# Gov. Dumber by the year



## Plainsman (Jul 30, 2003)

> WASHINGTON, D.C. - An ongoing revision of the government's dietary guidelines, which also impacts school lunch and other federal food programs, is expected to call for less meat and more fruits and vegetables as part of an environmentally friendly diet.


To read the full evidence of retardation: http://eagnews.org/new-usda-dietary-gui ... ntal-cost/

I have often heard vegetarians use the reason for not eating meat being environmental damage. Do these people realize that they cause more environmental damage. Much of our current crop land should be grazing land. If land is so easily erodible that it qualifies for CRP then it never should have been crop land. There is a resource out there called grass and the most environmentally feasible way to harvest and utilize it is use a harvesting machine called a cow.

Some people get angry and say kick all the cows of public land. Idle land degrades environmentally. I would agree to reduce grazing, but the old cliché "throw the baby out with the bath water" is close to applying here. Our government should know that, and I often think the actions they take make them look like they are at war with successful business be it agriculture, coal or whatever. Why else would they adopt an environmentally destructive diet and call it environmentally friendly?


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## Habitat Hugger (Jan 19, 2005)

I always get a kick out of partisan mentality! When Nancy Regan started the same thing as Michelle Obama back in the 80's, there was a hue and cry from mainly the Democrats and of course some of the old set in their ways Republicans that never change even less than some of the old guard Democrats! 
Now Michelle Obama is recommending serving kids healthier school lunches and you hear nothing but crap from the likes of Rush Limbaugh and the partisan right wing bloggers than have absolute tunnel vision.
With our entire population becoming more and more unhealthy, and KNOWING that most of our expensive adult diseases have their beginning in school,age or younger kids, what is wrong with trying to improve at least kids diets and their minimal daily activity? Most of them eat crappy at home, don't exercise and set the stage for our skyrocketing type 2 diabetes, atherosclerotic heart disease, strokes, many kidney and liver diseases, possibly Alzeimers ' epidemic increase' tremendous childhood obesity and adult obesity problems, yet when the hated OTHER PARTY suggests something be worked on, the narrow minded political idiots fight it, just on principle! 
I happened to listen to the smartest guy in the world, the highly trained always right journalist, when Michelle Obama suggested that kids get off their ***** and do something physical ( exact same thing as Nancy Regan did) and Rush and the right wing websites went nuts.
Small wonder our American life expectancy is the worst in the civilized world, number ? 25 or so? To be fair, it did go up slightly 
in 2014, a few days on the average, though we still have a life expectancy of just under FOUR YEARS LESS than Canada, our neighbor to the north and probably best possible comparison nation. Our perinatal mortality statistics are rather abysmal, despite the medical profession telling Americans the opposite! When I retired the safest place in the world to have a baby regarding outcome for pregnancy for mother and baby was of all places , the Province of Quebec! Bet you never heard THAT from Rush! I dunno where it is now, but probably not in USA! 
Yet try to improve little but basic stuff like school diets and physical activity and whoever suggests it is castigated
d by the other tunnel visioned party! 
Oh, I forgot, we have the best medical system in the world........oops........the most expensive anyway, though virtually none of it ever emphasizes PREVENTION! Why prevent any of our horribly expensive diseases when TV commercials and medical Informercials tell us we have a magic cure for everything we bring on to ourselves! It makes much more sense to ridicule the opposite party, even though we all know deep down, that it is the correct thing to do. Let's carry on feeding kids high fat, high carbohydrate, deep fried, junk food along with their 6 daily soft drinks equivalent to 5 teaspoons of Surat per day! Sarcasm button! Also, you have it wrong ( again) Bruce! Not Less meat, Less high Fat meat not cooked in bad kinds of oils! Nothing to do,with pastures......maybe need more grass fed beef, less fattens cattle for eating. We need lots of stuff here that will never be done.........


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## Habitat Hugger (Jan 19, 2005)

I'm not a vegetarian, Bruce, but I've seen a lot during my previous career and I have a lot of acquaintances who are vegetarian. So far I have NEVER heard a single one of them mention Environmental damage as a reason for their dietary preference! Had a great friend over last night and he gave me a ton of reasons why he thinks his diet is better than the meat and potatoe and gravy type diet he was brought up on. And though I'm reluctant to admit it, he is right, too, if you are current on what medical science believes at the present. Being an outdoorsman, I compromise and eat mainly rod and reel caught fish and grass fed deer and elk venison. Tried some buffalo but the producers ruined it by corn feeding it so it was so fat you couldn't hardly tell the meat from the fat from the meat!
Yep, there are vegetarians who do not care for the fact that poor little brown eyed animals and helpless chickens and fish are hurt to supply meat. The Humaniacs types! But nowadays with a more enlightened populace, more people are becoming vegetarian for the correct reasons, though eating venison and rod reel caufght fish gives me lots of reason to hunt and fish.


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## Plainsman (Jul 30, 2003)

Leave the partisan politics out and you will see my point. Vegetarian diets are not environmentally friendly. You never heard that, but I had fresh out of college students with degrees in wildlife, environment, etc and they thought that way. I remember working out of town with 18 of them. We were going out for an evening meal and four stayed behind. They were setting cross leg on the bed with a bowl of tofu between them and all excited that they had found some in the local grocery.

Also, I pointed out why a vegetarian diet is actually environmentally unfriendly. These things have nothing to do with democrat, republican, Rush Limbaugh, etc. The only thing partisan about it is that this environmental ignorance has been brought about by partisan college professors. If Nancy Reagan proposed the same crap as M. Obama then she is an idiot too.


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## north1 (Nov 9, 2010)

With ya 100% on this Plainsman. I have no problem with people choosing any diet they want, but don't force it on me or my children. This includes throwing bogus environmental reasons into the mix. People tend to forget very, very large herds of bison roamed and grazed this land for thousands of years. These same critters were a major part of Native Americans diets for thousands of years. The human dentition proves we have evolved as omnivores, which yes, means we have evolved to eat meat as well as plants. Also scientifically proven the human brain evolved due to the inclusion of meat protein and its associated nutrients in our diet. I could go on and on, but doubt common sense plays into this equation.


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## shaug (Mar 28, 2011)

HH said,



> Had a great friend over last night and he gave me a ton of reasons why he thinks his diet is better than the meat and *potatoe* and gravy type diet he was brought up on.


www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wdqbi66oNuI
Jan 27, 2010 - 16 sec - Uploaded by J0EKthePANDA
VP Dan Quayle attempts to correct a student spelling the word "potato"



> Tried some buffalo but the producers ruined it by corn feeding it so it was so fat you couldn't hardly tell the meat from the fat from the meat!


Farmed elk eating sunflowers, shine. A four year old cow is roughly $1200 bucks hanging. When you want something good Doc, call me.


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## Habitat Hugger (Jan 19, 2005)

Hey Fritzy! Don't tell my wife a cow elk is to be had for 1200! I keep telling her all about that cheap meat when I hunt elk in Colo and Montana!  Don't tell her the real economics of it! You are cheaper but not as much fun! :lol:

The whole " environmentally friendly argument about food is so silly I get a sore neck from shaking my head when I read all the drive from both sides. Are they talking E Friendly in ND, in the entire USA or in the whole world? Duh......I think I've seen enough of the world to realize that veggitarianism IS environmentally better IN SOME PLaces and NOT in others! IMO it's such a dumb argument........and I cringe whenever I read some kind of debate from one side or another! Stupid! To try raise vegetables on land only suitable for grazing??? Or turn the best farmland in the world into a buffalo or beef commons?? Stupid! Talk about trying to compare apples with oranges!! 
On FOX News Website this am there was a article labeling those who eat meat but eat less meat some new fancy word. Can't remember it now, but it did fit most of the semi vegetarians I know. Most of them in my ( our) age group that eat less meat are doing it for their health, and invariably they have been made aware the hard way of the consequences of our lousy diet and activity status either by self inflicted medical problems of their own, ther friend or their family. I do have a niece who is veg because she is an animal Humaniac, but in my experience, this is far less common than health reasons.
Yeah, the " don't shove it down my throad or my family is another dumb argument. Seriously, if you do love your kids you would be FOR trying to impove their odds of living a healthy happy full lifespan. I'm not saying these dietary recommendations and stuff is always correct, and a lot of it is trial and error. Remember improving the health of kids ( who will hopefully become adults) iOS only in its early stages and like any new things, some stuff will be found to work, other stuff not! As a retired physician, my attitude is if someone doesn't want healthier food and activity for their kids, then feel free to pack what you want for the to eat, like we did in the old days.

It scares me to read ( on FOX website) that even the military is having a tough time finding physically adequate people to fill the ranks and have to turn away a large percentage of applicants. I ate at the Golden Corral the other nite and wondered if they use special reinforce concrete to prevent their patrons from cracking the floor, as there were so many 300-400 pounders there. Oh, Plainsman will say those heavyweights are all on welfare! LOL. And anyoneNOT on welfare will have a BMI of 20 or less! Yeah, sure.....


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## Plainsman (Jul 30, 2003)

> Oh, Plainsman will say those heavyweights are all on welfare! LOL. And anyoneNOT on welfare will have a BMI of 20 or less! Yeah, sure.....


  Not really, but funny.

Since the article looked at the reason for vegetarian being more environmentally friendly I disputed it from that standpoint. I did not say take good land and turn it into pastures for beef. What I did say was much of that land that was highly erodible and hence CRP should never have been crop land if it was highly erodible. The environmentally friendly way to harvest that lands resources was with a harvesting machine called a cow. I'll stand by that scientifically and logical conclusion.

From the dietary standpoint I will make my stand with all foods, but all in moderation. I'm waiting for someone to blame my view on my religious beliefs, but before they get to it I'll knock vegetarian lifestyles from a liberal/evolutionary standpoint. We Christians believe that plants and animals were all provided as food for humans. Now if your an evolutionist you will understand that it's meat protein that brought our ancestors down from the trees. So if you want to become stupid and go back to the trees become a vegetarian. :wink:


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## shaug (Mar 28, 2011)

HH said,



> I ate at the Golden Corral the other nite and wondered if they use special reinforce concrete to prevent their patrons from cracking the floor, as there were so many 300-400 pounders there.


That is the trouble operating a buffet. I'll bet the owner cringes when he see's the big regulars waddleing in.

Plainsman said,



> What I did say was much of that land that was highly erodible and hence CRP should never have been crop land if it was highly erodible.


This is where your argument always falls flat. Who decides if you build your house/business on land that is too erodible, too rocky, too sandy or on the bottom of an ancient lake bed? When the commies deputize the property police, I'm sure Bruce, you will be one of the first volunteers.


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## Plainsman (Jul 30, 2003)

> This is where your argument always falls flat. Who decides if you build your house/business on land that is too erodible, too rocky, too sandy or on the bottom of an ancient lake bed? When the commies deputize the property police, I'm sure Bruce, you will be one of the first volunteers.


I'm not saying we deny them the right to raise crops on that land, but since much of their income is government tax money we can say no support prices on that type of land. I would hope a farmer who has highly erodible land would be smart enough to look into the future twenty years to determine the best way to use his land. With support prices and crop insurance so even an IQ of 50 can't fail we will continue to see poor land management.

Again Shaug my only point in the original post is that on some land cattle are more ecologically friendly than a plow. Well ----- come to think of it a cow is more friendly on most land. However, living in the western part of the state I'm betting you know the difference in what land should be crop and what should be grazed. You simply can't pass up a chance to complain because you still angry about high fence issues. I guess we need to take another political shot at them so we don't have to hear constant complaint twenty years from now. It's good of you to remind us though because out of sight out of mind and I may forget if not for you.


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## shaug (Mar 28, 2011)

Plains said,



> I'm not saying we deny them the right to raise crops on that land, but since much of their income is government tax money we can say no support prices on that type of land.


Most everything is subsidised. The electricity to power your computer is subsidised.



> I guess we need to take another political shot at them so we don't have to hear constant complaint twenty years from now.


Suicide


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## dakotashooter2 (Oct 31, 2003)

Lets see... to produce grain foods in an area with little moisture and poor soil one has to cultivate it, fertilize it, probably use insecticides and herbicides on it and irrigate it. Or turn cattle loose on it which can utilize it *as is* self fertilize it and eventually become food..... What was the question again ???????

There was a reason our forefathers did not farm (till) much of the acreage in this country. Now just because modern technology allows us to farm those lands it doesn't mean it is a smart or environmentally friendly thing to do. Many of the small poor production areas that have and are being incorporated into the adjacent tillable areas are being done so under false economics. In most cases the true average production of those parcels probably reaches the break even point or possibly a small gain but when calculated as part of the field as a whole it appears  as if it is profitable.

California is a prime example. They are basically trying to farm desert. Look what it has done to the water resources in that state and a few around it.

FWIW The meals at schools are already, and have been for a long time, healthier than what a large percentage of the kids are getting at home..........


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## Plainsman (Jul 30, 2003)

It's as much our fault as the farmers. We voters put people in that make poor farming practices profitable. I guess if I could make a very good profit farming a gravel pit I would perhaps do it too.


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## north1 (Nov 9, 2010)

Plains, if you can make money farming a gravel pit I know of a couple for sale :wink: Guarantee you though you would make at least 100 times more selling the gravel. This year after running preliminary numbers and talking to banker I am looking at a huge loss farming. With high input prices(seed, fertilizer, chemicals, parts) and falling commodity prices were talking close to a $50,000 dollar loss. Obviously I have to find areas to trim, but you can't cut back too much on inputs or you see diminishing returns. Anyone want to take over my rented ground is welcome to have at it. Just make sure to keep your day job.


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## Plainsman (Jul 30, 2003)

north1 said:


> Plains, if you can make money farming a gravel pit I know of a couple for sale :wink: Guarantee you though you would make at least 100 times more selling the gravel. This year after running preliminary numbers and talking to banker I am looking at a huge loss farming. With high input prices(seed, fertilizer, chemicals, parts) and falling commodity prices were talking close to a $50,000 dollar loss. Obviously I have to find areas to trim, but you can't cut back too much on inputs or you see diminishing returns. Anyone want to take over my rented ground is welcome to have at it. Just make sure to keep your day job.


Well if you lost money it's only because your honest. Oh, well integrity is worth more than a million dollars anyway. Sorry I lumped you in with the bad apples I was thinking about. I do wish you better next year. I am getting depressed listening to guys like you who loose money while I know guys who make more money off insuring crops that are nearly sure to fail than raising crops suited to this climate.

Anyway my point was that the veggie chompers have it wrong. Some land is conducive for crops and some isn't. Land that isn't can still yield income from it's resources with a few cows. Some farmers for the past couple of years have paid far more than some of that land is worth and they are going to loose their behind. If those that don't spend beyond their means can hang on I think the future will be brighter with cheaper land again very shortly.


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## north1 (Nov 9, 2010)

I agree, there are a lot of young'uns who started up in the last few years of "good" times. I really hope they socked away some of those profits because the next few years they will need them to get by. I am basically burning up capital made the last couple of years to make it through this pinch of high inputs vs lower commodity prices. It is too bad because we can't afford to lose to many of these young start ups, ag producers are progressively getting older and older. This will ultimately lead to more land and its use in the big boys hands(or corporately owned). Not good in my humble opinion.

I also agree that a lot of land that shouldn't be farmed has been put into production the last five years or so. This WILL change however due to simple economics. If you are scraping by farming productive land you sure as heck will drown in debt trying to farm the marginal stuff. The real dilemma is what will be done with it? Would like to see a more robust conservation plan for just this scenario. Not to pad farmers or landowners pockets, but to make it at least economically enticing for grazing or other conservation use. Whether it be increased CRP or some other program I am not confident our representatives in congress will have enough brains or testicles to come up with a viable plan. Sad I feel that way, but I have become more and more jaded as I grow older.


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## dakotashooter2 (Oct 31, 2003)

> I agree, there are a lot of young'uns who started up in the last few years of "good" times. I really hope they socked away some of those profits because the next few years they will need them to get by.


That's going to be a problem because our culture has become one of "live for today" which means spending as fast as you earn it. The minor droughts most of us are familiar with are really nothing. At some point we will likely have another dust bowl event (which will be attributed to climate change) which will most likely crush the farming industry.

It's also a problem because the government/IRS/tax system simply won't let farmers put money away, for a rainy day when they will need it.

There is also the push by the "Veggies" to make all foods organic. While there is a niche market for organics I don't think it is possible on a large/nation wide scale. Just look at the retail price of organics compared to non organics. It is likely that 1/3 of this countries population couldn't afford it and another 1/3 would likely have to make significant cutbacks in spending to afford it. And done on a large scale, the labor force necessary to do it, because it IS labor intense, would likely make it unprofitable to farmers.


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## Plainsman (Jul 30, 2003)

Mooooooochell will probably require organic for food stamp and school lunch.


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## riverrat47 (Sep 25, 2010)

I side with Plainsman. During my college days, in the early 70s, the "bible" for many vegetarians and the radical, unkempt hippie types on campus, was a book 'Diet for a Small Planet,' by Frances Moore Lappe. The book was required reading in many environmental classes. It, indeed, went to great lengths to tout vegetarianism as being extremely earth friendly. I don't know about today, but in those days, it was a very big seller at the heath food stores, which catered to vegetarians. My bet is that if you poked and prodded most vegetarians enough, they would sanctimoniously state that THEY were helping save the planet with their dietary choice.


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