On 4/22/2013 6:44 AM, Ken Norton wrote:
> One needs to look no further than milk to see this. Over the past
> several thousand years, adult humans have gone from the total
> inability to consume milk products, to it being a good thing.
Just the kind of blindness that makes us look so bad to the larger world. What
you say is only generally true for
Caucasians, whose distant ancestors developed that ability when they migrated
North. It is not generally true of those
with darker colored skin. Most native children and virtually all adults in
Africa cannot digest milk. Even the ability
to digest human milk declines after weaning.
If I recall correctly, tolerance varies across Asian populations.
On 4/22/2013 6:53 AM, Chris Barker wrote:
> Good, so there is some pragmatism in feeding the hungry. It would appear
> that we could feed the world if only we could get the food to the places
> where it's needed.
On 4/22/2013 7:01 AM, Ken Norton wrote:
> On 4/22/2013 6:53 AM, Chris Barker wrote:
>> Good, so there is some pragmatism in feeding the hungry. It would appear
>> that we could feed the world if only we could get the food to the places
>> where it's needed.
> In ages past, it was always logistics that were the limiting factor.
> Now it's purely politics and bureaucracy.
That's a big piece of it, but not all. Back to milk ... The US supports milk
prices (subsidizes milk production), so it
used to have (maybe still) huge amounts of of milk powder in storage.
Long ago, it was both politically expedient, and seemed like a good idea, to
help children and families in Africa by
sending them enormous amounts of dried milk powder.
Then, there were stories about terrible corruption in the recipient nations.
Apparently, the governments were diverting
this humanitarian aid to feed livestock - enriching themselves at the expense
of the poor! And corrupting American AID!!!
Well, yes, they were, but not (at least mostly not, I suppose) because they
were corrupt. Mostly for two other reasons.
1. Both children and adults who consumed the milk experienced mild to extreme
gastric distress, not nutritional value.
2. In many places, clean water to reconstitute the milk was scarce and fuel to
boil water was scarce and expensive.
Drinking milk made with local water was far more dangerous than other means of
ingesting protein, even if less of it.
(Another of those US blind spots.)
So, the govt's had these mountains of milk powder people couldn't use, and
found it was good cattle feed. The meat thus
produced was safer to eat, too.
I haven't followed this, but would bet we are little brighter now.
It's Seldom Simple Moose
--
What if the Hokey Pokey *IS* what it's all about?
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