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Archives
- November, 2004
Nuking Our Food – November 26, 2004
Health Canada is planning to expand its food irradiation
program. Didn’t know there was one? You’re not alone, but it and the
expansion have been shrouded in secrecy. You probably also didn’t know
that this is International Anti-Food Irradiation Week, during which
organizations around the world have been protesting the use of
irradiation to preserve food, a technique that is heavily promoted by
the nuclear industry.
The
Sierra Club of Canada today held a news conference to point out that draft
regulations to expand food irradiation to include ground beef, chicken,
prawns and mangoes were published two years ago and consultations were
held. They say that Health Canada has yet to respond to the issues
raised and “food irradiation has fallen off the radar in
Parliament.” They and a variety of other interested groups want to
know what is happening behind the scenes and have called on the Health
Minister to “return transparency to the regulatory process”. The
Sierra Club’s call for an open debate on the issue is echoed in a
letter to the Minister that has been signed by groups representing
environmental, agricultural, consumer and health civil society.
Food irradiation uses nuclear technologies from the Cold War to preserve food
by killing fungi, bacteria and insects. It is being promoted to prevent
salmonella and other types of food poisoning. It is supposed to increase
shelf life and allow food distributors to ship food farther, and
supposedly reduce the need for pesticides. (Since the pesticide lobby
has been silent on the issue, we have to assume the latter claim isn’t
true.)
Exposing food to gamma radiation (Cobalt 60 and Cesium 137) has
numerous health risks, including the creation of carcinogenic
compounds such as benzene, formaldehyde and lipid peroxides as well as
unique radiolytic products, the majority of which have not been
identified or studied. Irradiation destroys vitamins
and minerals including vitamin A, C, E, K, thiamine, B2, B3, B6, B12 and
folic acid, as well as bacteria that indicate the expiration of meat, thus removing
the indicator to consumers and food service workers that it is not safe
for consumption. By allowing food to be shipped from farther away,
irradiation indirectly damages the environment and attacks the
livelihood of local farmers, distributors and independent retailers.
Critics also point out that if food were produced under cleaner
conditions, there would be less need for such radical food preservation
techniques, and that, in effect, irradiation of ground meat will only
decrease the already lax standards under which livestock are raised and slaughtered.
There is also, obviously, an occupational hazard to the workers who do
the irradiation.
When the draft regulations permitting expansion were
published at the end of November, 2002, Health Canada quickly organized
information sessions on the proposed regulations. But their proximity to
Christmas limited the chance for the public to learn about
food irradiation and send in their comments. This might be a good time for Canadians to
contact their Members of Parliament and ask that the government act as
rationally about this health threat as it did earlier this week about
trans fats (see my previous blog entry, below). Banning food irradiation
wouldn’t make Canada a leader, since countries like Germany, Sweden and New Zealand do not allow food irradiation, but it
would be the right thing to do anyway. And it wouldn’t be a huge step;
although irradiation of potatoes, onions, wheat and wheat flour and
spices are currently allowed in Canada, irradiated foods have not been
marketed due to the high cost and the risk of a consumer backlash.
As today’s letter to the Health Minister states:
“There are cleaner, safer, and cheaper alternatives to food
irradiation that will ensure food safety, while protecting human health
and the environment.”
Posted: 2004/11/26
10:39 AM
Banning
Trans Fats – November 24,
2004
Canada has shown, yet again, that it is willing to
take the lead on important social and health issues. This week, the
government passed a motion put forward by the opposition New Democrat
Party calling for legislation or regulations within one year that would
ban trans fats from food sold in Canada. In doing so, it is only the
second country in the world (Denmark is the other) to limit the use of
the artery-clogging substance. A task force will recommend how to
replace trans fats with healthier alternatives. The
NDP’s initiative originated with the work of Winnipeg Member of
Parliament Pat Martin, the primary anti-trans fat
advocate in Canada. Congratulations to Canada’s politicians for doing
the right thing. Now I don’t suppose their American counterparts would
consider following this great example....
Trans fats are ubiquitous in processed food, found
in most baked and fried foods, in many so-called “low-fat” products
and in prepared foods like fish sticks and frozen waffles. On labeled
foods, look for the words “partially hydrogenated”, “hydrogenated” or “shortening”.
Some companies seem to see the legislative writing on the wall and are
working to eliminate trans fats from their products. For instance, Kraft
now markets a trans-fat-free Oreo cookie and Smucker’s has rejigged the brand that used to epitomize trans
fats by introducing trans fat-free Crisco shortening.
The cooking
oils used in restaurants – from fast food outlets through many higher
quality places – are a major cause of high trans fat consumption via
partially hydrogenated oils. And that makes it harder for consumers to
avoid the deadly fat. A California non-profit group called
BanTransFats.com, Inc., thinks it can change the
situation one restaurant and one city at a time. It has been
instrumental in making Tiburon, California, near San Francisco,
“America’s First Trans Fat-Free City. The group worked with
restaurants owners and managers in Tiburon’s 18 restaurants, and all
now use trans fat-free cooking oil for frying.
Some critics have been trying to turn this into yet
another rights issue, complaining about the government turning into “food
police” and telling them what to do. Sorry folks, governments have a
role to play in protecting us from harm wrought by conscienceless
corporations who put the health of their bottom line ahead of public
health. Kraft and Smuckers (to name just a few) have been able to find a
replacement for trans fats, given a nudge by consumers and backed up by
legislators.
Posted: 2004/11/24
10:33 PM
Learning to Use Power for Change – November 18,
2004
Our provincial government has announced some
long-awaited democratic reforms. Unfortunately, they are similar in
nature to the so-called reforms they are imposing on public education
– tinkering with a broken system rather than fixing it. (Details about
the problem and the government’s token solution can be found on the
Democracy Watch website.)
But I shouldn’t be surprised. In the same way
that children in school are ruled and regulated by a group of friendly
“experts”, we are governed by a professional class of politicians. Instead of self-government, we have a
representative democracy in which the elite have centralized power, just as power is centralized in school. And that is
the way those in charge like it. It is simply easier to tell us what is good
for us and perhaps sell us something than to have us meddling in education,
politics or economics.
In this kind of democracy, a citizen’s role is
not to author public policy, but merely to influence or comment on it.
The object of political debate in a schooled society is not to discuss
but to persuade, in the same way that a child wheedles and pouts and
throws a tantrum in order to get her way. Because we have never learned
to take the initiative to make change, we resort to criticizing and
complaining...or to misbehaving when the teacher is looking the other
way.
Physical domination because of size, age, gender or
some other supposed right has taught us that power flows from the top down. Big kids bully little
kids, teachers and principals have power over their students, strong men
abuse physically weaker women and children, big countries invade smaller
ones and everyone trashes the environment. Most of us accept this
distribution of power, as well as its often brutal consequences. Those
who do protest are made to feel like rebels and outsiders.
Sometimes the protesters are successful. We change
a program here, save a building from demolition there, secure some extra
funding for our favorite issue, protect a park from a road that is being
widened, persuade politicians to amend a few pieces of legislation. But
even when these activities accomplish what they were designed to do,
they are just fighting symptoms and effects, rather than the root cause,
which is misuse of power.
We can look at power negatively, or as the ability
to control what happens to us...or at least to work for alternatives.
Unfortunately, many of us have never even experienced the kind of
collective power that can be used to build alternative solutions. Our
schooling has led us to misunderstand the difference between the power
to do something and the force that makes us do something. We were told
one too many times to sit in our seats and listen, to put up our hands
when we had to go to the bathroom, to buy what we were offered and that
children should be seen and not heard.
Posted: 2004/11/18
5:33 PM
Legislating Learning – November 15,
2004
Perhaps frustrated by their inability to engage kids in learning,
legislators in various places around the world seem intent on tinkering
with so-called compulsory education laws. In France, a new report on
school reform recommends lowering the compulsory attendance age to 5
from 6. In various US states, charter school legislation is being used
to lure home-educated students back under the public umbrella and
occasional attempts are made to impose greater restrictions on
home-based learners. In Ontario, Canada, the provincial government has recently
said it plans to introduce legislation that will increase the legal
school leaving age from 16 to 18. Or as the Premier put it, they are
going to “require our young people to keep learning until age 18.” He
was quoted in the newspapers as telling policy makers, “It
is not our plan...to incarcerate young people because they fail to
continue to learn.” Well, that is a relief, since the prisons
would certainly be full!
What on earth makes this seemingly intelligent (and
certainly well schooled) man think that kids who want to drop out are learning in the first
place? What makes him think that a law ever made anybody learn? Was this
just a slip of the tongue, or does a head of government really believe
what he said? To his government’s credit, they are apparently considering
the creation of alternative
learning situations for young people (read: a slight spin on school), as
well as co-op programs, and have
already begun promoting apprenticeship programs. But, as Toronto Star
columnist Slinger wrote on Saturday in a very funny
column, why stop people from learning at age 18? If learning is going to
be compulsory, why discriminate based on age?
Posted: 2004/11/15
10:40 AM
The Trouble With Perfection – November 8, 2004
Spontaneity is
one of the great strengths of little children; they live in the moment, following their curiosity, darting
here and there, picking things up and putting them down, trying,
exploring, laughing. School frowns on spontaneity, as do many jobs and
even most so-called recreational pursuits. So, like anything else that
is avoided or underused, spontaneity withers away in most people’s
lives. We become shy and inhibited about trying new things, about
expressing ourselves spontaneously. And that is unfortunate, since
spontaneity is one of the components of creativity, something that we
can all use more of in our personal and working lives.
Spontaneity also dies when we develop the
compulsion to do things perfectly (which is a slippery definition at the
best of times anyway). Take drawing, singing or playing the piano, for
instance. Yes, some people are fabulously talented professional artists
and musicians; but we can all draw and make music as a way of expressing
ourselves, communicating and just generally enjoying and enhancing our
lives. That is, if we don’t become too inhibited to do so because
somebody – art critic, teacher, parent, our own low self-esteem inner
critic – defines what is good art and tells us we belong in the
audience.
The road to perfection is littered with landmines
waiting to kill the joy of creativity and spontaneity. Take the kid who
is having fun noodling around on the piano. Somebody thinks that kid
might “make something” of their apparent talent if they are
“serious enough” about doing so. That’s when the budding artist
has to stop playing, get a teacher and start practicing. A rigorous
schedule is followed, there are competitions to take part it, always on
the road to the holy grail of perfection. Yes, there are those talented
exceptions who are eager to hone their special skills, but for the rest
of us, the joy and spontaneity of play can easily flee as a task becomes
goal-oriented. And how sad to be taught that learning is work, that
trial and error is inefficient, that there is something wrong with the
joy of discovery and creation, that the only valid pursuits in life are
those done for reward or for other people’s reactions.
Posted: 2004/11/08
10:01 AM
Thinking Big – November 4, 2004
One of the things about being an editor is that I receive lots of books in the
mail. These review copies are both a joy and a problem (what to do with
all the books and when to read them?). I try at least to glance at all
those which appear to be relevant to my work. And last night I dipped
into a small paperback with the simple name Anyway (2004, Berkley
Books) because its subtitle included the words “Finding Personal
Meaning in a Crazy World”. This week I’ve been thinking that the
world is a bit crazier than usual.
Author Kent M.
Keith has reclaimed some writing he’d done in university that had
taken on a life of its own via the Internet. His ten “Paradoxical
Commandments” are thoughts like: “Honesty and frankness make you
vulnerable. Be honest and frank anyway.” and “The biggest men and
women with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest men and
women with the smallest minds. Think big anyway.” and “People are
illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered. Love them anyway.”
Most of us have self-centered or even narcissistic people in our lives and probably find
it a challenge to love them anyway. These folks – Keith calls them
“small people” – see things solely in terms of their own power,
comfort or convenience. Now, a little self-interest is a good thing, and
some people – women who grew up a generation ago, especially –
struggle with the problem of being self-sacrificing to a fault. But
“small people” believe that what is best for them is also best for
their families, organizations or communities. In other words, their
lives are no bigger than their immediate wants, needs and fears and they
are often threatened by big ideas.
The founding fathers of the United States had a big idea
for a democratic country populated with independent individuals. Susan
B. Anthony and Martin Luther King Jr. had big ideas about the equality
of women and blacks. I hope that fear hasn’t permanently sidelined or
skewed those big ideas in America. In a globalized world, the lives of
Americans are, indeed, much bigger than their immediate wants, needs and
fears. Another great American, Henry David Thoreau, asked a pertinent
question: “Could a greater miracle take place than for us to look
through each other’s eyes for an instant?” Good advice for both
those Americans who are happy with the results of the U.S. presidential
election and those in America and the rest of the world who aren’t.
Posted: 2004/11/04
11:17 AM
Breaking Free of Schools – November 3, 2004
Learning should be taken out of the hands of
antiquated school systems and put into the hands of learners, argues a
professor and education consultant in an eye-popping article in new
issue of The Futurist magazine. Now there is nothing
particularly new in “Learning for Ourselves – a New Paradigm for
Education” by John C. Lundt, a professor of educational leadership at
the University of Montana and co-author of the text book Leaving School:
Finding Education (Matanzas Press, 2004). Many writers – from Holt to
Gatto, to me – have long argued that the structure of our schools was
designed to meet the needs of a world that no longer exists and thus
inhibits learning, and that there are better ways to get an education.
But this article confirms a hunch I’ve had for sometime now that some
mainstream educators are finally “getting it”. In fact, we’ve
recently had to go into a third printing of my 2000 book Challenging
Assumptions in Education due to the increasing number of post-secondary
educators who are using it in their courses. In addition to describing
what is wrong with the factory school model, Lundt describes a path
toward ending the public school monopoly
on funding so that learners can leave schools and find the education of
their choice. But he is at his most compelling when he describes what
educational freedom could look like. And he tackles some of the
potential concerns, like preserving democracy and economic equity,
socialization, accountability, the future of teachers, and more. Good
for this generally middle-of-the-road magazine!
Posted: 2004/11/03
12:34 PM
Finding
Your Calling – November 1, 2004
I’ve had a couple of conversations recently with retired friends who
are wondering if the way they made a living for so many years was the
best use of their talents, and what they really wanted to do. As
we age, we inevitably ask ourselves what we are trying to accomplish in
the years that are left. We realize that this lifetime is not a dress
rehearsal and want to live what is left of it without regrets. We take a
second look at our priorities and assess whether or not we want to take
the risks involved with bringing them to life. My two friends are
searching for a “calling”, something that will both satisfy
their sense of purpose and their need to put food on the table. Or as
Aristotle put it: “Where your talents and the needs of the world cross
lies your calling.” By working as a writer and editor for 30 years,
I’ve been able to do just that. In fact, I cannot imagine doing
anything else than being a writer and editor, even though I slid into
it, encouraged and enabled by others in my life (thanks Rolf!), rather
than having a grand plan. I am indeed fortunate to have been able to contribute to my family’s
financial needs while fulfilling my long-term dreams.
Coincidentally, as I was preparing a feature for an
upcoming issue of Life Learning
about teens who are
pursuing their dreams, I received an email from a young reader who
wanted my advice about finding her calling. I suggested she make two
lists – one with as many of her dreams as she can think of, and
another with her talents, interests and skills – without inhibition or limitation. Then I said she should ask
herself two questions: What do I want? How will I know when I get it? I
told her that self-awareness is the key, realizing that, many people are
not blessed with that until the second half of life!
Before editor and essayist Norman Cousins died, he wrote, “The tragedy of
life is not death, rather, it is what we allow to die within us while we
live.”
Posted: 2004/11/01
12:22 PM
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