{"id":1388,"date":"2004-02-20T12:22:54","date_gmt":"2004-02-20T16:22:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/nateptest\/2004\/02\/20\/low-carb-injustice\/"},"modified":"2004-02-20T12:22:54","modified_gmt":"2004-02-20T16:22:54","slug":"low-carb-injustice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/2004\/02\/20\/low-carb-injustice\/","title":{"rendered":"Low-carb injustice"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n

Yesterday, the Times ran an article on the low-carb food revolution<\/a>
\nsweeping the food industry.  I don’t count my carbs, and the
\narticle gave me further reason to avoid doing so.  Here’s the
\nquote that shocked me the most:<\/p>\n

\n

\n“None of this was really available,” Ms. Lipson said. “The amount of
\nstuff that’s available now, it’s amazing,” she said, poring over
\npancake mixes, pasta and chocolate bars. Asking for “something like
\nrice,” she was directed to a row of canned low-carb mashed potatoes in
\na variety of flavors. “Garlic parmesan?” she asked her husband. “You
\nlike garlic parmesan?”<\/p>\n

\nThe price: $6.99 for seven ounces.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\nNo one is claiming that eating low-carb is cheap. Robert Hall, 30, was
\nbuying nacho cheese and cool ranch twists by CarbFit, some baked
\ncheese, low-carb soft tacos made by a company called Adios Carbs, and,
\nfor his girlfriend, low-carb brownies. He left with $122.18 in low-carb
\nfood. “I spent 300 bucks last time,” he said. “This was just a
\nsupplemental visit.”\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So, it’s massively expensive to eat this way.  Which makes me
\nmore likely to want to follow the general model of portion control if I
\nwanted to lose weight.  Or — and I will if today’s beautiful
\nweather holds — spend more time on my bicycle.\n<\/p>\n

But there’s a social justice concern here, too.  Following a
\nlow-carb diet leads to bad use of the earth’s resources.  Since
\nmost Americans bulk up on their protein with meat, this means that we
\nrequire more meat.  Meat — ususally from poultry or cattle —
\nrequires lots of resources to produce, in terms of feed, waste products
\ngenerated (effluent and methane), and slaughter anddistribution
\nfacilities.  (I think the general ratio is about 7-10 units of
\nfeed to produce a unit of cow and about 3.5-5 units of feed for
\nchicken.)  It requires many more agricultural and economic
\nresources to sustain a massive scale diet shift like the one that we
\nare seeing right now.  Meat has a greater impact on the
\nenvironment that vegetable and grain matter, and the shift from plant
\nproduction to meat production also has a disproportionate effect upon
\nthe world’s poor, who can’t afford the indulgence of meat.  Only a
\nwealthy country can even consider such a diet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday, the Times ran an article on the low-carb food revolution sweeping the food industry.  I don’t count my carbs, and the article gave me further reason to avoid doing so.  Here’s the quote that shocked me the most: “None of this was really available,” Ms. Lipson said. “The amount of stuff that’s available now, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":709,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[48],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1388","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rmaunsdionmg"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5G3PH-mo","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1388","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/709"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1388"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1388\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}