Energy Economics Behind Food Digestion

Since digestion takes energy, it is helpful to think about the "cost to revenue ratio" (fuel efficiency) of foods that we eat


We all realize on some level that food is very similar to a drug. When hunger sets in, withdrawal symptoms become apparent. Confusion, decreased mental functioning, weakness, nausea, unpleasant moods, negative perception of the world/humanity, etc. When we finally get a chance to eat again, what we all want is for the molecular building blocks within food to reach and become part of our key bodily systems as quickly and efficiently as possible. There are simple mathematics behind digesting fuel that should be kept in mind.

Digestion takes caloric energy. Eating food drains us to a degree that is dependent on the resistance of the food to intestinal acids. If the food is more difficult to digest it'll take more bodily energy to break it into molecular building blocks for the body. This in turn will result in one's body not operating at peak levels. Here's 2 examples to illustrate (the numbers are randomly selected for clear cut demonstration):

A) A deep fried blob of meat is stuffed with 1000 units of energy and it takes the body 500 units of energy to break it down over a period of 5 hours. This produces an average of 100 units of energy per hour for the body over 5 hours (1000-500)/5. The average ratio of energy cost to revenue is 1 to 2. If this food is dumped into a ravenous energy deprived body, then energy will be pulled from other areas of the body to begin the digestion. This will be manifest with muscle tiredness, coldness (energy diverted from heating systems to the stomach), and even lack of tangible cognitive improvement within first hour after eating. Thus the initial ratio of energy cost to revenue can even cancel each other out. Not the drug "fix" one is looking for. We want to squeeze more out of our business.

B) A bowl of cold quinoa salad with various nuts and berries is only stuffed with 500 units of energy. It takes 100 units of energy to digest it over 1 hour. Body gets 400 units of energy in this time. Ratio of energy cost to revenue here is 1 to 5. Since the powerful acids in the stomach can immediately rip apart the cold salad into building blocks, this means a rapid huge boost of energy from acceleration of cognitive and physical functioning. Molecular building blocks are quickly transported via blood stream to reinforce every key system in the body. The negatives of such a quick and efficient fix is that the energy high wears off after an hour leading to rather rapid onset of hunger and noticeable physiological slowdown. The business is very profitable but has to be fed at a breakneck rate that is not always sustainable.

Proper utilization of energy economics in food can allow an individual to achieve the equivalent of a coffee boost (from nutritious food that has weak cell lining allowing the body to make short work of it). Our bodies are the most complex wonderful machines we have access to. Do we put nasty poorly treated gasoline into a high end sports car? No, since we understand that it requires immediate high performance. An advanced jet airplane requires specialized jet fuel for maximum ratio of energy cost to revenue.

So why do many people treat their bodies worse than they treat their cars? Besides the socioeconomic factors behind it, there are also practical considerations. Food that is less efficient to digest has a release of energy that can be described as "extended release" in pharmacological terminology. A slice of pepperoni pizza will provide hours of inefficiently acquired energy. Of course if one has a powerful metabolism, one can pump lots of high energy inefficient food into the system and even get a caloric rush after some digestion has already occurred. Combined with the fact that such foods are often solid liquor buffers, it becomes a no brainer. Fuel like quinoa will not only be a poor buffer but its effects will constantly and annoyingly run out. Nobody wants to carry a grain basket with them. Of course in the long term, the heavy fuel will corrode/clog up the system and become increasingly counterproductive as the human machine is now expanding energy units to support heavier weight with all the health ailments associated with it.

However when it comes to day to day life and wanting to be at peak cognitive and emotional levels, digestive efficiency has to be kept in mind. Proper combination of the two types of fuel can result in relatively quick onset of good cheer and solid functioning (energy release from say, quinoa being immediately rerouted to help neutralize weakening from digestion of heavy fuel) without a crash or desire for an afternoon siesta.

Barack Obama is Losing at Political Chess Since Opposition is Preparing to Knock Over the Board

Oligarchic interests are changing the rules of political accommodation by actively goading Obama to become dictatorial. They're preparing to knock over the chess board. Escalation from such tactics during economic crisis is troubling


 


The recent wave of town hall theater stirred by proxies of transnational corporations (media outlets that they own who then rally the uneducated rural elderly) has been remarkably effective at unnerving president Obama. It cornered him into giving ridiculous "socialism/death panel" arguments power by paying attention to them. Obama didn't just start paying attention to hysterical slander but actually diverted his time and energy to travel the country on a public relations offensive. Of course that will just create a cycle of escalation since the media demagogues now know how they can waste a lot of the president's time. They will thus fine tune a new wave of insane allegations and repeat the process on a larger scale in short order. The poor elderly religious people (whose lives and psychological temperaments have gotten worse in recent decades due to erosion of national strength by globalization) now think that their slogans have more validity due to Obama's reaction.

They think, "why is he selling his proposal so much? It must be as bad as we hear on television." Rural people and Americans in general aren't used to a micromanaging president who tries to explain things in detail. They are used to being completely shut out and ignored by their executive leadership. If anything, a responsive president at this point does not fit an archetype of what a president should be and may thus appear weak.

Any neutral observer would quickly conclude that the rabid opposition to healthcare reform is a crazy or grossly exaggerated tactic by the opposition. After all, Obama's plan is to preserve the oligarchic middlemen of insurance companies rather than ending their existence as inefficient regional monopolies (as a true reformer would do). However there is reason to the madness and we have seen this technique used many times before.

Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger once came up with a strategy that relied on acting erratic, unpredictable, and well, "crazy" to unbalance geopolitical opponents. Nixon's administration created a perception that it is capable of lashing out with disproportionate amount of force for silly reasons. It also showed that it can act with a lot of restraint in situations where force is expected. The threat of nuclear escalation over the Yom Kippur War and the bombing of Cambodia made Soviets and Vietnamese tread cautiously when dealing with the White House. It is a tried and true prison strategy of creating deterrence by violently attacking somebody with disproportionate force for a small offense. Nixon, Kim Jong Ill, and George W Bush have all used the tactic of a madman to slow down or stall behavior of more thoughtful saner global players.

Barack Obama's key weakness is that he is prudent and logical. Just like the first black baseball players, Obama feels (rightfully so as we now see) that he cannot make any mistakes and that he has to approach everything to the maximum of his ability to prove himself. He knows he is already dealing with a very uneducated and basically third world nation that still has a sufficiently large racist regional element. He knows that he has to appear close to perfect since character quirks that would seem acceptable in white presidents may very well sink him.

He will thus try to think a number of moves ahead like a good chess player when moving forward with anything. That becomes rather difficult when the madman tactic is used against him. A logical strategist would not expect an intense overreaction to the act of raising the tax on oligarchs a few percentage points. Neither could have Obama anticipated that he will basically be called a Nazi for preserving the status quo of the old regime through minor modification. The anti-healthcare reform slander campaign by transnational oligarchs in recent weeks is as ridiculous of an overreaction as Kissinger's threats to potentially get US involved in a nuclear war during the Yom Kippur conflict. It is the equivalent of a chess player moving a lot of his pieces (and losing a long term position on the board) to defend against a minor provocation by a pawn.

It would have been much more rational for Obama's opposition to allow him to get a disappointing modified bill get passed. Progressive democrat perception of Obama as a reformer would have run out of steam quicker this way. Instead, oligarchs chose to expand a lot of political capital on a minor issue. This will be counterproductive in that Obama administration will treat opposition as the world does North Korea. Total alienation and counter slander.

If the madman tactic is used all the time then various parties will begin to join and find ways to isolate and weaken the madman rather than attempt constructive mutually beneficial dialogue. It now appears that GOP is bent on being uncooperative all the time. The national perception towards the republican leadership (overlooking a collapsing regional party) has decisively shifted towards viewing them as completely unreasonable and erratic.

This will result in a predictable move by Obama administration towards a more authoritarian populist direction. The president will begin using all the tools available to the executive branch to push through restructuring and preserving of American style capitalism. He has secured the backing of more oligarch clans by being elected and thus more money is supporting him behind the scenes.

GOP strategists know full well that they can't stage a repeat of 1994 congressional sweep by sinking Obama's agenda early on like they did Bill Clinton's (regardless of their proclamations in the media that they hope to repeat history). The national demographics have changed and dynamics are very different now. It is thus very troubling that GOP strategists are forcing Obama administration to become dictatorial (which he will do while his approval is still relatively high and while he still has a lot of political capital). It is purposeful blatant disregard for social stability and the national fabric by regional actors. We know how even knocking the chessboard over can be planned in advance.

Marriage and Children are Political Chains

Everybody can easily participate in global political liberation through simple preventive measures of not enslaving oneself with children and marriage





There are so many coercive influences acting upon the individual's quest for personal sovereignty that it's very easy to slip into fatalism and emotional surrender. After all, some of these influences stem from massive structural arrangements on the national and global level. It seems passivity is logical given the other options of masochistic self sacrificial activism and total embrace and support of the coercive structures.

There is a fourth option however. That option is to enable yourself to better resist external influences on a day to day basis with simple preventive/proactive measures. Prevention, as we all know, is the most energy efficient way of minimizing damage from random unforeseen disasters as well as from known threats. Helping to build a strong immune system is a good illustration. To decide what type of preventive action or inaction (distinction is a false one in terms of opportunity costs) to pursue, one needs to see how it will impact personal resources/space, level of respect from strong social forces, and autonomous decision making. All of these, as discussed in part 1, are necessary components of a quest for real freedom.

After listing what needs to be done preventively, it makes sense to organize the list based on ease of accomplishment. Two things readily stand out:

1) not burdening oneself with children
2) not trapping oneself in marriage

Environmentalists have a wonderful saying that is much more significant and powerful than most people realize. It is "think globally, act locally". Since it takes enormous energies to solve world level problems, the next best thing is to modify the more readily accessible local environment. The environmentalists' perspective is that simple modification in people's daily lives will create millions of tiny butterfly effects which in turn leads to a macro level international tsunami. It may sound wishy washy but this type of thinking can easily be joined with one's self interest for great effect.

It is much more comfortable to act locally selfishly instead of engaging in draining foot soldier activism for elite bourgeois do gooders. What many don't realize is that helping yourself also helps those around you as well as weakens tyrannical structures higher in the social food chain. Power is a zero sum game when it comes to individual human beings. If hundreds of millions of people do what is necessary to achieve greater influence over their surroundings, they will gently reduce ability of stronger exploitative individuals to do that in their name.

1) childless existence - This is the easiest step to take in terms of inaction. Vasectomy and tubal ligation procedures are relatively cheap and accessible throughout the Western world. They help reduce expense and risk of non-sterilizing contraception. We all know about the rather unpleasant potential side effects (for individuals and relationships) from hormonal modification, pregnancy termination, and/or legalistic child support payment avoidance. The only reason to hesitate in becoming biologically incapable of being burdened (by self sacrificial genetic and artificial traditionalist imperatives) is concern about the safety and expense of the procedures. That is legitimate although we can see how it can be far more unsafe and pricey to risk becoming a breeder.

Not being financially, psychologically, physiologically, and morally drained over the years by raising human brood is the best personal investment one can think of. The butterfly effect from not spending years of resources on a parenting project of choice is far more empowering than the one from the investment of higher education. A person who never went to college can easily achieve higher levels of tangible freedom, greater psychological empowerment, and even more material power than a person who went to college but decided to saddle up with raising a human or two for 18 years. It is widely recognized that high fertility disproportionately burdens the poorest people. The constant drain on personal energies makes them sink deeper into poverty while the richer less fertile classes gain and leapfrog ahead.

If all the poorest people in the world reduced their fertility by even 30%, their economic and political power would dramatically rise. They would have augmented mobility, purchasing power, time for reflection, and physiological energies to grow and exert themselves further in society. It would be a welcome break from just surviving to old age. Overburdened people are the ones who accept structural coercion most readily (no matter how impudent and blatant it is).

Such simple dynamics push oligarchs to promote family and children throughout the world. It creates a larger pool of poor workers that drives their wages down and makes large majority of the population too exhausted to resist divide and conquer tactics from above. We have seen American republican party fight tooth and nail against abortion and proven effective contraception education for this particular reason.

It is becoming very clear that anti abortion and pro drug prohibition policies are increasingly used by some of the world's oligarchs to create more poverty and crime in their own societies on purpose. They provide a justification for authoritarian law and order governance as well as environment where financial exploitation can occur. Part 2 described how most elites no longer need excessive fertility for cannon fodder. Some politicians, such as the ones in China, even publicly admitted that great fertility stifles economic progress. In the Western world and especially in United States, promotion of fertility still serves as a way of keeping domestic wages down and keeping the third world in dependent poverty. When there is insufficient childbirth among the poor, Western power brokers have to either cut a bigger slice of the economic pie from the rich, import more immigrants, or develop high end robotics (as in the case of the xenophobic Japan).

It is also very clear how the Catholic church blatantly discourages contraception (while dooming millions to contract HIV) to keep its organizational influence and donations flowing in South America and Africa. This is even after new studies are emerging that abortion reduces crime long term, that overpopulation will be the biggest contributor to world conflict in the 21st century, and that higher fertility directly contributes to a crushing cycle of global poverty. Western governments have not forcefully spoken out against the incredible damage that the Vatican is causing.

Christopher Hitchens joked in God is Not Great that people have narrowed the amount of gods to 1 and are very close to realizing the real number. Same can be said about children. People in the Western world and large swaths of Asia have narrowed down the amount of children they have to below replacement rate. They have done so because it is better in every way to have 1 child instead of 6. Similarly, world's college educated are inching closer to the real number of children to have (which would also be better in every way). Emotional hysterical arguments from the uneducated, the tyrants, and the ghost worshipers often boil down to childlike reasoning for engaging in masochistic behavior that is parenting. There's also those who are already too far on the road of no return and want others to be in the same boat for psychological camaraderie. Finally, we can't discount the minority of people whose neurochemistry makes them incredibly empathic and emotional. Such individuals will truly be suffering if they don't take care of weak little humans. Although they'd make ideal medical providers, we must respect the absolutely biologically controlled humans who need to spawn. In his novel, The Island, Aldous Huxley envisioned parenting being done by multiple individuals so the kid is raised with a well rounded perspective and is protected from potentiality of 1-2 of the parents being neurotic. Hopefully in the future, those (who absolutely cannot override being slaves to their genes) will share in raising each others children. Everybody else should be left alone by their "community leaders" when it comes to not taking on economic and political burdens of parenting.

2) marriageless existence - Marriage used to be enormously important since it allowed the individual to have greater chance at survival. For a large part of human history, marriage has been done to reduce risk of being murdered. A family got increased wealth and social status/protection from selling their daughter to a man from a politically stronger family or clan. Powerful individuals wed their children for purely political strategic purposes. It allowed to build stronger alliances and prevent death by execution or loss of property due to foul play.

The family of a poor man helped him pay for the enormous dowry so he can buy an unmarketable girl from an upper class family. Marriage was a matter of life and death and one of the most serious things you can think of. The roots of this union stem from thousands of years of vicious clan warfare, blatant power intrigues, and dire necessity. There has been so much negative and positive cultural reinforcement that the powerful inertia of marriage continues long after it stopped being necessary for survival. Today, marriage as a term is as empty and anachronistic as slavery because it no longer performs its original basic function.

Obviously such a function continues in many parts of the underdeveloped world, but in the Western world, marriage has been slowly transforming from basic physical survival of both partners, to economic survival of the wife. Around the middle of the 20th century, being married became a socially accepted way for most women to get constant income and shelter. Poor women, of course, always toiled in the fields and even in the factory regardless of the married status. However, mid 20th century gains in productivity and real incomes have allowed Western men to provide for the whole family. Many women from proletariat/peasant backgrounds began to imitate the upper class women and became sit at home housewives. We saw how blatantly the advertising in 1950s paraded technological advances in making housework easier.

After the neoliberal political movement in the 1980s, financial capitalism of the Western world stagnated real incomes of men to the point where both sexes needed to work to survive again (the poorest 90% of population). Marriage is continuing as de facto way for a woman to materially contribute less even with both partners working. Since women, for the most part, have the choice of sexual selection, such ability and strategic consideration allows to trap a man into an arrangement of sexual provision in return for lower financial contribution. Being able to often leads to taking the path of least resistance without necessarily using overt conscious scheming or planning.

Since marriage in the Western world is an arrangement cut off from its original intention, its decline in a secular world is irreversible. Although modern oligarchical capitalism is making marriage appealing again as a form of female economic welfare, that blatantly flies in the face of socially promoted individualism and economic gender equality. This friction and loss of original function has already pushed divorce rate in America to over 50% and will soon raise a generation of people who laugh at the concept.

Besides being a tool for paying lower income taxes and a way for a woman to legally extract greater post-divorce income, marriage doesn't serve any empowering purpose. Even the tax benefits are counterbalanced by the stuffy culturally constructed pressure for the couple to live together. Perhaps a social protest movement can be created for the sole purpose of mocking the authorities by marrying for tax breaks. Couples can live separately but do a quick marriage with a prenuptial agreement in a government building. That will put a final nail in the coffin of a bankrupt ceremony. The government will get out of marriage business altogether and have its hands off religious ceremonies like in the 19th century.

Of course we can't forget the interplay that entanglement of kids brings. Raising children often traps people into artificially extending their relationship. Untold misery has been perpetuated this way within the populations of the world. Considering that throughout the Western countries this suffering was totally preventable, the oligarchs and tyrants got a free ride without resorting to violence. The poor and the uneducated perhaps had the excuse of necessity as well as ghosts and magical middle eastern zombies telling them to get married. Educated middle class people could have chosen to not put on their chains. But many decided to engage in blatantly detrimental (to personal freedom) behavior out of fear of loneliness and not getting constant supply of sexual gratification.

Thinking globally and acting globally can begin with something as easy as simple prevention of self enslavement. Doing something simple to make yourself stronger, freer, and healthier goes much further than running around and getting people to recycle or signing petitions. Acting with your body in your own benefit leads others by example and creates ripple effect within society. Each person deciding to not put on traditional chains is a step closer to rising from his or her knees and pushing for greater personal sovereignty. Global freedom begins with personal freedom.

Robot Pets Help the Elderly

Move over cats and dogs. The equivalent of a crazy cat lady of the future is likely to be one with a multitude of specially designed robotic assistants. As of 2009, Japan is full speed ahead in creating a manufacturing base for robotic companions that will help the elderly with psychological well being, household chores, staying in touch with loved ones, staying physically fit, mobility, providing endless entertainment, and even assisting out on the street. The average age of all major industrial countries is constantly rising. The wave of post-war baby boomers around the world will drive demand for assistance and entertainment to levels never before seen.

As of today, many elderly rely on pets and grandkids for amusement, companionship, and feeling of empowerment through care taking. These methods are unreliable since they are mostly a one way street in terms of care. The investment into a cat in particular, might not even outweigh the psychological comfort of cuddling with it and enjoying its chaotic willful behavior. There is the constant expense of acquiring food for it and the time needed for other care. Dogs offer the increased health benefit of getting the elderly outside for walks. Many dogs however, consume even more food and the walks can be a drain occasionally.

The robotic companions that are about to be mass marketed create a two way mutually beneficial relationship with the elderly. They can: help remember to take your medicine in right amounts, clean up around the house, play mentally stimulating games with you, update you on news events and your family, help guard your house, monitor your health levels, have direct connection to the hospital, respond to your interaction with them in hundreds of different ways, do amusing physical tricks, connect to other media devices for full entertainment experience, look and feel cuddly and fun, and be fully under one's control.

Such a relationship not only creates a financial investment superior to dogs and cats but can potentially create a bigger emotional attachment to machines. With advancement in WiFi broadband and cloud supercomputing, the robotic pets of the future will have access to endless constantly updating programming that will give a stronger illusion of consciousness compared to biological pets. First generation of early adopter cyberpet owners will undoubtedly run into a multitude of quirks and deficiencies. With time however, a 70 year old man can create a stronger emotional bond with the robotic assistant than he does with a car or a trusty rifle.

Japanese and Swedish authorities have been recently collaborating to study effects and potential of integrating multitudes of mass produced robotic companions in retirement communities and hospitals. Once government organizations begin to massively use robotics and once the rich make cyberpets into status symbols, the trend should take off culturally around the world. Unlike flesh and blood pets, robots can suggest activities and urge the owners to engage in healthier more active lifestyles. Combined with social networking, the cyberpets can link owners together socially by interest. By remembering what the owner likes, they would increasingly behave and cater to that preference. With voice recognition growing in leaps, cyberpets can even help finish the owner's train of thought if he or she stops mid-sentence.

By no means should cats and dogs be replaced since cyberpets can not only co-exist with their fleshy counterparts but even make real pet ownership more enjoyable. Cyberpets can make cat/dog ownership easier through caretaking/feeding/cleanup and can engage with fleshy pets in playful activities to extend the pets' lifespans and functioning. The cyberpets of tomorrow will be covered with durable soft synthetic exterior that is pleasant and warm to the touch. Their fur will not shed easily and would be replaceable according to one's aesthetic desires. We can't even begin to imagine the rise in quality of life when watching, say, a blue furred purring robotic lemur interact with your cat. Especially if the robotic lemur sings the oldies like Nirvana, vacuums the floor, informs you of your portfolio investments, and uplinks live video feed to television from your friends and family.

Having said that, can see a future drop in demand for real pets begin to occur. There's the environmental consideration of using a lot of chemicals and fertilizer to grow animal feed for animals used in cat/dog food. Using real tuna and fish bits in cat food might seem like a silly luxury a couple of decades from now. In Japan, increasingly there are cat and dog pet cafes for those who like furry animals but don't want to have them at home. Pet cafes and larger petting zoos allow not just a great public attraction (that generates revenue and promotes social interaction for the whole family), but can serve as an outlet to retire one's aging pets. As elderly people pass away, their pets would have a great public retirement destination to live out the rest of their life and interact with many other animals and children. Unwanted and unadoptable pets can mingle with the healthy ones and serve a useful public service. Large petting parks of course can be tended by robotic cleanup crews that would also educate the visitors.

Pet stores are a strange business since they treat pets as a commodity yet try to not treat them as one would a farm animal before the slaughter. If the cultural construct is one where cats and dogs are to be protected, then pet stores should be discouraged legally. Too many opportunities for abuse occur in the existing gaps between for profit pet stores, farms, adoption agencies, and buyers. Rather than expanding energies and human labor to fine tune inspection and enforcement, it makes sense to restrict pet acquisition to large regulated petting zoos and cafes. As for more exotic animals, only zoos and professional research organizations should be allowed to own them and make money off them through public tours.

Robotic pets combined with smaller amounts of better bred, raised, and regulated real pets, are a good way to kick off transition period for our elderly. The sooner furry robots begin to trickle into our homes, the happier and healthier our elderly and society will be overall.

Lack of Accessible Non-Damaging Healthy Food

Logistics of United States create an insurmountable nutritional gap between the economic classes. Junk food in turn contributes to economic divide by stifling brain function.




Basic food sustenance, along with basic literacy, has mostly been achieved in United States. One can almost say there aren't starving Americans in a superpower that is spending abroad for conquered societies. Obviously that isn't exactly the case, as seen by dramatic numbers of people who fall through the cracks. However even the homeless can scrape enough to get mass produced rice and bread. Starvation is not a problem as seen by the obesity rates of the poor (and corresponding drains on health infrastructure as well as stagnating life spans). Mission accomplished?

Not exactly. Try going to a gas station in rural areas of United States and finding anything that is healthy. Healthy is a rather vague term but lets work with a definition of a food that at least doesn't do harm. You might find some milk and low fat cheese or even eggs occasionally. Vast majority of what you'll find is tightly sealed in plastic and resembles military MRE ration packs. We're talking about food so full of preservatives, salts, and fats that it can survive indefinitely. When this type of food hits a ravenous stomach, the result is a lot of energy expanded by the body to just break it down and separate the molecules. We're all familiar at this point with the side effects of too much corn starch, sodium, sugars, salts, and de facto saturated fats (recent regulatory efforts against blatantly detrimental transfats just touch upon the tip of the iceberg). We're also familiar with nutrient deprived white bread, pasta, and rice that fills the hunger gaps in a lot of American population. Sure, rice and pasta cartons can say they are enriched with vitamins but one doesn't have to be a rocket scientist to see it's not the same vitamin level one would get from chickpeas, pricier grains, and fish.

A person determined to find non-detrimental food will run into a brick wall if he goes into a gas station, bus station, or an urban corner store. This brick wall would be humorous and surreal if one wasn't feeling weakness and bits of pain from hunger. You might argue that those places are designed for snacks and beer rather than food. That disregards the fact that millions of hungry people in need of breakfast, dinner, or lunch will do what it takes to prevent their stomach lining from being eaten further. They get their sustenance from these places out of circumstance, even if just to hold off the hunger until non-detrimental meal can be prepared.

How easy is to prepare a non-damaging meal? Most American supermarkets are larger versions of the gas stations and corner stores. The mega food markets are monuments to the sheer inefficiency of residential living in United States and a reason why more preservatives are put into food than necessary. Getting food (healthy as well as damaging) from the source to a person's mouth in a 4th largest country in the world ain't easy. The sheer logistics of getting it from the mega farms across hundreds or thousands of miles to the supermarkets necessitate additional preservatives and salts for storage.

It was one thing in early 20th century when food production was more decentralized and many people actually grew their own. It became another when people decided to live in first the urban areas and then suburbia to escape proximity to ethnic minorities in the inner cities. Suburban living and decline of the small farmer greatly increased the need to add life damaging preservatives to all manner of food. Food couldn't just be shipped by train to the cities but now needed to be also driven from offloading hubs to the suburban supermarkets. Large farms acquired state subsidies, tax breaks, and self sustaining political clout. Many emerging agricultural corporations then drove smaller farmers not qualified for such bailouts out of business and put food source out of proximity for many communities. Many would have done it with mass production and won the hearts of poorer consumers anyway. Now that the population has exploded we are seemingly stuck in this process.

Being stuck in a situation allows those making the rules and providing the food to abuse the system. Many people are not aware of basic tricks used by the industry. An example is adding coloring to beef and salmon to make them appear fresher and redder than they really are. There are many others but even the college educated don't want to watch (and shouldn't have to) out for corporate snake oil salesman. "Buyer beware" as a concept looses meaning when food distribution is approaching Soviet levels in terms of mass central planning, inefficiencies, and corresponding drop in quality.

Some things of course can be done. One is eliminating subsidies for things like corn which allow cement-like cornstarch to be artificially cheaper and used more widely to hurt millions of Americans. Then of course tax payers can foot the bill for subsidies for new categories of non-damaging foods like quinoa. It'll artificially make healthier ingredients in diners, restaurants, and supermarkets cheaper through mass production. The underlining logistical problem is not resolved however. Food quality will only improve through educated demand from segments of the population.

We already see the explosion of popularity of Wholefoods in urban areas. Pricey food acquired from a salad bar there does not give a sickening feeling to one's body compared to same amount spent on a meal from say, Applebees. A lot of the food found in these stores gives a feeling of energy as the stomach acids are able to rapidly absorb and integrate nutrients from fresh products. Wholefoods pays enormous amounts of rent in area like Manhattan. The endless lines of white people patiently standing there indicate that it will continue growing and the model is working. As it grows, there is bound to be a competitor with even healthier offerings and we should see this level of food quality reach most of the American population by 2020s. At that point however, the wealthier educated consumers will be buying even healthier designer food and the process will repeat.

This sounds optimistic and gives a nod to the power of the free market until we think about the gap that develops. There is a sinister aspect of a process where educated urban professionals eat healthier while the poor are stuck buying food that damages their bodies. Unhealthy processed food can prevent brain functioning at peak efficiency and even hurt long term mental functioning through lowering a person's neuroplasticity. The health costs of medical treatment from complications caused by poor nutrition also disproportionately fall on the poor. This elicits outraged screams from urban professionals about taxes to pay for others' mistakes.

Considering United States is a large country, the physical energy required to bring Whole Foods level quality to most urban areas is enormous. We see the education gap between the wealthier and poorer Americans continuously compounded by the nutritional gap that is never fully closed. Higher fertility rates of the poor would indicate that the health/nutritional gap is likely to grow in the years ahead as well as differences in life span and physiological functioning. In the old days the poor would have less caloric intake per day and it would stunt their growth and life. In the modern world there is plenty of calories to go around but the stunting of functioning manifests in other ways. A person who eats deep fried foods, Ramen, McDonalds, pizza, and energy drinks will not do as well when it comes to learning and passing exams compared to a person who eats grains, fresh fish, and juices. This is something that educational system reformists need to look at very seriously and from the perspective of improving mental functioning.

Added corrective costs of unhealthy lifestyle such as time/money on weight loss, doctor/hospital, and therapy, create additional burdens. Some American populations are extra vulnerable to further falling behind educationally and financially such as rural white evangelicals, blacks, and Hispanics. McDonalds and its competitors spend billions on annual advertising while hard liquor commercials are illegal. The new "I'm Loving it" McDonalds campaign blatantly tries to appeal to black culture since poor whites are slowly moving away from obviously damaging foods. The amount of preservatives in fast food are best illustrated with the amazing lack of deterioration of the "meat" patty over time.

A lot of muckraking has been done over the years on the food situation and logistics in this country. We are beginning to see some change with return of the small farmer under the organic umbrella. The change is rather slow considering the amount of information available and the political power of the large farms. The national level of nutritional quality is as likely to sharply improve as the Chinese police respecting Miranda rights 10 years from now.

Best Reasons to Not Have Children: Malnutrition and Shorter Life Span?

We've all heard the financial/psychological/moral arguments on why raising children makes one's life worse and less efficient. There is however, a more sinister cost to raising even one child for 20 years. That cost is worse nutritional health and thus shorter life span. 






Lets briefly go over the first 3 arguments and see why the physiological one should be stressed the most.

-Financial-

In 2006, US Agriculture Department has found that a middle income family, with a baby, will spend $260,000 to raise the kid by the time he finishes high school. That's not taking into account economic recessions and reversals, money on college, or inflationary swings. It is very economically obvious that these types of resources can be better spent in various diversified short/long term investments. 260,000 dollars spent over 17 years can be better used to save for earlier and richer retirement, on personal professional education for better employment, or on higher rent to live in places closer to work.

Compared to real financial masochists, who spend resources to raise more than one kid, a childless person can even acquire enough extra capital to start a small business for the price of 1-3 children over 2 decades. We've heard how rearing of children hurts the poor the most but richer people also loose out on tremendous financial opportunities.

A childless person sees new options presented to him such as:
1) choice to work less
2) living in a better/pricier area
3) not be attached to one place and increase economic mobility
4) work more if desired
5) more time to be spent on talent/hobby development that might even generate wealth as time goes on.

The recent depression quickly showed how financially damaging and superfluous human breeding can be. There's been a surge of vasectomies in just the last 6 months. We can only hope vasectomy gifts become the braces equivalent for high school graduates in the future. Surely, a loving parent who wants his spawn to succeed financially, would not overlook the biggest cause of personal financial failure.

-Psychological-

The sheer amount of extra time created through a decision to go childless is enormous. Thousands of extra hours of leisure allow a person to rest/heal more, procrastinate, think, engage in pleasurable activities, and develop the self. Person's stress levels are reduced as child related anger/worry/resentment/fear disappear. Happiness, the feeling that resistance is being continuously overcome, does not come around as often with a child. The more a person wants to be a good/prudent parent, the more the person's physiological potential is stagnated through distraction. How much satisfaction does a musician or an artist lose through not developing his/her gift fully because dirty diapers have to be changed? How much productivity does a scientist lose by being awakened at night with ghastly horrid screams?

Resentment is a very damaging psychological state that produces unhealthy thoughts and attitudes. It doesn't just occur from being hurt or oppressed by a stronger entity. It can also occur from a situation one is practically stuck in. If one has put enough energy/sunken costs into a situation, then the situation becomes entrapment and increasingly difficult to disentangle from. Being compelled to anchor oneself with the same sexual partner because of a child, is very damaging to the psyche over the long term. Many peoples' self esteem is dramatically dampened since they find themselves with the same partner because of a child (long after love and sexual attraction disappeared). Sacrifice of sex (and resulting personal growth) with numerous sexual partners is more damaging than people think. Nothing shows the tiredness and loss of spirit more than elderly parents who don't even care enough anymore to try to look attractive for each other. They are worried about balancing the budget, providing for suburban large family house, and paying for their spawn's college instead of spending their wealth on relationship enhancing hedonistic pursuits.

That's not mentioning the sheer negative emotions saved if the child ever grows up to be problematic or a physiological failure. There's plenty of ways for a person to expand one's personal influence on the world. Influencing a growing organism is one of the weakest ways of doing so. If pleasure could be quantitatively measured, then the joy of seeing one's efforts successfully direct a growing organism (to one's liking) do not outweigh the pain. The sheer amount of anger, worry, stress, sadness, disappointment, resentment, shame, low self esteem cannot be made up for even if the kid grows up into a very successful adult. Positive emotions should be saved and invested during productive years so they give fruits down the line. The emotional opportunity cost of a successful child is not worth the joy of seeing the impudent elite he might become.

-Moral-

Moral arguments against child rearing are the weakest considering the powerful genetic commands we're under. However, if some people can be swayed by arbitrarily created external morality, then childlessness can easily aid in many moral goals. As the world prepares to accept the burden of 9 billion human beings by 2050s, anybody trying to convince people to be more environmentally friendly is wasting his/her time. The best way to reduce amount of non-biodegradable materials and various pollutions in the world, is to convince people to not create more polluters. A potential child (and potential generations of children stemming from him/her), is much more dangerous to the world's environment than a middle aged person winding down.

The world would be dramatically better off if there was just 1-2 billion people on it. Then every person on the planet would be able to have a plot of land and have a rather high standard of living with exponentially progressing technology. Right now, the sheer amount of poverty and resource depletion, created by excessive fertility, are constantly straining and preventing technology from catching up and really raising standards of living around the world. Poverty and lack of education building upon themselves through numerous children also destabilize the world politically, a dangerous thing in a nuclear age.

If it's not too outrageous for a person to reduce amount of children from 6 to 1-2 over a period of 100 years, then it's definitely not too outrageous to reduce amount of children from 1-2 to 0.


-Nutritional-

All of these reasons by themselves (with perhaps the exception of the moral ones), are enough to make any educated person recoil in horror from the idea of ruining one's life to such a degree. However, these reasons underline a deeper basic reason to not make one's life this inefficient and miserable. Undermining one's financial and psychological well being also undermines one's ability to gather better nutrition and live a longer life. The endless thousands upon thousands of dollars saved, can buy higher quality food for a childless person and increase physiological/mental functioning. Better nutrition and healthier empowered psyche from childless freedom mutually influence each other to propel a person to new heights of health. This new, stronger, more confident physiology allows one to really add years to one's life.

Perhaps if we start rephrasing the issue as a public health matter, the grave risk of having a child will become more evident. It's not just having a much better shot at riches but not crippling one's body, mental state, and life span.