The Mississippi House of Representatives has floated a bill (HB 282, below) that would make it illegal to serve obese patrons.

The gentlemen below are the Bill's authors. From left to right: W. T. Mayhall, Jr. (R), John Read (R) , Bobby Shows (D). It appears to be a bipartisan effort.

I was digging through the FAO's data files and saw some numbers I thought would look better on a chart than in a few columns on Excel.

Click for larger.
There are 172 countries included in this graph. I couldn't fit all their names on the x-axis but you can go to the Excel file to see the intake for a particular country. Protein intake ranges from 25 grams/person/day in the Democratic Republic of Congo to 136 g/p/d in Israel. (Israel?) The US consumed an average of 133 g/p/d. Intakes are for the years 2002-2004.

You can find the raw data at:
Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, Food Security Statistics (Under Food Consumption / Nutrients).
________Chart and image of chart: Homegrown.

The UK Department of Health released its "Health Profile of England 2007". They noticed a trend:

The UK Government Office for Science projected that trend 40 years into the future and determined that a "bold whole system approach is critical":

There was a full moon last night. It will be visible tonight too, and according to NASA, it will be the brightest full moon you'll see for the next 16 years:"That's because it's the highest-riding full moon until the year 2023."

Lavender Blue sent me this article from Newsweek:

Junk Food County: Why many rural Americans can't get nutritious foods. The unhealthy truth about country living.

I can't stop thinking about it. It's troubling, on a number of levels.

An excerpt:

Oh. A trend!

A few weeks ago I posted a report by the UK's Government Office for Science which said:"The obesity epidemic cannot be prevented by individual action alone and demands a societal approach."
...
"The people of the UK are inexorably becoming heavier simply by living in the Britain of today. This process has been coined 'passive obesity'."I lamented that government agencies in the US still frame America's weight problem as the creature of an individual's nefarious choices. "Eat less refined corn and soy products!" they say, as if our weight problem is our fault.

It's incomprehensible to me that those same agencies, backed by Congress, turn around and fund the production of those very corn and soy products they tell us not to eat - making them cheaper, more accessible, and, well, downright popular.

Famed for its wine. Wikipedia has Burgenland inhabited since the Stone Age. How many years ago that was, I can't tell. I wonder if Burgenlanders enjoyed wine back then.

Below is Willi Wetschka (right) and his friend in the barn of Wetschka's winery, 2007.

Click to enlarge.________

Until after the esophagogastroduodenocolonoscopy.1 Well, not all eating. This is tonight's dinner:

And tomorrow's breakfast too. Actually, just 4 Dulcolax. But the whole bottle, 14 complete servings of that MiraLax must be enlisted to perform the unsubtle function.

I had reservations posting this. But, well, what's a blog for? So, if you have any experience with this procedure, your comments are welcome!
________1 A combined esophagogastroduodenoscopy and colonoscopy.
Photo: Homegrown. I wish it wasn't.

No, really. A comprehensive, online, free!, encyclopedia of every living thing on the planet. One page for each. Millions of pages. And it's a wiki - a collaborative, updatable effort from people all over the world. I can't think of a more ambitious project facing the internet.

And it went live on Tuesday (although it may be slow, it's getting over a million hits per hour):
Encyclopedia of Life (EOL)

Here's what the New York Times had to say:
The Encyclopedia of Life, No Bookshelf Required

Here's its official blog:
Encyclopedia of Life Blog

Here are some sample pages (clicking the image will take you to EOL's demo page):

Yeti Crab

Death Cap Mushroom

That's the title of this recent article in Scientific American:

Humans Carry More Bacterial Cells than Human Ones,
You are more bacteria than you are you, according to the latest body census

Wow. I didn't realize politics played such a suppressing role in getting fruits and vegetables on the table.

Here's a little Op-Ed piece that appeared in the New York Times yesterday. It was written by Jack Hedrin, an organic vegetable farmer from Minnesota:

My Forbidden Fruits (and Vegetables)

Oh no, another myth bites the dust ?

Gina Kolata is a health reporter for the New York Times and author of the recent book (May, 2007) Rethinking Thin: The New Science of Weight Loss - and the Myths and Realities of Dieting. She recently reviewed Gary Taubes' new book, Good Calories, Bad Calories: Challenging the Conventional Wisdom on Diet, Weight Control and Disease for the New York Times. She concluded, "I’m sorry, but I’m not convinced."

Talking about barley make me recall this Table I posted a while ago. It came from a paper written by Dr. Vinson in 1999, entitled:

The Functional Food Properties of Figs

I like figs.

Well, I just ran some numbers. According to the data in this Table, 2 tablespoons of dry barley has 37% more polyphenols than 1/2 cup blueberries ... and 3650% more polyphenols than an equal amount of wheat.1

In my thinking-out-loud comment under RS and Colon Cancer, I spoke of the social pressure to eat a certain way.

Below is an example. It's a photo of the entrance foyer of a large food store where I shop. A mountainous display of some food item always occupies this space. This week a mountain of soft drinks was being erected. The last display was a mountain of chips, crackers, and dip. At the top of the display (they weren't done piling yet) is often a wide screen television showing people consuming the food in the display, interspersed with "fun" activities ... sports, parties. I can't imagine these are just props, that they don't include them in their inventory without the intention of selling them.

A "Thank you." to RB who sent along this NPR interview with Michael Pollan.

Author Comes To Natural Food's 'Defense'

Recall my post from a few weeks ago, Living High Off The Hog?, where livestock farmers in Pennsylvania ..."... started giving their pigs and cows chocolate - and banana chips and cashews and yogurt-covered raisins, any of which were cheaper than run-of the-mill corn and beans. One farmer even supplied his cattle a special "party mix" of popcorn, pretzels, cheese curls and crisps. This, he told reporters, saved 10% on feed costs."It looks like livestock farmers in Europe may add animal remains to their party mix: 1
"The European Union is preparing plans to allow pig remains to be used to feed poultry. The practice - banned in Europe after the BSE* crisis 10 years ago - would save farmers millions of pounds as prices of cereal feed for chickens soar, say officials in Brussels."

Lavender Blue shared these photos of her garden. (Click for larger.)

Cultured meat isn't going away anytime soon. The People For The Ethical Treatment Of Animals (PETA) are making sure of it.

Yesterday PETA disclosed they'll be offering one million dollars to the first group able to grow palatable chicken meat within the next 4 years:

From PETA: PETA Offers $1 Million Reward to First to Make In Vitro Meat:"PETA is offering a $1 million prize to the contest participant able to make the first in vitro chicken meat and sell it to the public by June 30, 2012. The contestant must do both of the following:

• Produce an in vitro chicken-meat product that has a taste and texture indistinguishable from real chicken flesh to non-meat-eaters and meat-eaters alike.

The photos below are from photographer Peter Menzel's 2005 book, Hungry Planet: What the World Eats.

Menzel traveled to 24 countries, visiting and photographing 30 families for the book. Each photo represents the weekly food intake for the families pictured. (Each family was asked to purchase, at Menzel's expense, a typical week's groceries. The book lists the food items in detail, broken down by food group and cost, along with how the food was raised and prepared.)

I came across Menzel's photos on Amber's Blog (on Gaia), her post from November 27, 2007. She has a few more there, and some interesting comments.

Germany: The Melander family of Bargteheide
Food expenditure for one week: $500.07

They became unstuck in time a day later.
"So it goes."
- Billy Pilgrim 1________
Photo above: Homegrown, from a couple days ago. It's frozen water in the cut-off bottom of an old gallon jug. I use it as a water feeder for birds. They, however, use it as a bathtub. There's one particular female cardinal that sits in it at night (if it's warm enough) for about 5 minutes. The water comes up to her neck. She occasionally flutters her wings.

My first reaction is that buying local food produces fewer greenhouse gases. The article below calls that into question.

The story ran in the New York Times Business section on Sunday:
If It's Fresh and Local, Is It Always Greener? (May require login.)

Here's some feedback:
If It's Fresh and Local, Is It Always Greener? (from Serious Eats)

Michael Winner is an English film director, producer, and food critic for the UK's Sunday Times. He just wrote a book, "The Fat Pig Diet."

Here's an excerpt (1 stone = 14 pounds):

The Fat Pig Diet: Michael Winner's Guide To Getting Thin

The USDA has jurisdiction over meat, poultry, and eggs. The FDA has jurisdiction over just about all other food products. The FDA does not currently have recall authority, but they are in the process of asking Congress for it.

In my previous post I said I did not know whether the USDA had recall authority. The article below suggests they do not have recall authority, nor do they want it:

I have a question ... for anyone ... because it looks like many of you know more about prehistoric man than I do.

I looked up the average lifespan for some older humans (I don't know prehistoric designations, but this chart said Neanderthal, Upper Paleolithic, Neolithic):
Wikipedia: Life Expectancy

Melinda shared these photos of her garden-in-work:"Here are 3 pix of what I brought w/ me from the condo when we moved to the little house w/ big deck. As you see, so far they aren't in the ground, but I did just get the raised bed, so hopefully I'll get it together [soon]."

The Swedish grocery store chain, ICA, is considered one of the most trusted retail brands in Sweden. It celebrated its 90 year anniversary this year.1

According to Wikipedia, a documentary aired on Swedish television last week that showed ICA employees:"... relabeling out-of-date ground meat, as well as grinding down other forms of meat past their 'best before' date to make ground meat (mince)."

Every day, a little bit of my faith blows away ...

Cancer Docs Profit From Chemotherapy Drugs
Situation begs the ethical question: Are they overprescribing?"The significant amount of our revenue comes from the profit, if you will, that we make from selling the drugs," says Dr. Peter Eisenberg, a private physician who specializes in cancer treatment.________

This was unbelievable. To see this kind of frankness in a public report just made my jaw drop. Virtually all of the diabetes- and health-related material I've laid my hands on over the years has skirted these issues. Most of those publications, however, were either produced by drug companies directly, or indirectly influenced by them. My non-profit is.