Word: eating
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...this five-foot shelf there are also an Ebert novel, Behind the Phantom's Mask (begun as a weekly newspaper serial); a travel book, Perfect London Walk, written with Daniel Curley; The Computer Insectiary: A Field Guide to Viruses, Bugs, Worms, Trojan Horses, and Other Stuff That Will Eat Your Programs and Rot Your Brain, co-authored with John Kratz; and at least five other books to which Roger has penned introductions. There's no writer's block for this perpetual scribe; he's never missed a deadline. I'll bet that if Roger had written this tribute, he would...
...reasons that food costs more are simple: most of what we eat is shipped great distances, and gas is spectacularly expensive. Also, demand for ethanol has caused the price of corn to spike, and thousands of processed foods contain derivatives like high-fructose corn syrup. Finally, millions of pounds of citrus froze in California this year; oranges cost nearly a third more in May than they did in May 2006. Climbing food prices sound scary, and reporters have filed a spate of alarmist stories about "soaring" grocery bills (Good Morning America) that are "way up" (CNN) and causing "sticker shock...
...spend much on food largely because we just don't want to. As a society gets richer, its people tend to use their extra income for things like recreation and education, not daily sustenance. This relationship between food and income--as you get rich, you spend proportionately less to eat--has held so strongly over so many generations that economists have given it a name: Engel's law (for Ernst Engel, a 19th century statistician). The foodie revolution that began in the '70s--arugula over iceberg, short ribs over brisket, etc.--has challenged Engel's law among élites...
...cheap calories. Environmental damage is one--in the postwar race to the lowest possible price, farmers applied oceans of pesticides and fertilizers--but obesity is the most obvious. A common objection to ending subsidies is that people will go hungry, and indeed some Americans can't afford to eat: in 2005, according to the USDA, 2.9% of households had at least one member who went hungry at least once the previous year. But the U.S. has a bigger problem with overnutrition. More than half of us are overweight; we spend something like $94 billion annually treating ailments related to overeating...
...food is more expensive, won't we simply eat more cookies and fewer raspberries? In the short run, yes, although the USDA has launched programs to teach people that while convenience foods have more calories, they usually have fewer nutrients. On a dollar-per-nutrient basis, healthy food is not more expensive. Lab studies have shown that fruits and vegetables are also more satiating--they make you feel fuller than junk food even though they have fewer calories. In short, we should stop subsidizing junk. To address hunger more directly, we could take that money and use it to increase...