The World Economic Forum and the Vegan Diet

Now that it's January, the World Economic Forum, the group with the answers to everything, have weighed into the diets of the sweaty masses once again.  This time, they aren't promoting the consumption of insects and weeds, rather, they are promoting a vegan diet.

 

Here is the WEF's posting on veganism dated January 7, 2022: 

 

I hadn't heard of Veganuary before but apparently, it's a thing.  Veganuary is a non-profit organization that attempts to get people around the world to try going vegan for the entire month of January, a program that was launched in 2014.  For those of you who aren't familiar with veganism, it is a diet based solely on plants with no foods being consumed that are derived from animals (i.e. dairy products and eggs which are generally eaten by vegetarians).  Veganuary claims that during their 2021 campaign, more than 500,000 people took their pledge to try a vegan diet.  Their aim is to have a fully vegan world but that's looking like a bit of a stretch given the group's participation rate since 2014:

 

While Veganuary and the WEF have various reasons why a non-meat-based diet is "essential", one of the key reasons is the to protect the environment, particularly reducing greenhouse gas emissions as shown on this screen capture from the Veganuary website:

 

The push to veganism is nothing new for our overlords at the WEF.  Here is an article on their website from November 2018:

 

Here's an almost laughable graphic showing the "growth in interest over time" which means absolutely nothing since it only relates to searches on Google for veganism and vegetarianism:

 

Here are some quotes from the article:

 

"Some of the world’s largest food brands and producers are now throwing their weight behind this shift, keen to benefit from changing eating and food spending habits. Danone, the French producer perhaps best known for its dairy products, invested $60 million last year to expand production of plant-based beverages at its North American division. Additionally, one of the world’s largest meat producers, Tyson Foods, purchased a 5% stake in Beyond Meat, a company that makes meat-free burgers.

 

Fast-food giants are also starting to take notice. In 2017, McDonald’s introduced the McVegan burger in outlets in Finland and Sweden.

 

Increased interest in and consumption of meat-free food is, in part, thanks to campaigns such as Veganuary and World Vegan Month, which have been promoted successfully through social media. Veganuary is a UK-based registered charity that encourages members of the public to eat like a vegan each January as part of their New Year’s resolutions. Interest in Veganuary grew by 183% in 2018, with 168,500 people taking part, up from 59,500 in 2017. There were just 3,300 participants when the campaign started in 2014." 

 

Note the reference to Veganuary, touting the group's growth rate of 183 percent between 2017 and 2018 and yet only 168,500 people took part in 2018, hardly what one would call a resounding success but it's enough to get the WEF on board.

  

The WEF also notes the following:

 

Hey, if celebrities are doing it, then surely it must be the right thing to do!

Of course, the WEF has nothing but our best interests at heart as quoted here:

 

"The benefits of switching to a diet less reliant on meat are sometimes the subject of intense debate. Commonly asked questions include, “How can you get enough protein if you don’t eat red meat?” and “How can you get enough calcium if you’ve given up dairy?” These concerns can be addressed by careful nutritional planning. And according to researchers from Oxford University, “a global switch to diets that rely less on meat and more on fruit and vegetables could save up to eight million lives by 2050”.

 

The researchers also predict potential cost savings of $700-$1,000 billion per year from easing the pressure on healthcare, plus a reduction in unpaid informal care and lost working days.

 

On the upside, you can feel good about switching to a plant-based diet.  Veganism means that there will be more meat for the ruling class like Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates and Klaus Schwab and his merry band of oligarchs!

You Are What You Eat

Way back in 1980, the U.S. Federal government released the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, a series of dietary recommendations for Americans aged 2 and over to prevent the risk of chronic diseases and to assist in the maintenance of healthy body weight.  These guidelines include the following three goals:

1.) Balance calories with physical activity to manage weight.

2.) Consume more of certain foods and nutrients such as fruits and vegetables, whole grains, fat-free and low-fat dairy products and seafood.

3.) Consume fewer foods with sodium, saturated fats, trans fats, cholesterol, added sugars and refined grains.

There are different USDA food plans that are designed to meet the requirements of households of different ages, numbers of family members and income levels.

Economic Research Service (ERS) researchers, the body that provides research and economic information from the United States Department of Agriculture, undertook two studies that looked at how much consumers were spending on healthy choices and unhealthy choices as outlined above over the years from 1998 to 2006.  Households recorded their food and beverage purchases of over 60,000 different products into the 23 USDA food plan categories with the beverage group consisting of all soft drinks and fruit drinks, the processed products which include dairy products, soups, frozen or refrigerated dinners and refined and whole grains and fresh or minimally processed products like frozen beans and canned tomatoes.

Now for the graphic showing the results of average at-home household spending on each of the 23 food categories (in blue) compared to the USDA recommended level of spending (in yellow):

Of the 23 categories, you will note that household spending on only one category came close to what the USDA recommends; potatoes.  Spending on refined grains which includes cookies, breads, pasta and non-whole grain crackers consumed 17 percent of household spending on food rather than the 5 percent total recommended by the USDA.  Spending on sugar and candies represented nearly 14 percent of household spending on food rather than the fraction of a percent recommended by the USDA.  On the flip side, spending on whole fruits consumed just over 4 percent of total household food expenditures rather than the 16 percent recommended by the USDA and spending on legumes was less than 0.5 percent compared to the 8 percent recommended by USDA guidelines.

Just in case you thought that there was a relationship between certain socio-economic factors and spending on less than healthy food, according to the data, the quality of diets in American households is not particularly related to economic standing or demographic and geographic differences for that matter.

One of the problems is the growing portion of fast food in American diets over the past three and a half decades as shown here (in purple):

Fast food contribution to total dietary caloric intake has risen from 3.1 percent in the mid-late 1970s to 13.2 percent in the years between 2005 and 2008.

What has all of this led to?

Here is a map showing obesity rates by state in 2012:

Here is a bar graph showing how obesity rates have risen in the United States from 1988 - 1994 to 2005 - 2008 by income level (PIR or poverty income ratio):

Over the period, the prevalence of obesity among men with income at or above 350 percent of the poverty level rose from 18 percent to 32.9 percent, an increase of 83 percent.  The prevalence of obesity among women with incomes at or above 350 percent of the poverty level rose from 18.6 percent to 29 percent.  Interestingly, among low income women with incomes less than 130 percent of the poverty level, obesity rates rose only slightly over the time period, however, the rate rose from a substantial 34.5 percent of women to a stunning 42 percent of women.  As well, the data shows that the obesity rate for all educational levels rose with men with some college education having the highest obesity rates (36.2 percent) and women with less than high school education having the highest obesity rates (42.1 percent).

While the dietary recommendations made by the USDA are not the complete answer to the plague of obesity affecting American society, perhaps keeping in mind that health care costs are ever on the rise will be motivation in itself as a prod to adopt a more healthy overall lifestyle.

Food Insecurity in America

The recent $8.6 billion reduction in funding to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or SNAP over the next decade have led to much hand-wringing among those who work with low-income Americans.  To that end, in this posting, I will address the issue of household food security in the United States from a USDA Economic Research Service publication from September 2013.  

To help us understand the statistics, here are two definitions:

Low Food Security: lacking access to enough food to provide a healthy and active lifestyle for all members of a household.

Very Low Food Security: a reduced level of food intake by household members, sufficient to disrupt normal eating patterns.

Let's open with this graph showing the prevalence of both low and very low food insecurity among American households for the period from 1995 to 2012:

You'll notice that the level of food insecurity is essentially unchanged since 2008, however, there was a rather significant jump from between 10 and 11 percent between 1999 and 2001 to the current level of 14.5 percent in 2008 as the Great Recession took hold of the economy.  That is a rather significant increase of 38 percent.  In the period between 2007 and 2012, an additional 12.7 million Americans experienced food insecurity to some degree.  In 2012, an estimated 14.5 percent of American households experienced food insecurity with 5.7 percent of American households experiencing very low food security.  In total, 17.6 million households consisting of 48.9 million people in the United States had difficulty at some point in 2012 providing enough food for all household members.  In total, 7 million households had very low food security.  At some point during the year, households were unable to provide adequate nutritious food for their children in 10 percent or 3.9 million of the nation's households with children.

Here is a pie chart showing the national breakdown of United States households with children by food security status:

In total, about 8.29 million children lived in households in which one or more children was food insecure.  This is up from 6.866 million children in 2001.  As well, 977,000 children lived in households with very low food security among child family members, up from 420,000 in 2003.

Here are the groups of Americans that suffer from higher than average rates of food insecurity:

1.) Households with children

2.) Households with children under the age of six

3.) Households with children headed by a single woman or man

4.) Black households

5.) Hispanic households

6.) Households with incomes below 185 percent of the poverty level

Rates of food insecurity were lower than the national average for:

1.) Households with married couples with children

2.) Households with more than one adult and no children

3.) Households with elderly persons

4.) White, non-Hispanic households

5.) Households headed by non-Hispanics of other or multiple races

6.) Households with incomes above 185 percent of the poverty line

Geographically, the prevalence of food insecurity was highest in the South (16 percent), intermediate in the West (14.4 percent) and Midwest (14.2 percent) and lowest in the Northeast (11.9 percent).  Among states for the period between 2010 and 2012, Mississippi had the highest rate of food insecurity at 20.9 percent and Virginia had the lowest rate at 3.2 percent.

It is interesting to see that the world's "have" nation has a rather substantial population of people, particularly children, that are suffering from food insecurity.  With SNAP providing assistance to 42 percent of households that are food insecure, the program obviously provides a key bridge between going hungry and getting sufficient food to ensure a relatively healthy life.

America eats and eats....and then eats some more!

In perusing the web as I am prone to do and, in light of a couple of weeks of dodgy news, I came upon this interesting article at the website for the Centre for Science in the Public Interest.  The "Xtreme Eating 2011 Big eats...big Americans" is an interesting look at what awaits the American eater when they head out to their local restaurant and strap on the ol' feed bag.  The Centre for Science unveils this year's winners in their Nutrition Action Newsletter.  The awards range from the lovely and fat-free grilled cheese sandwiches stuffed with deep-fried mozzarella sticks to the 1540 gram Cheesecake Factory cheesecake which contains a rather stunning 3 days' worth of saturated fat.  Remember the old adage folks, apparently, if it's brown and you don't eat it at home, it doesn't contain any fat or calories!

Let's start by putting dietary things into perspective.  The United States Department of Agriculture and teh Department of Health and Human Services have been so kind as to provide all of us with a few guidelines that we might give passing thought to before we cram that next pound of bacon into our cake holes.  We should not ingest more than 2300 milligrams of sodium on a daily basis and those that are 51 years and older, African-American, have diabetes, hypertension etcetera should limit their intake to 1500 milligrams.  We should consume less than 300 milligrams of dietary cholesterol daily and less than 10 percent of our daily caloric intake should come from those deadly saturated fats, you know, the good tasting fats.  They have also been so good as to supply us with this lovely chart that tells all of us just how many calories we should be eating every day based on our age and level of activity:

Now that we know what we should be doing, let's take a look at the award winning food that is out there for the eating!

Apparently, a typical restaurant entree excluding the fun stuff like an appetizer and dessert has 1000 calories.  That's not too bad if you're an active male between the ages of 19 and 30; after all, it's only one-third of your daily allowance.  Unfortunately, should you happen to be a 55 year olds sedentary male, it's nearly half of your daily allowance and if you're a 55 year old female with a similar propensity to sit on the couch, it's 62.5 percent of your allowable daily caloric intake.

First on the food fun list is the Cheesecake Factory's Ultimate Red Velvet Cake Cheesecake.  This beauty has two, count 'em, two layers of cheese and red velvet cake.  This three-quarter of a pound wonder contains 1540 calories (a day's worth for the sedentary 50 year old female) and 59 grams of saturated fat which is actually three whole days worth of your saturated fat allotment.  This specialty item has twice the caloric bang of the Cheesecake Factory's original concoction.

Next on the Centre for Science's beef list (pardon the terribly sad pun) is IHOP's Bacon 'N Beef Burger. This carnivore's delight contains the bacon blended right into the beef so there's no more problem with those slippery slabs of Porky the Pig sliding out of your sandwich.  On top of the meat serving, you get the bonus of two slices of cheese.  The burger itself provides you with 1250 calories and 1590 milligrams of sodium, an entire day's supply of the dreaded element in one meal!  You can just feel that hypertension setting in just thinking about it.  As a bonus, if you add onion rings or fries (freedom or other) to your meal, you can add either 620 or 300 calories to your tab bringing most sedentary consumers very close to their daily limit.

Up for the next award is Denny's Fried Cheese Melt.  This marvel of modern science has four deep fried mozzarella sticks melted right into the gooey stickiness that is an American grilled cheese sandwich.  For four bucks, you buy yourself 1260 calories (if you include the side of fries), 21 grams of saturated fat and an amazing 3010 milligrams of salt, a two day supply.

The Cheesecake Factory makes yet another appearance on the awards list with its Farmhouse Cheeseburger but since they've received an award already, I'll move along to the Cold Stone Creamery milkshake.  Now, who doesn't like a milk shake.  Hey, it contains milk and how often did you used to hear your mother tell you to drink that glass of milk because it was good for your teeth and bones.  Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on your perspective), milk has changed....a lot.  Cold Stone Creamery offers its PB&C Shake (peanut butter and chocolate for the uninitiated) with a 2010 calorie hit and 68 grams of fat in each 24 fluid ounce serving.  That's a full day of calories for just about all of us and three and a half days of saturated fat.  Cool...literally.

Back to the folks at the Department of Agriculture and their propaganda about Americans and their weight and girth.  Back in the 1970s, 15 percent of adults were obese.  In 2008, that rose to 34 percent.  In the early 1990s, no states had an adult obesity rate of more than 25 percent.  In 2008, 32 states had an adult obesity rate of more than 25 percent.  Most sobering of all are the statistics for childhood obesity; in the early 1970s, 5 percent of children from 2 to 5 years of age, 4 percent of children from 6 to 11 years of age and 6 percent of adolescents from 12 to 19 years of age were obese.  In 2008, those numbers rose to 10 percent for 2 to 5 year olds, 20 percent for 6 to 11 year olds and 18 percent for adolescents 12 to 19 years of age.  This is a doubling or tripling of the rate of obesity in America.

I hope that you enjoyed this little journey into the culinary delights of the United States (and Canada).  I'm off to get a bag of chips.