WEBVTT

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Hi everybody. Welcome to a very
short daily source code for
Thursday, December 2, 2004. I'm

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a little bit pissed off. We did
all day for my DSL line to be
switched on, made all kinds

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of other decisions and choices
which did not involve going to
Starbucks, thinking I have

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plenty of time to do all my
prepping and get all my stuff
ready and have everything all

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set to go for a source code. So
I didn't work out and so I just
decided to be almost

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not online today and went
analog, went out and bought some
newspapers and I got the

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Guardian, which I've known and I
read online, I've been
subscribed to their RSS feeds

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for a long time. The
Guardian.co.uk and picked up the
paper version today and in the

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G2 section, it's like a page and
a half spread with a great
graphic titled personal

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soundtracks. Audio programming
has become cheap and easy to
make and has led to the rapid

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spread of the podcasting
phenomenon, then hammerously
reports. There is an online
version

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and tomorrow I'll link to that.
But I think it's very cool and
it's just awesome to be cited

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as, here it comes, Adam Curry, a
London-based weblogger. Okay,
almost got it right. So instead

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of doing a regular source code,
I want to read this one column
to you from another part

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of the Guardian. Actually it's a
comment and analysis. So let me
see, yeah, Felicity

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Lauren, she's the Guardian
Consumer Affairs correspondent.
I did this column just really
struck

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me. I don't know if there is
even an online version of it or
not, but I enjoyed reading

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this and it gave me a lot to
think about and maybe it will do
the same for you. So on

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today's source code, I yield the
floor for the distinguished
gentleman, Felicity Lawrence.

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This food racket just can't go
on. A full-scale consumer
rebellion is needed to change
the

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way we eat. That comes at point
in most discussions about how to
help people eat better

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when everybody gets stuck on
cheese. If you would have
traffic lights on food, read for

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bad, dream for good, orange for
in between, what on earth would
you do with cheese? This is

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the point at which the absurdity
of the food debate overwhelms
me. It's not that I'm against

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traffic lights. Actually, I
think they might help a bit.
It's just that when the car's

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been hijacked and you're
herdling in the wrong direction,
I'm not sure they are up to

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the job on on their own. Our
food is being produced in a way
that has devastating
consequences

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for the environment, for social
justice, and for our individual
health. In less than a

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generation, it has been
industrialized and globalized.
Processed food is routinely
adulterated

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with artery clogging fats, a
besegenic sugars and
constipating starches, which are
then disguised

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by chemical colorings and
flavorings without which they
would be unpalatable. We have
come

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to depend on this junk food, and
it is making us sick. On
nutritionally depleted diet

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is now kneeling on par with
tobacco as the cause of ill
health and premature death.
Manufacturers

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use these raw materials instead
of good quality fresh food,
because enormous subsidies

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mostly paid by Western taxpayers
have made them cheap. About 70%
of the value of the US

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soy of being comes from the US
government, no wonder soy of
derivatives are found in

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two-thirds of all processed
foods. Subsidized US corn is
turned into ubiquitous corn

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sweeteners and modified starches
for the same reason. The money
made from food is shifted

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from those at the bottom of the
chain, the farmers and
producers. To those at the top,
the

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tiny number of big transnational
food processors, manufacturers
and retailers who control

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our food as never before.
Protectionist subsidies have
done little to save farmers who
are going

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out of business everywhere. The
value of agricultural
commodities on which so much of
the

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developing world depends for its
livelihood has slumped. As other
barriers to trade have

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been removed, inequalities in
wealth have grown. Half the
world now stars for lack of food

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while the other half suffers
from diseases of excess. The
money made from these
commodities

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is concentrated in the hands of
the cartels that control trade
in them. Just five giant

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coffee manufacturers control
over half the world's coffee
beans. Ten years ago coffee
producing

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countries kept 30% of the retail
value of the coffee we buy.
Today they keep just 10%.

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When we buy a jar of instant
coffee, we pay 7,000% more than
the farmer got for it.

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These concentrations of power
are repeated across the food
chain. Some 45% of grain trade
is

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controlled by one US company,
Cargill. The power of
transnational manufacturers is
mirrored by

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the emergence of dominant food
rate retailers. In the near
future, just four of five
retailers

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will have one global domination
with a handful of others
dominating regionally. Three
quarters of

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grocery sales in the United
Kingdom are in the hands of four
supermarket groups. They have a

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stranglehold on how our food is
made and distributed. They've
created a system that is in its
use

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of new information technology
and logistics, both miraculous
and impossibly destructive.

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Thanks to the barcode, food is
flown around the world to meet
the supermarkets requirements
for

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just in time ordering. Their
demand for cosmetic perfection
and a perpetual global summer

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can be met by producers only if
they use agrochemicals
intensively and allow for a

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big fucking word, degree of
waste. A third of canyon green
beans are thrown away because
they are the

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wrong size or shape. This new
business model has made the
supermarkets highly profitable,

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but it depends on the extraving
it use of that most politically
charged and polluting of
substances

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crude oil for the food miles,
for the pesticides, for the
packaging that makes up 40% of
our domestic

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waste. It depends on an endless
supply of cheap outsourced labor
that can be turned on and off
like

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a tap. Hundreds of thousands of
migrant workers now live in
Britain in conditions that would
make

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Dickens blush. The way we eat is
not just ecologically
unsustainable, but also morally

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and even biologically
unsustainable. Making it better
requires radical structural
change.

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It needs tighter competition
policies, it needs reform of
subsidies and trade rules,

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it needs regulation of business
none of which government is
inclined to do. So making our
food

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better will also require a
massive consumer rebellion. In
my experience when people are
well-informed

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about how this globalized food
is made, they no longer want to
eat it, but they have no problem

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with well-made cheese. And I'm
going to leave it at that for
the source code for today.

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Tomorrow I surely do hope we
have broadband. Bye.