the day were not invited to the function.

They had a scrumptious one course meal of bark, beetles and babies. The G8 did pay for this repast so no harm, no foul.

The dinner came just hours after a “working lunch” consisting of six courses including white asparagus and truffle soup, crab and a supreme of chicken. [snip]

URRRRRP! Migawd, they forgot the Tums course.

On the flight to the summit, Mr Brown urged Britons to cut food waste as part of a global drive to help avert the food crisis.

Opposition politicians and charities condemned the extravagant meals.

This is what opposition politicians do wile waiting to not be opposition politicians. Then they scarf down huge quantities of lavish victuals and urge others to conserve.

Dominic Nutt (isn’t he aptly named) of Save the Children, said: “It is deeply hypocritical that they should be lavishing course after course on world leaders when there is a food crisis and millions cannot afford a decent meal to eat.

“If the G8 wants to betray the hopes of a generation of children, it is going the right way about it. The food crisis is an emergency and the G8 must treat it as that.”

Andrew Mitchell, the shadow International Development Secretary, said: “The G8 have made a bad start to their summit, with excessive cost and lavish consumption.

“Surely it is not unreasonable for each leader to give a guarantee that they will stand by their solemn pledges of three years ago at Gleneagles to help the world’s poor. All of us are watching, waiting and listening.”

Mr Brown arrived at the G8 summit held on the holiday island of Hokkaido in northern Japan on Monday morning.

He arrived on a plane chartered from Texas, America, which had to fly empty for thousands of miles to pick up the Prime Minister and his entourage.

Unlike other countries, Britain does not have an official plane to transport the Prime Minister. [snip]

Look for this to help with Britain’s global warming stance too. Nice little portfolio of positional pornography the Prime Minister carries.

Can you offer a better reason for killing all governments? We can return to coveting and pillaging on our own. Cut out the middleman. Those that enjoy penury, can built little towns and call themselves peaceniks, then slaves.

Remember, the meek don’t inherit squat!

We can keep out the tomatoes, why not the illegals

Salmonella fear traps tomatoes in Mexico

MEXICO CITY - Export-quality tomatoes labeled “Ready to Eat” in English flooded Mexico City markets on Thursday after a salmonella scare in the U.S. trapped them south of the border.
[snip]
Instead, he now sends his top quality tomatoes to markets around Mexico where they sell for a third the U.S. price. He leaves lesser-quality produce, normally sold in Mexico, to rot.

At the capital’s bustling central food market, truckloads of tomatoes are now arriving in boxes originally meant for the U.S. “Sweet treat. Premium quality,” says lettering in English _ wording lost on most Mexican Spanish speakers.

The top quality tomatoes now sell for 35 cents a pound (8 pesos per kilogram) in the capital _ a third below normal prices.

Most customers don’t know about the U.S. salmonella scare, and those who do, don’t seem alarmed. Some shoppers said they’ve always been more careful than Americans in preparing produce _ they have to be, because vegetables sold in Mexico are not held to the same standards as those certified for export.

“What ends up here is second-rate,” said Sergio Martinez, a 40-year-old bricklayer who bought 4 1/2 pounds of tomatoes at the central market Thursday.

“Almost all vegetables are contaminated with something because they water them with sewer water and put on a lot of chemicals,” he said, noting that he washes all his produce with bleach and water.

About 120,000 people were sickened by salmonella in Mexico last year, according to Mexican health authorities _ three times the average 40,000 cases reported in the U.S., according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. [snip]

We let the salmonella laden illegals come up here to pick our food, circumventing the prophylactic measures the FDA and USDA has in place.
Hey McCain, let as many illegals in as we currently let in tomatoes. Spray them with bleach and water too!

An orgy of feel good activity here in Congress and among the garden variety eco-idiots produced the following:

Food price escalation transversing the globe

[snip]
From subsistence farmers eating rice in Ecuador to gourmets feasting on escargot in France, consumers worldwide face rising food prices in what analysts call a perfect storm of conditions. Freak weather is a factor. But so are dramatic changes in the global economy, including higher oil prices, lower food reserves and growing consumer demand in China and India.[snip]

Among the driving forces are petroleum prices, which increase the cost of everything from fertilizers to transport to food processing. Rising demand for meat and dairy in rapidly developing countries such as China and India is sending up the cost of grain, used for cattle feed, as is the demand for raw materials to make biofuels.[snip]

Meanwhile, record oil prices have boosted the cost of fertilizer and freight for bulk commodities — up 80 percent in 2007 over 2006. The oil spike has also turned up the pressure for countries to switch to biofuels, which the FAO says will drive up the cost of corn, sugar and soybeans “for many more years to come.”

In Japan, the ethanol boom is hitting the country in mayonnaise and miso, two important culinary ingredients, as biofuels production pushes up the price of cooking oil and soybeans. [snip]

In decades past, farm subsidies and support programs allowed major grain exporting countries to hold large surpluses, which could be tapped during food shortages to keep prices down. But new trade policies have made agricultural production much more responsive to market demands — putting global food reserves at their lowest in a quarter century.

Without reserves, bad weather and poor harvests have a bigger impact on prices.

“The market is extremely nervous. With the slightest news about bad weather, the market reacts,” said economist Abbassian. [snip]

But attempts to control prices in one country often have dire effects elsewhere. China’s restrictions on wheat flour exports resulted in a price spike in Indonesia this year, according to the FAO. Ukraine and Russia imposed export restrictions on wheat, causing tight supplies and higher prices for importing countries. Partly because of the cost of imported wheat, Peru’s military has begun eating bread made from potato flour, a native crop.(emphasis added)

“We need a response on a large scale, either the regional or international level,” said Brian Halweil of the environmental research organization Worldwatch Institute. “All countries are tied enough to the world food markets that this is a global crisis.”

Try a couple choruses of Kumbaya, which has more effect than giving the UN any food or money. Unless of course, the idea is to fatten up a collection of UN approved dictators.
Let us see the the idiot greenies undo this problem.

This is downright unamerican anti-consumerism.

I’m delighted to have this opportunity to engage with you about my new book, In Defense of Food. Anyone who’s had a chance to read it–or even just glance at the cover–knows that the book is my attempt to help readers navigate what has become a treacherous food landscape, made especially confusing by the rise of something I call “nutritionism.” [snip]

[]…and because the food industry uses this sketchy science to make health claims for distinctly unhealthy foods. Heart-healthy whole-grain Cocoa Puffs?!?! You get the idea. [snip]

I try to distill this cultural wisdom into a series of eating algorithms–mental tools for navigating the food landscape and eating well. Instead of talking about how to get your antioxidants or probiotics, my rules of thumb go more like this:

1. Don’t eat anything your great-grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food.
2. Avoid food products with more than five ingredients; with ingredients you can’t pronounce.
3. Don’t eat anything that won’t eventually rot.
4. Shop the perimeter of the supermarket, where the food is least processed.
5. Avoid food products that make health claims.
6. Eat meals and eat them only at tables. (And no, a desk is not a table.)
7. Eat only until you’re 4/5 full. (An ancient Japanese injunction.)
8. Pay more, eat less.
9. Diversify your diet and eat wild foods when you can.
10. Eat slowly, with other people whenever possible, and always with pleasure.

There are more, but this should give you some idea of how I approach the question of what and how to eat. [snip]
A couple of others I’ve collected:

“If it arrives through the car window, it isn’t food.”
“Eat all the junk food you want–as long as you cook it yourself.”

Actually some pretty good stuff!