Treating Symptoms

Driving around in the car listening to the radio the other day, I heard back-to-back public service announcements. 

The first was the sad story of the kid sitting in the corner of the playground without enough energy to play because he was hungry. It told me that one out of six kids in America is hungry and there is no reason for it. Donations would presumably help get food to the kid and solve the problem.

Someone at the station may not have been paying attention because the second PSA had the same theme, except this time it said that one out of five kids in America is hungry. I didn’t pay close enough attention to tell if this was a solicitation from the same charitable organization. I was too busy thinking about the underlying messages.

These PSAs actually led me to wonder about two questions. First, where did those seemingly iffy statistics come from? With about 74 million children in America, the difference between one in five and one in six is about 2.5 million kids. Are they hungry or not? But that’s just nitpicking.

The more important question is why are we only treating the symptoms? Hungry kids on the playground are the result of kids not being fed at home. Why are around 30 million families not feeding their kids? This is not a question anyone seems interested in answering – not these organizations and not the government. We just hear lamentations about how unfair it is that the food is not distributed more justly.

It’s hard to believe, especially at a time of full employment and help-wanted signs up everywhere, that all those families have just fallen on hard times. There must be a sizable percentage where people just plain didn’t acknowledge that it was an important enough consideration to be able to feed their kids before having them. In some cases she may have thought about how cute babies are and how having one would make her happier. In other cases he may have thought how cute she was and how getting her into bed would make him happier. When the consequences of those behaviors come calling, he may or may not even stick around and she can always look to the government to help bail her out.

Meanwhile the government has programs to feed the family while those other programs from the PSAs try to find ways to move the food around so the kid gets a good breakfast or a sandwich for lunch. Such systems are treating the kids almost as hostages. They are hungry and need to eat, so no one addresses the underlying issue of parental responsibility! Over and over we treat the symptoms and never dig any deeper to solve the core problem.

What’s worse is that by treating the symptoms, nothing was being done to discourage the same behavior by this generation or to discourage the same in the next. Whenever society decides to shelter people from consequences of their actions, they have less motivation to change, and others that observe this dynamic are less inclined to view those same decisions as problematic.  Of course, society can't let the kids go hungry and to confront irresponsible parents is branded as lacking compassion. Later everyone sits around wringing hands and wondering why the War on Poverty has not reduced the poverty rate after 50+ years in operation; but few understand why we will probably be hearing the same statistics 50 years from now unless something changes.

Food Waste

Building on the idea from last week about some people’s false belief that you shouldn’t eat what you can’t pronounce, another problem is that often people refuse to eat some things they can easily pronounce only because it is not pretty enough.  This is a great example of how lack of perspective causes Americans (and many others) to let the superficial outweigh the substantive aspects of so many decisions.

In early 2013, but not for the first time, CBS featured a story about how almost half of the food grown worldwide ends up plowed back under or thrown away.  The reasons cited for this enormous waste were “inadequate infrastructure as well as irresponsible retailer and consumer behavior.”  The infrastructure problems especially in the area of delivery and spoilage were more common in less developed countries, but “countries like Britain and the United States have relatively efficient farming methods, so the majority of waste occurs on the consumer's end.”

The PBS News Hour followed up last week with this video report that began:  “Much of what is grown on American farms never makes it to market.”  It seems there is plenty of produce going to the landfill because of price fluctuations (driven by supply and demand) but also based on a grading system looking at expected and acceptable appearance.  Almost 40% of food is lost all along the supply chain, but a substantial amount never makes it to market at all.  Food that is equally nutritious is not sent to the stores because it is off-color, slightly the wrong shape or the wrong size.  Instead it is plowed under or is trucked to a landfill after final inspection.  For example, peaches have different levels of appearance standards:  some only acceptable to the premium markets, a second tier sent to less fussy retailers and the rest thrown out.

With these farm rejects, the grocery store leftovers and disposal from our kitchens and restaurants, food is the largest category of material found in landfills.  There it rots, producing methane gas.

Now a few farmers in California have a program to donate it to the local food banks to reduce the waste.  Participation is limited but growing, aided by some states' tax breaks to farmers who donate.  In other parts of the US, creative entrepreneurs follow a model from France where they sell “ugly” fruits and vegetables for less.  “A new grocery store in Boston is on a mission to solve two problems: preventing tons of food from going to waste and offering healthy alternatives to families who might not be able to afford traditional stores” by promoting the unattractive produce at a bargain price.  This seems to be a growing trend, though regular grocers, even some that advertise themselves as “green” and “natural,” continue to apply unnecessarily fussy standards that reflect the preferences of their customers.

Bottom line is that waste is bad.  When any part of that waste can be traced to unreasonable behaviors, like rejecting healthy food because it is not exactly the right size, shape or color, it tells of a weakness in the dimensions of perspective and critical thinking.  It is understood that strengthening behaviors in one aspect of a dimension can often overlap into improving other behavior in the same dimension.  Perhaps that means that losing our prejudice about the color and shape of foods will result in applying the same standards and behavior, of valuing what’s inside instead of rejecting based on appearance, in the area of our interpersonal relationships as well.  That’s something to hope for.

Paying More for Burgers

It’s interesting how news items often omit relevant information, expecting the readers to put it all together.  An example comes from the year-end news that beef prices are expected to rise in 2014 by 3 to 6 percent overall.

It goes on to focus on ground beef, which has risen 30% since 2010.  They give the opinion of one of the experts about future prices:  “After climbing 18 percent over a year ago, Zimmerman expects ground beef prices to rise as much as 10 percent next year.”  Hence, our burgers will cost even more and the price increase far outpaces ordinary inflation and expected pay raises.

With the costs increasing, people are eating less ground beef, but it still takes up a larger portion of their food budget.  One reason for its popularity is that it is versatile and easy to prepare.  With lower demand, the price increase must be tied to tighter supply.  Some of that can be attributed to the 2012 drought and pressure on corn prices from the diversion to alternative fuels, but is that the whole story?

What’s not mentioned is the commotion about 20 months ago when a television chef referred to finely textured beef filler as “pink slime,” a product that has been in the food supply for years with no ill effects, a product that reduces food waste and increases the beef supply.  That derogatory label and the power of Social Media drove many to join that movement to oppose its use in ground beef.  Grocery chains reacted to the pressure and changed procurement practices causing some producers to go out of business.  This public knee-jerk reaction to an unscientific and intentionally sensationalized “crusade” not only cost jobs, but now may have contributed to higher grocery prices for us all.

This is the meaning of societal behavior leading to societal consequences.  Much as some people may use conspiracy theories to place blame for unexpected price increases, the real reason behind the movements is the operation of supply and demand, and the reactions of a misinformed society often influence those factors.

The Appearance Trap

I’ve written before about how better decisions occur when we use critical thinking and avoid being swept away by our emotions.  Even searching for rational justification for feelings can be dangerous and costly.  Too often Americans let appearance, visual appeal, overly influence decisions whether they be about buying, hiring or making social judgments.  Evidence of this shortcoming abounds as cute kittens, happy babies and curious bears go viral on the Internet (even on national news), squeezing out substantive issues and real news.  Here are a few more recent examples.

Someone drove past an Iowa farm and snapped pictures of what have been dubbed fluffy cows.  As they hit Facebook and other social media, the farmer who owned the cows saw it as an opportunity to promote the “great people and cattle in the beef industry."  But others are worried “that the focus on ‘fluffy cows’ could backfire,” especially when responses on Reddit and Twitter sounded like this:  "That's too cute to kill" and "That almost makes me want to become a vegetarian."  Cattle are not pets and not comparable to teddy bears, but see how we are swayed by appearance.

A second series of stories focuses on the appearance of our food.  The first tells how some companies are moving toward more natural looking processed food, eliminating the perfect shapes of machine-cut meat for a sloppier, handmade look.  “Americans still love their fast food and packaged snacks, but they're increasingly turning their noses up at foods that look overly processed.”  Less perfect looking food is seen as more natural, wholesome and authentic.  See again the influence of appearance alone.

Beyond this issue of manufacturers trying to trick us with these tactics, grocery stores respond to our purely visual preferences by becoming increasingly fussy about the appearance of their produce.  “Many retailers insist that fruits and veggies meet exact cosmetic criteria, including specifications for size, color, weight, and blemish level — leading to culling and incorporating waste as part of doing business.  The article emphasizes that many are beginning moves to eliminate this waste, but still, according to the USDA:  “Food waste in the United States is estimated at roughly between 30 to 40 percent of the food supply."  Department of Agriculture estimates supermarket losses at $15 billion per year in fruits and vegetables alone.  Much of the overall waste can be attributed to appearance issues either at the store or at home after the purchase.

This reaction to appearance is quite predictable.  When I first saw the news story about the USDA agreeing to inspect a horse slaughtering operation in New Mexico on June 28, I expected a reaction from horse lovers.  In less than 3 days a lawsuit had been filed to stop it.

Horsemeat cannot be sold as food in the US and horses cannot be slaughtered without a USDA inspection.  Congress stopped funding the inspections in 2007.  Horses, however, may be exported as nearly 159,000 were last year.  At that point they may be slaughtered and sold for consumption in countries that allow it or used as feed in zoos.  One opponent argues:  "Horses have been our companions, fought battles with us, worked sun-up to sundown by our sides ... we will not abandon them now."   That’s pretty sweet and squishy and it reeks of the “Bambi Factor," but it’s not an economic argument. 

It’s not even a caring argument.  If horses cannot be slaughtered and are not healthy enough for export, or if the owners just can’t afford to keep them, what happens?  This source tells us that after the 2007 artificial ban (through the cutoff of funding) “the Government Accounting Office of Congress did a study that suggested horses were suffering more with the ban than without it.” 

So where does this love of horses leave us?  It leaves us in the same place as the preference for pretty produce and cute cows.  Gaps in critical thinking, leading with our hearts instead of our heads, result in waste, suffering and extra costs – but in our innocence, we are left feeling like we have done the right thing.